Hydrasynth - Meh first impression

Jabberwalky · Post by **Jabberwalky** » Mon Mar 02, 2026 12:36 am

My old friends! Haven't had time or money to go deep into synth realm for a bit, but recently picked up the Hydrasynth Deluxe. I don't need convincing that it's great, as the plethora of reviews online lead me to buy it in the first place. It has the specs and features I've wanted in terms of an extremely deep and unique synth architecture. I guess what I'm getting at is, I'm wondering if there is a shared experience of being sort of underwhelmed by the tonal quality as a first impression? I bought this from GC used, so I have 45 days to decide to return it for a Novation Summit or something similarly stacked.

Do I share these thoughts with others?
1. Are the presets a horrible misrepresentation of how it can sound?

2. Does it always inherently have this sort of mid-heavy/honk tonality?

3. The reviewers and youtubers all gush about it's keybed, but I honestly question if these people actually use decent keybeds or are all accustomed to basic midi keyboard feel.

3b. It's honestly reminiscent of an SQ80 I had, in that there is a clack/tap on the final hammer hit (I know it's not an actual hammer) which I'm assuming is the key hitting the aftertouch strip. Maybe someone old enough could chime in on how a new SQ80 felt, as I've only experienced a well worn out, clacky, version of poly aftertouch. Is there no such thing as poly aftertouch without this clack? I don't experience this on my EPS16+, but the aftertouch is honestly quite hard to activate so I'm not sure it's working very well anyways.

4. There are lots of positives I'm already experiencing in terms of build and layout of this thing, but no amount of sturdy knob or metal case will change the tone of a synth.