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OTHER DISCUSSIONS => General Synthesis => Other Hardware/Software => Topic started by: maxter on December 09, 2021, 07:13:48 AM

Title: Hydrasynth, Mod Matrix & Macros editor for TBMS iPad
Post by: maxter on December 09, 2021, 07:13:48 AM
I think the Hydrasynth is great... the interface is perfectly OK to navigate with the Module buttons, screen and encoder knobs. The modules have 1-3 pages of parameters each, so not too much menu diving needed there.

The Mod Matrix and the Macro buttons though... require quite some menu diving if you want to make the most of 'em. And it gets hard to keep track of all the modulations you've set up... which can cause confusion, like unknowingly double-patching stuff, which happened to me.

So, to make things easier I made an editor on the TB Midi Stuff app. It has a few drawbacks though... ASM used the same NRPN address for BOTH source and destination on the Hydra, source values 0-127 & 256-311, destination values 128-255 & 312-439. This causes confusion for TBMS, ie when choosing a mod Destination on the Hydra, the TBMS may pick up jibberish and change the Source as well.

Because of this, I had to make the Source and Destination pick-lists uni-directional, that is the TBMS app won't pick up if you set up Mod Matrix Sources and Destinations on the Hydrasynth. TBMS does send that data when you choose Source and Destination though. Same goes for the Macro Destinations.

The sliders and knobs are all bi-directional however, which means they work "both ways". TBMS picks up what happens on the Hydra regarding these, and vice versa. So in a sense this is strictly a "substitute" to setting up modulation routings, sources and destinations. The benefit is to have everything readily visible and for adjustments when making very complex patches.

Whenever you're done editing a patch, you have to save the page as a "Canvas Snapshot". Click on the magnifying glass, top left corner, then click on the 'I' by the name, rename to fit patch name, and save as a new Canvas Snapshot.
Title: Re: Hydrasynth, Mod Matrix & Macros editor for TBMS iPad
Post by: maxter on December 09, 2021, 07:19:27 AM
Looks
Title: Re: Hydrasynth, Mod Matrix & Macros editor for TBMS iPad
Post by: maxter on December 14, 2021, 01:07:30 PM
Ugh... I had apparently missed Macros 1-8 as destination sources... took some time, but now they're all implemented in the destination picklists. I have tried out the first four Macros, and everything seems 100% now.

However, should you come across anything weird, a bug or whatever, please let me know here (and where), so I can fix it.

And a small tip for the 'Button Value' knobs, you can set them to your preferred behaviour, horizontal, vertical, relative rotary, and absolute rotary. Also, the sliders can be set to absolute or relative. In the application settings, top right corner.

My apologies for the inconvenience to those of you who've downloaded it already. Any suggestions or critique is welcome!
Title: Re: Hydrasynth, Mod Matrix & Macros editor for TBMS iPad
Post by: maxter on December 16, 2021, 02:21:31 PM
Bugfix, some sliders were inverted. Hopefully the last one...
Title: Re: Hydrasynth, Mod Matrix & Macros editor for TBMS iPad
Post by: proteus-ix on January 26, 2022, 07:39:44 PM
Bugfix, some sliders were inverted. Hopefully the last one...

I'm frankly shocked no one has thanked and commended you for this!  I just got my Hydra desktop and not sure I'll use this with iPad, but it's awesome that you developed it and are giving away. 

Along with my P12 which is hybrid in a different way, with the Hydra it's like having 2 pre-built modulars, for a 10th the price and none of the fuss!
Title: Re: Hydrasynth, Mod Matrix & Macros editor for TBMS iPad
Post by: maxter on January 27, 2022, 02:12:08 PM
I'm frankly shocked no one has thanked and commended you for this!  I just got my Hydra desktop and not sure I'll use this with iPad, but it's awesome that you developed it and are giving away. 

Thank you for your kind words! I have made some interfaces for other synths as well, in case you own one of them, I'm happy to share! Korg DSS-1, Prophet '08, Prophet Rev2, Ensoniq EPS-16+ and ASR-10, Plugiator Prodyssey.

Along with my P12 which is hybrid in a different way, with the Hydra it's like having 2 pre-built modulars, for a 10th the price and none of the fuss!

Dynamite combo! I've always wanted a P12 since its release. They're getting harder to find at decent prices these days, at least where I live.

Also... we get to SAVE all that crazy patching as patches for later. I almost have to pinch myself sometimes.

Regarding bang for bucks ratio, the Hydra is hard to beat imo!
Title: Re: Hydrasynth, Mod Matrix & Macros editor for TBMS iPad
Post by: proteus-ix on January 27, 2022, 02:36:34 PM
I'm frankly shocked no one has thanked and commended you for this!  I just got my Hydra desktop and not sure I'll use this with iPad, but it's awesome that you developed it and are giving away. 

Thank you for your kind words! I have made some interfaces for other synths as well, in case you own one of them, I'm happy to share! Korg DSS-1, Prophet '08, Prophet Rev2, Ensoniq EPS-16+ and ASR-10, Plugiator Prodyssey.


Oh dang, I would love to see one for the EPS-16+ !  Mine is locked away in storage for the time being, but one of these days when I move I'll be able to set it up again... soon as I finish installing the SCSI2SD haa.
Title: Re: Hydrasynth, Mod Matrix & Macros editor for TBMS iPad
Post by: maxter on February 01, 2022, 06:56:53 AM
As it seems impossible to attach files in PM's successfully, I'll put the TBMS-editors for EPS16+ and ASR-10 here. It's VERY limited, in that you can only program Instrument #1, Layer #1, Wave #1. In part due to limitations of TBMS,  but also Ensoniq's MIDI implementation is all over the place... I consider it a huge success that I even got this much to work on it... The Ensoniq's are also SLOW to receive MIDI sysex, so the screen will flash repeatedly while it sends "wait"-messages and other stuff. Move a slider quickly from 0 to 100, and it'll only pick up a few of the messages sent... so you have to move it slowly when approaching the approximate value destination, for it to receive it properly.

