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Thanks for your comment, and for watching. My initial music experience was on piano; the range of possibilities that synths opened up to me was amazing. I hope you have the same experience growing your horizons from bass!

Thanks for watching: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. I definitely wouldn't consider it to be a true sequencer, but rather a special type of LFO that allows pitched motion. The only workarounds aren't that convenient: the pitch modulations apply addictively, so you could use an extra LFO to modulate up or down an octave, doubling the effective range, but keeping the sequences aligned, if you edit, could be a pain. One interesting possibility, avoiding this, is having the octave sequence run in poly meter to the other sequence. If the main sequence is in an appropriate pentatonic scale, you could even apply +/- 5ths and remain in a corresponding 7 note scale. If you want an actual sequencer though, you need an external one.

Thanks for the cool suggestions. I agree that an external sequencer is still needed. I’m hoping we get a firmware update that adds this to the sequencer.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. My hope, for this series, was to show the end to end process of how you might actually go about making a piece of music (albeit a fairly boring one), vs being featured focused, or a jam/showcase. I hope you find it useful!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment and for watching. This comment is over a day old, so I presume you received your synth. I hope you are enjoying it: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. Those are two quite different synths, but both offer a lot of sound design possibilities. I don't have a Deepmind, presently, but that's mostly as I try and keep my synth collection focused on things I really use, and it didn't see enough use. This isn't because it's a bad synth, but I think it covered some of the same ground my Peak. Anyway: enjoy the rest of the series, and your synths!

@@ChalkWalkMusic yeah, the difference is why i got them. I was looking at a Modwave as well, but the hydra came up, so maybe later. I can see myself losing afternnons to noodling, and acheiving nothing lol. Using a Yamaha RS 700o to run them to keep it DAWless for funsies. Thanks for the reply.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching: I appreciate your support!

I also just saw this on r/synths and oh boy did i need this. Tiime to dive in.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. I find with synths with very few destinations, you just get used to some not being available and accept it. When they give you access to almost everything it's always a little confusing when a small minority get excluded. Either way, we got to the end of the series. Thanks for following along: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. The effects wrap up the series: my plan is to focus on synthesis and sound design (more than all the features of a synthesizer). I'm hoping that someone could get a reasonable start in sound design with just this series. When I get the intermediate and advanced series done, I'm hoping that watching the set of series will get someone to a fairly competent level of sound design for most contexts. What I'd like best is if I could then get back to "sound design - here:create" and some people who followed along with these series would try and do the sound design challenges with me.

Thanks so much: I really appreciate your constant support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. So the XFM doesn't process the external audio except passing it through the effect (with send amount control). If you are hearing other changes, my guess you are accidentally controlling the drum machine: do you have the midi out of the XFM connected to the drum machine (for clock sync)? I'm guessing the XFM is sending midi CC when you turn knobs, causing the changes. You can control the midi channel the XFM sends on (and if it sends CC IIRC). You can also change the midi channel the drum machine receives on. So you want to either stop the CC, or make sure the midi channel the XFM sends on and the drum machine receives on don't match (by changing on either side).

@@ChalkWalkMusic Only cable between XFM and my drum machine is a TRS cable. stereo out from drum machine to line input of XFM. I thought I was going crazy but infact all the knobs in XFM are affecting drum machine. This is very strange.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. In case you aren't aware, the original author of Ardour is also the original author of JACK. Pipewire is becoming something of a successor to JACK: it supports multiple audio interfaces at once (without bridges) and has bridges to Pulse and Jack, in addition to also supporting video. I used to exclusively use JACK, but have switched to Pipewire. The latency is slightly worse, but many distros now include it by default (telling you something about the simplicity it affords). I'd say it's something of a middle ground between Pulse & JACK without any work to get it running.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. Ardour is free and open source. They just don't distribute a Windows installer binary for free. You can follow the build guide and build/use it freely. You can also pay as little as $1 if you don't want to do that (Paying $45 gives you unlimited updates). If you want another free DAW that doesn't require a build, check out Tracktion Waveform Free, LMMS or Reaper (unlimited full featured demo).

