Ashun Sound Machines Hydrasynth Deluxe

The HYDRASYNTH DELUXE is our flagship Hydrasynth, offering a dual sound engine setup and the largest ASM Polytouch® polyphonic aftertouch keybed to date. The user interface is designed with the utmost attention to detail and offers a rapid workflow.

The Hydrasynth Deluxe can operate as a single 16-voice Hydrasynth or it can be split or layered, with a dedicated 8-voice Hydrasynth engine for each part. Each engine also has its own set of balanced analog audio outputs.

The sound engines feature advanced wavetable synthesis with 3 Oscillators, dual Wave Mutants, and 2 filters that can be configured in series or parallel. The tone generating capabilities are simply unmatched.

As for performance capabilities, the Hydrasynth Deluxe has our proprietary 73-note Polytouch® keybed with polyphonic aftertouch. This provides a level of expressive, per-note control found only in certain vintage synths.

Add to this a 4-octave ribbon controller and ergonomically-designed pitch and mod wheels, and you have expression and control that are unequalled by any other hardware synthesizer on the market.

Dual Sound Engines

The Hydrasynth Deluxe contains an impressive dual sound engine architecture, and as a result it provides a massive 16 voices of polyphony. You can play one 16-voice patch in Single mode, or use two simultaneous patches in Multi mode.
In Multi mode the Deluxe unleashes two completely independent, full-fledged 8-voice Hydrasynth sound engines. The keyboard can either be split, with one engine for the Lower part and another for the Upper part, or it can layer the two parts across the entire keyboard.
The top panel has a dedicated balance knob for adjusting the relative levels of the Lower and Upper parts. The Hydrasynth Deluxe also has separate stereo audio outputs for each part and independent MIDI channel assignments for true bi-timbral operation.

Polytouch® Keybed

The perennial pursuit of musical instrument manufacturers is to find better ways for musicians to express themselves. Options have been limited for keyboard players; we've had to settle for a velocity-only approach to emphasize one note over another. Pressure-sensitive keyboards could only change all of the notes at the same time.
Not any more!
Enter ASM, with our patented Polytouch® technology. The 73-note semi-weighted keybed on the Hydrasynth Deluxe provides fully polyphonic aftertouch, as well as Note On / Note Off velocity sensitivity and the monophonic aftertouch found on other keybeds. Finally, variations in key pressure can affect notes individually.
It feels great, too: our 73-note Polytouch® keybed features high quality, standard sized keys, so you will feel right at home, right away. It's like putting your hands in a glove that fits perfectly.
The revolutionary Hydrasynth Deluxe Polytouch® keyboard helps you be more in touch with the music you are making. Now every note you play can ebb and flow like the tide.

Ribbon Controller

Add powerful expression to any patch using our 4-octave Ribbon Controller, which is perfectly situated above the keyboard for easy access by either hand. It can be used as a freely assignable modulation source, a pitch bend control, or even as a monophonic instrument!
This is possible thanks to our Theremin mode, which uses the ribbon to trigger a note. You can choose continuous pitch operation or quantize the ribbon to one of 60 scales, including microtonal scales. And if that's not enough, the ribbon can also be used as a CV source to control a Eurorack system!

Laptop shelf

The included, detachable laptop shelf can be home to a lot of different types of instruments or processors. It helps take even greater advantage of the generous space above the upper two octaves of the 73-note Polytouch® keyboard.

Oscillators

The tone generation capability is the heart of any synthesizer, and the 3 Hydrasynth oscillators are alive with potential.
Each of the oscillators lets you choose from a selection of 219 single-cycle waveforms. And on top of that, two of the oscillators have powerful wavemorphing capabilities.
Wavemorphing is a feature usually found on synths with preset wavetables. But creating user wavetables on those products is arduous or downright impossible. Unlike most wavetable synths, our oscillators 1 & 2 have our easy-to-use WAVELIST mode.
This mode lets you select any 8 waves from our diverse collection of 219 waves, arrange them in the order you want, and then morph from one wave to another. This can be done automatically with any modulation source, such as an LFO or an envelope, or manually with a physical control such as polyphonic aftertouch or a Macro.
And now in version 2.0 you can choose the bit depth of each oscillator, which puts those sought-after vintage or grungy sounds at your fingertips.

Mutants

Oscillators 1 & 2 are routed into our MUTANTS. The Mutants allow you to modulate, bend and sculpt the sound in new (and old) ways.
Each Mutant lets you choose from the following processes:
　　•　FM-Linear: This is for making classic FM sounds. Choose multiple FM sources, including external inputs.
　　•　WavStack™: Creates 5 copies of the input source and allows you to set a detune amount.
　　•　Osc Sync: This gives you those classic hard sync sounds. Try hard-syncing a morphing wavetable for some fun.
　　•　Pulse Width Modulation (PW-Orig): Performs the classic pulse width modulation on any waveform.
　　•　PW-Squeeze: Compresses the center section of the waveform, for a unique type of PWM.
　　•　PW-ASM: Divides the incoming wave into 8 slices and lets you set the amount of FM that is applied to each segment. This is FM unleashed.
　　•　Harmonic Sweep: This will sweep the harmonics of the input source.
　　•　PhazDiff: Generates the difference of the incoming wave and a version that is inverted and phase-shifted.
The Mutants can also generate their own waveforms in both FM and Sync modes so you don't have use another oscillator. Of course the routing is flexible so you can choose the other oscillators as mod sources if you like.

Mixer / Filter Routing

The 3 Oscillators are fed into a mixer along with the Noise generator and Ring Modulator.
The mixer gives you independent control over the levels and stereo positions of those 5 sources.
After this you are able to choose how much signal from each source is routed to filters 1 and 2.
The filters can be routed in parallel or series for ultimate flexibility.
Who knew that a simple mixer could be so powerful? Well, in all humility, we did.

Filters

If oscillators and tone generators are the heart of a synthesizer, the filters are the soul.
The soul of a Hydrasynth is a complex thing; it can claw or caress, scream or soothe, mangle or melt. It has been known to speak. The multi-faceted Hydrasynth filters are right in the thick of it.
Filter 1 has 16 different models ranging from 1 to 8 poles, many with high-, band-, and low pass options. There is also a flexible vocal filter with formant control. Even if Filter 1 were the only filter the Hydrasynth had, it would take a lifetime to exhaust the possibilities.
But it is not alone.
Filter 2 is a 12dB per octave state-variable filter, which means it can sweep continuously from either low pass > bandpass > high pass or low pass > notch > high pass. It is similar to the classic SEM filter in many ways.
These two formidable filters can be configured in series or parallel. This means the one can feed and be sculpted by the other (series), or they can complement one another (parallel). With careful use of source panning in the Mixer module, the left and right outputs can be completely different or rich in unified complexity.