Yeah the Hydrasynth clearly got it’s inspiration from the P12 module, cause it’s very similar. Its blazingly fast once you know your way around it.
Nice patches!
FWIW i totally agree with you on the drawbacks of the menu/ui layout. One of the reasons i bought the Peak was for what i thought would be a super intuitive patch programming UI, which it is to an extent - but I didnt realize how much time I’d spend in the mod/voice/osc menus.
Programming patches sometimes really does feel like programming, and less like finding relationships of physical controls as it does on more limited-palette, ‘all sweet spot’ synths like the minilogue, moogs, or prophets. This kind of killed the honeymoon phase for me, but I’m still definitely not done with my Peak and committed to exploring it as once dialed in, I can get some really lovely sounds.
Simpler patches, even ones totally avoiding the filter (which I don’t find that compelling anyway) sound really nice. Like two osc, careful selection of waveshapes, a little detune, some FM, and some smart modulation go a long way towards those liquidy bells, evolving pads, and legowelt weirdness.
I do really like the dual mod source thing as it makes the patches, once designed, much more playable especially given the velocity sensitivity of all three envelopes.
I might one day move past the Peak and go for a Hydra or a P12, just because I’m a UI freak and people rave about the workflow on those. But for now, I’m getting a lot of mileage out of it:)
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Yeah the Peak UI feels like it was designed for a knob-per-function analogue poly. Then they hid all sorts of extra goodies in the menus! It’s not necessarily a bad UI compared to the hydra and P12. I feel like it’s more inviting to make certain tweaks to a patch (eg filter FM, ringmod), than on the hydra/P12 where you kind of have to plan every tweak you make. The flipside is that if you know where you want to go, the hydra and P12 are hard to beat for speed.
I think my initial disappointment came from how surprised I was at how much menu diving was involved. I think there’s definitely some improvements they could make there. Other than the cycling and the page hold to scroll they could maybe add the following:
- Press Osc to go to the osc submenu. At first this opens at page 1: Osc common
- Press Osc again, you are now at page 3: Osc 1
- Etc. For osc 2 and 3 and finally user waveforms.
- This could also be implemented for other longer submenus. For the Mod menu it could go between 1-5-9-13.
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And the modulation quick assignment shortcuts that P12 and now Hydrasynth have. I really want to see that on Peak. Asked Novation about it a year ago and they said it’s already been noted as a request from other owners, so maybe one day.
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I hope you’ve asked Novation for this, too 
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Great sounding patches!
As far as this goes… I think you’ll come around on these after more time, having dedicated knobs to control the mod depth to pitch is just so handy in many different types of patches, even straight patches with no FM. I’m stoked you’re enjoying it more after we badgered you to like it more 
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That third patch (the dark one) was friggin’ awesome!
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With the Peak, how much are you using the drive circuits? The filter really “bites” into the drive, and the post filter drive in the menu REALLY changes the sound of the filter, if you’re not finding the filter especially compelling you should try lots of filter/drive combinations, it really is a special filter even if it doesn’t initially appear to be.
Yeah, definitely can get some good character out of it with pre and post drive turned up. I think it’s just a personal taste thing - since my first synth was a korg and the next a moog, I got really accustomed to those filter characters. But yeah, on many of my patches I turn post drive to like 90, and overdrive to around 3 o clock and get some nice results!
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This is such an interesting observation! I’d never thought of it this way, but I do tend to pull out the Peak when I have a particular sound I want to get to and just need to punch it in. I’m almost the opposite with the Voyager. I go to it when I have a two hour block to ride knobs and hone sounds.
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Yeah man, thanks for talking me into giving it another go. It wasn’t what I was originally expecting, but I found something else there that I do really enjoy 
I suppose you can make an argument for the mod knobs. I do notice that having them makes me much more likely to use them, with some really nice results.
Thanks! Combination of ringmod, filter FM and S+H on the filter frequency if I recall correctly.
Peak and P12
We were also talking about the Peak and the Prophet 12 in the P12 thread. In it I called the Peak somewhat ‘characterless’, because it sounds like a lot of modern VSTs. It does sit in the same range as many modern VSTs, all of which have a bit of a Virus sound (slightly recessed, diffused, thin sound that sits nicely in a mix, ideal for EDM).
That said, now that I’ve spent some more time with it, I think it would be unfair to say it has no character of its own. It sounds very modern, but it has a smooth liquid-like sound that sets it apart from something like Spire, Serum or Vital. It’s very different from the P12 though. Like, polar opposites almost (P12 has a very dusty and brittle type sound, a bit moody compared to the upbeat sounding Peak).
No clue if that helps you decide between the two
The Peak filter is actually the highlight of the synth for me. In 24db it’s pretty girthy and good for bass and lead sounds. In 12db it’s a lot more polite and does nicely for pads. It’s also smooth like butter, and sounds lovely with some filter FM thrown in. I like the distortion options, but tend to go very easy on them. Cranking them up usually destroys my sound.
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Good point, I’ll do it!
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Yeah, for mod, it maybe should go to the first empty if you press and hold it for a few sec
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Just realized there was this ”hidden part” you’d written in your post. Yeah, that doesn’t help. 
Thanks anyway.
I have to confess. Sometimes I can be a bit of a preset scroller. I haven’t made a whole lot of my own patches on the Peak. So before I do anything like trade away my Peak, I’ll put in the time and do some patch design. Otherwise I’ll be forever on the hunt for the next best synth, if I’m ready to give up on one once I’ve grown tired of the presets (even the ones I might have bought), basically.
I have to say one thing, though. I really like the way P12 sounds. A lot more weight in the sound compared to the Peak. One reason I was thinking Peak would be a good choice for my current setup, however, was that I recently got the Matriarch as my main synth and thought the slightly thinner-sounding Peak could fill the gaps left by the Moog more easily than a synth with a lot of that oomph. (Another reason for getting the Matriarch was that I COULDN’T rely on presets, at least not by scrolling through them.)
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Sometimes, watching tutorials help getting into the design mood.
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Absolutely do not buy a Prophet 12 for preset scrolling. The presets it comes with are pretty mediocre overall, and there aren’t that many preset banks for it available online.
Sound design on it also feels much more like using a surgical tool than on the Peak. The Peak seems to reward random experimentation more (nicer interface for it, wider sweet spots, slightly less open ended architecture).
Honestly though it sounds like you have enough unexplored synth to keep you occupied for a while. Get a P12 if you’re a big fan of the sound (which is very BoC to my ear) but otherwise just discipline yourself and start using the synths you already have. You can scroll up and see I did the same, with great success 
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Definitely, no question about it.
Had a pretty decent sound design-ish session yesterday with the Peak, and part of this thing resembling GAS is just shooting the breeze on my part. Enjoyable as such, while having a coffee break at work.
Magic word. Fuck.
Get a Yamaha AN1X and/or an SH-2000 if you wanna ‘BoC’ 
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Did a video on making a big ambient pad on the Peak.
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nice result! subbed.
first few minutes of that chord just hitting over and over isn’t great for the viewer tho…i understand why you were doing it, but maybe some variation with the chords or something? keep it up tho
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