@@ChalkWalkMusic No, I'd never pay someone who uses such fishy schemes. Also, telling your average PC user to 'compile it yourself' is ridiculous.

@@korynt3984 I can understand the sentiment, but I would certainly not call it fishy. Every version they need to maintain and release is another cost to the developers (on top of ongoing costs like website maintenance and support). The vast majority of users of free software never donate, so free software foundations need ways to get income to cover their expenses. Charging for a simplified distribution is a perfectly reasonable strategy from my perspective; at least a preferable strategy to simply not supporting Windows (which would cost them nothing). Ignoring all that, the purpose of this series is not to demonstrate Ardour (any DAW, or VST host will do): it's to demonstrate learning a synth (such as Odin).

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. I should have put on a Santa Claus beard: that would have been confusing! In any case: I appreciate your continued support!

Thanks for watching: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment and for watching. I think the mod matrix, combined with the single shot LFO mode and loopable envelope give you a surprising amount of flexibility. Hopefully you have fun with it; I think it's a great sounding, interesting and fun synth.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. It's definitely a great synth for unusual, but still musical, synthesis. Given that the mk2 wasn't much of an upgrade, I'm hoping to see a mk3 which really leans into the sound design side; maybe 8 operator, 5 mod LFOs, 5 mod Envelopes, 32 mod slots, bitimbral, and macro controls. In the best case, in a good quality keyboard with a poly aftertouch keyboard. I feel like something like that could definitely sell for $1500 and be something of a must have for sound designers.

@@ChalkWalkMusic Indeed and understandable. Sales has probably disappointed, therefore management was likely to be cautious in further development. Would love to upgrade it for the SE version one day. Just for the 61 keys. The prices are better now too.

Thanks for the feedback, though looking at the video it doesn't seem that bad: mostly just a bit of dust/some fingerprints that are accentuated by the lighting. Not that it's not worth wiping: this comment just made me imagine it looked much worse.

@@ChalkWalkMusic fair enough. It may looked bad to me because I didn't come across a video before with gear looking like that. Maybe one. To be fair it shows that you use it 😂🙈 But looks yucky in the video thats all. Content wise...great video nonetheless.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. My thinking is primarily that, when imagining a sound, I think about the core timbre (oscillators), then the loudness contour (Amp EG), then the brightness contour (filter EG), and then other movements (probably LFOs first, then other EGs next). I'm hoping that showing the elements of synthesis in that order, will help show how you can look at all your sound design through a similar lens (on any subtractive synth, and beyond).

@@ChalkWalkMusic yeah that makes sense. i kinda think the normal order people explain it is more from the perspective of "how does a synth work" like in an engineering context/framing but i think thats less musical/creative. its how i learned but i can see it had some shortcomings

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. My first hardware synth was the Bass Station 2, used for $225 just after it was released. This turned out to be a great choice as I still have and use it, but I could just as easily ended up with something I stopped using after a couple of years. I feel like a little knowledge can go a long way in helping guide your decisions, if not toward a forever synth, then at least away from synths that you don't move on from too quickly. I feel like most synths can transition into secondary roles in bigger setups, but in the end there are only so many of these you need. Hopefully this series will equip people with enough understanding of how synths work, to realize what really matters to them. This is in contrast to trying to find a synth that "does it all" or one that's "easy". I'd, personally, prefer something with a much clearer purpose in my setup vs either of these. Anyway: thanks for your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. Mute indeed doesn't work on midi channels: this is not very convenient. The knobs for things like LFO and sweep send midi CC, but the DX7 doesn't respond to such messages (and the parameters wouldn't align in any case), but instead relies on sysex messages. This means that the Liven can sequence notes on the DX7, and set their velocity, but can't control the sound. You can send the audio out of the DX7 into the line input of the Liven and apply its effects to the DX7 audio. The Liven will, in this setup, output a mix of its own audio and the DX7's audio, meaning no external mixer is needed. I think it could make an interesting duo of instruments in any case!

