Ignition Sequence is a collection of 128 patches for the ASM hydrasynth designed to inspire, express, and hypnotize.

Ignition Sequence is designed around the full capabilities of the Hydrasynth Desktop. It makes use of the polyphonic aftertouch sensitive pads and the macros. Nothing is mapped to mod wheel or ribbon.

Some patches are scale locked, meaning no matter what you play it will be locked to a specific scale. You can adjust these to taste in the Voice menu.

The pack can be broken down into 7  patch types, starting with Ambient. These patches are predominantly self-playing soundscapes, meaning you can press one key and a whole landscape of sound will flow out. Then, using the macros, you can nudge that landscape in different ways.

After that are the arpeggios. These take advantage of the incredible arpeggiator the hydrasynth has on-board, which can be used for everything from classic arps to complex sequences. A lot of these need little more than a beat and a bassline to make a full track.

A subset of these are the Acid arps, meant to invoke the slippy squelchy world of classic 303s, 101s, and 202s.

Next come basses. These are wildly diverse, and I tried to dip into multiple genres with these. We have deep complex basses that will work for drum and bass, drops and sines and 808 styles, and some classic huge bass arps that are fun as hell to play on the macros. Here is one of the places you can really hear the huge selection of wavetables comes into play.

After that come the Leads. These run the gamut from soft, lofi, boards-of-canada inspired solos to blistering monsters. All of them feature extensive polyphonic aftertouch modulation. These rely heavily on the mutant system of the Hydrasynth, which lets you access synthesis concepts like, sync, pulse width modulation, fm, and more.

A selection of pads offer two patches in one. Play long beautiful evolving pads or shorten the attack and turn them into lush polyphonic keys.

My favorite set follows that: polyphonic synths. These could be considered keys, but all of them have something special going on. I tried to make them all have a lot of personality, and a lot of them depend on polyphonic aftertouch for extra emotion.

Last but not least, the sequences. These are a complex set of patches that use phrase arpeggiation, quantized pitch step lfos, and more, to make diverse sequences you can start a whole EP’s worth of music with.

This patch pack was designed to fill the gaps I found in existing Hydrasynth packs, in that I wanted each patch the push what the hydra could do and make the synth a worthwhile choice when integrating it into a hardware setup. When I choose to use a synth outside the box, I want it to really have a compelling reason to reach for it. I hope that Ignition Sequence helps make the hydra that for you.