There are some other editors to be found on the TBMS forum as well:
http://www.tbstuff.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=17
Title: Re: Hydrasynth, Mod Matrix & Macros editor for TBMS iPad
Post by: proteus-ix on February 01, 2022, 07:40:23 AM
As it seems impossible to attach files in PM's successfully, I'll put the TBMS-editors for EPS16+ and ASR-10 here. It's VERY limited, in that you can only program Instrument #1, Layer #1, Wave #1. In part due to limitations of TBMS,  but also Ensoniq's MIDI implementation is all over the place... I consider it a huge success that I even got this much to work on it... The Ensoniq's are also SLOW to receive MIDI sysex, so the screen will flash repeatedly while it sends "wait"-messages and other stuff. Move a slider quickly from 0 to 100, and it'll only pick up a few of the messages sent... so you have to move it slowly when approaching the approximate value destination, for it to receive it properly.

There are some other editors to be found on the TBMS forum as well:
http://www.tbstuff.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=17

Awesome, thanks!  I'm hoping Chad will add the EPS to Patchbase sooner than later - he seems to have figured it out pretty well for the ESQs but I don't have one of those... yet.  :D
Title: Re: Hydrasynth, Mod Matrix & Macros editor for TBMS iPad
Post by: maxter on February 01, 2022, 08:43:20 AM
Cool, if he succeeds...  8) the ESQ-1 is a lot more straight-forward though, regarding MIDI. I used to own one, and used a TBMS editor with it sometimes.  It's a great synth, but I sold it after making A-B comparisons of same patches with a free vst called SQ8L, which I can highly recommend. The programmer really nailed it, to my ears they sound 99% alike. Just a TINY difference in the filters, with some very vague analog "jitter" in the top register, as they're indeed analog on the ESQ-1. I couldn't tell them apart in a real situation though, I really had to listen HARD to catch a difference, isolated with volume cranked way up to hear any whatsoever.

The EPS and ASR though... man, is the MIDI weird. They send so much rubbish and wrong parameters and stuff, that you can't simply use a MIDI monitor to see what it sends and go off that. And lots of other weird stuff. About as straight-backward as it gets, imo.  ;) The sysex string is needlessly long, with the different information dispersed, and unfortunately TBMS can at most do 4 variable bytes, and these have to be in succession. Otherwise it would've been possible to choose instrument, layer and wavesample for editing.

So with this TBMS page, you're pretty much limited to editing 1 wavesample, and then you'd have to copy it to another location, and delete the original to make the first slot available for the next sample to edit. But it works, at least. Saves some time on menu-diving when programming from scratch.

Btw, one thing I really dig about the Hydrasynth, is its obvious inspiration taken from ESQ-1, with the whole module-layout. Beautiful concept.
Title: Re: Hydrasynth, Mod Matrix & Macros editor for TBMS iPad
Post by: proteus-ix on February 02, 2022, 06:48:46 AM
Cool, if he succeeds...  8) the ESQ-1 is a lot more straight-forward though, regarding MIDI. I used to own one, and used a TBMS editor with it sometimes.  It's a great synth, but I sold it after making A-B comparisons of same patches with a free vst called SQ8L, which I can highly recommend. The programmer really nailed it, to my ears they sound 99% alike. Just a TINY difference in the filters, with some very vague analog "jitter" in the top register, as they're indeed analog on the ESQ-1. I couldn't tell them apart in a real situation though, I really had to listen HARD to catch a difference, isolated with volume cranked way up to hear any whatsoever.

The EPS and ASR though... man, is the MIDI weird. They send so much rubbish and wrong parameters and stuff, that you can't simply use a MIDI monitor to see what it sends and go off that. And lots of other weird stuff. About as straight-backward as it gets, imo.  ;) The sysex string is needlessly long, with the different information dispersed, and unfortunately TBMS can at most do 4 variable bytes, and these have to be in succession. Otherwise it would've been possible to choose instrument, layer and wavesample for editing.

So with this TBMS page, you're pretty much limited to editing 1 wavesample, and then you'd have to copy it to another location, and delete the original to make the first slot available for the next sample to edit. But it works, at least. Saves some time on menu-diving when programming from scratch.

Btw, one thing I really dig about the Hydrasynth, is its obvious inspiration taken from ESQ-1, with the whole module-layout. Beautiful concept.

Yeah it sounds like someone would need to build a custom editor that could parse all that in that case, which the level of work isn't really justified at that point!  I actually have UVI's USQ-1 which also sounds amazing, but I just don't use software anymore.  I really really really hate looking at a computer screen when I'm in a creative zone, so even though I got sucked into the software world after I discovered U-he's Repro-1, I now do everything but mixing in hardware.  Occasionally I like to play with stuff like Absynth or Reaktor just because they can go weird places that more normal synths don't, but mostly just to record bits to sample.
Title: Re: Hydrasynth, Mod Matrix & Macros editor for TBMS iPad
Post by: maxter on March 26, 2023, 05:00:14 PM
Hydrasynth OS 2.0 on TBMS.

Only additions on this TBMS template version, for v2.0, are VoiceMod and VoiceMod+ as sources in the Mod Matrix.