​@@ChalkWalkMusic Indeed, by using MIDI and XFM's line input together, I can process the DX7 through effects while still sequencing it. It's a shame I can't use XFM's filters, though. Since my DX7 has a Grey E chip installed, I was hoping it would offer a bit more functionality. However, with the DX7's function buttons and slider, I can create some amazing effects all afternoon 🤩🤩

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. I try my best to keep videos like this concise: I'm glad you found it useful. Thanks for your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for the watching. Indeed, the tunable sub oscillator feature was added in the 4.14 firmware: good shout out.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. I didn't know that. It sounds interesting: I'll give it a go. Thanks for letting me know.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. I think this series should lay the foundations for anyone interested in learning synthesis, or about how to approach learning a synth. If people seem to enjoy it, I have plans for an intermediate and advanced series as follow ups

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. I feel like software, ideally, leans into the capabilities that working on a computer provides. Being too skeuomorphic, with respect to hardware, can be counter productive to the user experience (I think "the grid" in Bitwig studio is a great example of how to do this right). In hardware, I think more knobs is better, alongside a well thought out section/subsection layout. I'm definitely not opposed to multiple functions per knob (I'd prefer shift functions to menus), but for a beginner, I agree that single function simplifies things, but equally I think you can learn on almost any synth if you approach it correctly. I went with Odin 2 as I quite like the layout, sound and feature set. It doesn't have a modal interface and (despite the 3 filters) is fairly easy to understand. It's definitely not listed in conversations about soft synths anywhere near as much as surge or vital, but it seemed appropriate for video. As much as anything, I wanted to focus on how to learn a synth alongside learning synthesis. With Odin being less familiar, I hope the process we follow to understand it will be helpful in other contexts too. I actually already have plans for an intermediate series (probably still with Odin 2), then an advanced series where I use a different synth each episode (including the 2 you mentioned). My hope is that someone could watch all 3 series and leave with a good grasp of synthesis without spending any money, allowing them to spend their money (should they choose to) intelligently. As always: thanks for sharing your thoughts, and for your support!

@@ChalkWalkMusic yeah i agree with that. it all falls under "good design philosophy" and playing to the strengths of what thing you are making. I am not opposed to reading a manual, but i think a majority of what you can do with any piece of kit, hardware or software, should be shown to you by the thing itself. Like all your stuff on hydrasynth lines up with that. i wouldn't call it (the hydrasynth that is, your videos are actually very beginner friendly i think) "beginner friendly" but even from knowing nothing i think someone with in a good learning mindset could start with one and be fine. I am looking forward to see how you continue with this series with the plans you have outlined. I had to skip your last one to avoid GAS haha. I agree that Odin 2 is a good choice and was kinda pleasantly surprised to see you using it. its a bit old but i still rather like it.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. On the whole, I think the morphing options are great for experimenting and understanding the scope of what the core FM engine has to offer. I quite enjoyed an experiment I did, where I picked 8 factory patches and chose pairs which were "as different as possible" then x-lab them to make a patch I enjoyed in between, then exported. I then repeated for that 4, then the final 2, resulting in a single patch that had something of all the other patches in it. The problem I found was that, since different patches use different operators for different purposes, some morphs work very well (meaning quite an intuitive transition) and some had quite hard to predict results. Either way: it's a great take on simplifying FM.

I've tried to edit a few of the exports. They had strange operator ratios and routings, but they sounded great.

Thanks for watching: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. One element of the Minifreak that struck me, was how the filter really can really soften the timbre. That's to say, the oscillator is really in VST territory, while the filter can lend you a different tone. I think the Hydrasynth is a good synth, but I think it didn't quite reach "great" for me. One of the reasons is the filter models. They give you a lot of scope to explore (and the dual filter routing is great), but they never gave me the same feeling as the Minifreak filter (note, this isn't an analogue vs digital thing: I have the same feel about the Opsix filters as the Minifreak ones). I've described it in the past as a "kitchen sink subtractive synth". In a sense though, I am always left feeling that hardware isn't just about what it can do, but also what it can't. My computer offers a world of sound possibilities, so I prefer my hardware to have more focus. To me, the Hydrasynth was an attempt to bring that breadth to hardware, resulting in an unfocused instrument: one which is eminently flexible and usable, but ends up rarely being my go-to for anything in particular. I can definitely understand the sentiment of the Minilogue XD being good to learn on, but I feel like it can be the beginning of an anti-pattern: a pattern of buying the next synth in the hierarchy that deprecates the last. When I think "beginner's synth", I think of a synth that you can buy now, and have it grow with you. Thinking of the original Minilogue, I suspect a lot of people will feel like 4 voices limit them (eventually), as well as the limitation of not having a mod matrix. They'll then either keep it as a secondary voice (good) or replace it with a higher voice count poly plus a mono (less good). The XD aspects (effects and custom oscillator) are definitely interesting, but using the digital oscillator loses you the fluid interface (by inserting a menu). The effects are great, but you could also put an NTS1 on the output of any synth and have the same effects available. This all leaves me with the feeling that a Minilogue (XD or original) will end up being sidelined in a growing setup. In contrast I think the Hydrasynth Explorer and Minifreak both have the capabilities to remain relevant, even in a large setup. In any case: thanks for sharing your thoughts! I appreciate your input, and support.

@@ChalkWalkMusic all great points. I love the point about buying a first synth that grows with you. This is so right and in the GAS world of synths is super hard to live by. I find the menu diving to be much more tolerable on the Hydrasynth, and I find myself constantly wanting to add some space/panning to my oscillators on the minifreak. That being said, somehow programming on the Hydra has felt more like work for me, where the Minifreak feels like play (which is the same joy I constantly received when programming the microfreak). Thanks for the awesome work on this series. Looking forward to what you do next

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. I think most people could be happy with either the Hydrasynth Explorer, or the Minifreak. They both give you a lot to explore, and neither sounds "bad" by any means. I'd say I'm happy to own both; I'm really hoping ASM make another generation of Hydrasynth with a more powerful compute/DSP platform allowing them to make it sound great: maybe more like Pigments. If it sounded like Pigments I think it would be an absolute must have synth. As for 'a' vs 'an' Hydrasynth, I think almost everyone would use 'a'. H is only functionally a vowel when non aspirated. The classic example is "hotel". In classic RP (received pronunciation: British English as spoken by the monarchy), hotel is pronounced more like 'otel (non aspirated H) so you would say "an 'otel"; most other speakers would say "a hotel". I'm not sure many people would go with "an 'ydrasynth", but it has its charm.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. I hope you enjoyed the series. I had figured people might like a comparison, so I bundled it into these final thoughts. That's perhaps not the most visible, but hopefully it helps you.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. I can give you a comparison between the two and you can decide what matters most to you. I would describe the Hydrasynth as having a very deep interface, that is "tamed" by clever use of encoder controlled menus and dedicated section selection buttons. The unique elements of the synth are the polyphonic aftertouch keyboard, the mutants (audio effects for the oscillators) and in having two filters (with various routing options). Add to that the 5 LFOs (with sequencer like capabilities) and 5 envelopes, plus the huge mod matrix and 4 effect slots and you have huge sound design potential. Add to that the great build quality, and the 8 macro controls (with 8 parameters each) and you have a whole lot of capacity to design patches to perform in realtime. Where it lacks is in hands on controls to shape sounds as you design them. You can access them quickly, but instead of just turning a control, you need to press a button (potentially multiple times to go through pages), then turn the correct encoder to adjust the setting. This is a great way to manage the complexity, but not ideal for live sound design. The other problem is that the overall sound quality isn't as good as some of the competition. The oscillators, filters and effects are definitely more than usable, but definitely aren't "best in class". The Minifreak has far less scope; 2 oscillators per voice, and you can given up oscillator 2 to process oscillator 1. An analogue filter (which is nice and smooth, but not very characterful), only 2 LFOs and 2 envelopes, channel pressure (mono aftertouch), only 2 macros with 4 targets each and 3 effect slots. To compensate for that, it has a huge array of interesting oscillator modes (vs just wavetable on the Hydrasynth). The effects sound good, as do the oscillators; the 12 part paraphonic mode is quite unique and very usable. Another big strength is the arpeggiator and sequencer, which have lots of great performance features. It has more hands on controls, but the menus are much less appealing than on the Hydrasynth. My summary would be this. If you want a fun synth with good sound design potential and good performance features, get the Minifreak. If you want a deeper subtractive synth which benefits from complex sound design and well thought out expression (especially through poly aftertouch and macros), then the Hydrasynth is the one.

@ChalkWalkMusic thanks for the throughout response! Your perspective is quite unique from what I have read online so far - as looking at the minifreak as "less options but better sounding ones i.e. oscillators and effects" is quite more attractive than what I've read so far ("hydrasynth can create anything the minifreak does and much more"). I'm not sure if you're chasing views (would not think so) but your perspective on this comparison would surely be useful to more people since I've seen this question repeated everywhere multiple times. Thanks again for your reply! Unfortunately for me, I'm even less decided now 😅

@@georgesboris To say the Hydrasynth does everything the Minifreak does and more is certainly not accurate. The range of oscillators on the Minifreak (from classic VA and physical modelled strings, to speech synthesis and a comb filter) offers a whole scope of possibilities that a subtractive wavetable synths (like the Hydrasynth) don't offer; it feels like a synth that delivers on all the potential the Microfreak had, and more. If you focus on the wavetable domain, the Hydrasynth is very powerful: 3 oscillators (albeit the 3rd being more limited in capability and lacking mutants) and the range of modulation capabilities brings a lot to the table. My guess is that you won't be disappointed with either the Minifreak or the Hydrasynth, but they offer different value propositions. One question to ask is: which would you see yourself still using (often) a year after you buy it? Would the deep macros and mod matrix of the Hydrasynth keep you inspired to design patches, or would the performability and immediacy of the Minifreak hold your attention more?

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. It's an interesting and quite unique synth. Have fun with it: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment; there is only one episode after this one, then we are all done: I appreciate your support throughout!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. The purpose of these sound design episodes are a mix of showing how the workflow of the synth works, and the range of sounds. The feedback I've got suggests people are interested in hearing more about how I think about designing a sound. This is good, as sound design is a topic I enjoy. Hopefully I can find a better way to present those useful bits in a more condensed and deliberate form. In any case: thanks for the feedback, and I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. If you are new to synths, my suggestion is to start by just using oscillator 1, no mutants, filter 1, envelope 1 and 2 and LFO 1 and 2 (and their normal routings to the filter and amplifier), and no mod slots. This limitation will help you focus on the basics, before expanding to use more oscillators, effects, modulation routings and mutants. Have fun with your synth!

@@ChalkWalkMusic thanks mate. Yep I’ve played a lot with those in ableton. So have a little understanding how they interact. I’m now trying to expand my synth vocabulary so I can get some interesting sound design. Thanks 👍

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. The Minifreak was particularly difficult to film because the screen is so small. If I have the whole synth visible, the image isn't high resolution enough to enlarge from my top down. I think a better trade off might have been to just zoom in further on the synth so it wasn't all visible, to compensate, though I need the touch strips, and the effect knobs. I should probably also be willing to have the enlarged display overlap other panel controls, in the interest of readability. What I ended up doing was adding a mini, manual focus/zoom security camera I had around as an extra top down (cable tied to the boom) to try and catch the display. I think the solution would be a 4k top down. I'd still only make 1080p video, but the 4k input would allow me to capture the panel with enough fidelity to expand the display and keep it visible. On the whole, for this series, I'm not imagining people following along, so much as demonstrating some of what is possible. One the whole I like doing sound design content like this, but my general sound design focused content seems less successful overall vs specific tips, or more focused instructional material. I'll see what I can do: I did enjoy this sound in particular; I feel like the Minifreak might not be an obvious options as a drone synth, so this feels like a different take that came together well.

@@ChalkWalkMusic thanks for your detailed response! I guess I was thinking of these more like a tutorial. What if the 2nd version of the screen went below the keyboard so you can blow it up? I love these videos, and the features you highlight.

@@rycrump I guess under the keyboard could work; I don't think the layout would look great, but I suppose readability probably matters more. My purpose with these last few episodes is mostly to give a feel for how a real sound design workflow goes on the synth, and to give you some feel of the sound. I suppose they can double up as a tutorial for that type of sound, so perhaps I can try and present in a slightly more suitable manner for that. This will be a change for another series though, as I finished filming this one a while ago now. Thanks for your input, and I appreciate your support!

Thanks for watching: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. I don't have any percussions sounds planned here, but I could do a video about making drum sounds. For now, here are a few thoughts. For really refined drum shaping, more envelopes can be helpful. Given that you won't need LFOs, you can use those in one shot modes along with the cycling envelope (used as ADSR). You have some envelope parameters in both the cycling envelope to shape the envelope stages and you can use the LFO shaper to turn the one shots into nicely shaped envelopes. Between these sources you have 4 "envelopes" to work with. Drums tend to benefit from exponential decay, but most importantly: listen. Next, a drum sound is often made with a core amplitude shape, a filter motion, a pitch motion, and a transient sound. The transient can be shaped by using one (short) envelope to bring the second oscillator in (i.e have the volume of osc 2 at zero and modulated it up) for an initial click, or bang. In the oscillator sounds, you have quite some options. The noise oscillator has a lot of different timbres, which can help a lot, but the more traditional options in the VA oscillator can give you classic 808 kick and tom sounds. I'd experiment with the other oscillators too, for example using the comb filter as a pitched resonator, rather than as the transient. Velocity expression can be useful to add some variations, so consider using velocity to modulate the intensity of some of the other elements (e.g the transient gets louder with velocity) as well as regular amp EG and filter movement velocity sensitivety. Hopefully these are enough ideas to get you going. Keep in mind that this is a mono timbral synth, so you will likely be sampling these sounds (or using the soft synth version, layered). If you are sampling, be sure to grab enough variations to keep things interesting.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. The Liven series can send and receive clock over midi, analogue sync, and analogue sync + audio (like pocket operators). This means it can follow the tempo of another device, or have another device follow it. Since the XFM has a four track sequencer, if you play 3 parts locally, you could sequence an external device using the 4th track (I have a video on the Liven, and sequencing external gear). In addition to (or instead of) this, you could use the sequencer on the external device and have the Liven send or receive sync to keep them in time. Midi is good for this as the devices can also send start/stop message, so they start simultaneously, vs you having to hit play. If you are using something without midi (e.g pocket operators), then you need to hit play to get it going, though you can hit play on the PO first, in the right sync mode, and it'll start when the Liven starts sending clock.

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. I'd say the Hydrasynth benefits from an extremely consistent interface. While it's not always the most "intuitive", I find you can make educated guesses without being too far off the mark, especially when you understand a few basics. Hopefully this video helps everyone get oriented enough to ignore the rest of the series and experiment, should they choose to do so. Thanks for your support!

Thanks for watching: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for watching: I appreciate your support!

Thanks for your comment, and for watching. As with most things, the answer is: it depends; I'll tell you what it depends on. I'd describe the Hydrasynth as being optimized for deep sound design, and performance by creating patches with macro assignments in place. Where it lacks, is sounding a bit boring without more complex sound design in place; the filters aren't super interesting sounding to me; and the panel isn't ideal for designing sounds live on (which I like doing, as part of a performance). The Minifreak is optimized to be more immediate and fun to use, and generally more performative (especially the arp and sequencer). It also has far more panel controls, meaning it's easier to design sounds, live, on; I also like the smoothness of the filter, and how it interacts with the digital oscillators. Where it isn't so good, is when you need to go into the menu; the jump in UX is very marked when you move from the panel to the menu (the screen is also very small). Between the two, I find the Minifreak much more fun and immediate, and generally more enjoyable to use, in terms of how I like using hardware. Moreover, when I want deep sound design, I tend to go to software (The Hydrasynth Explorer is a great controller for Pigments by the way). In this sense, a Hydrasynth is a poor match for me, despite it being a great value proposition. Equally, the Minifreak (and inclusion of Minifreak V) is a much better match for my use case.