Rare Waves Hydronium Is A Semi-Modular Acid Synthesizer (Tabletop & Eurorack) Inspired By The TB-303

March 7, 2019 Synth Anatomy Eurorack, Hardware, News, Synthesizers 0

Rare Waves Hydronium is a new semi-modular analog acid Synthesizer that is mainly inspired by the iconic Roland TB-303 without being a clone. It’s an all-new circuit design that tries to reproduce the famous sound character but goes beyond what a clone would be. It features a single VCO, a resonant low-pass filter, and a decay envelope. Of course, it includes features like a programmable pitch glide and dynamic accents for individual notes.

With an additional gate mode, it’s also possible to create other sounds than sequences. An interesting feature is located between filter and VCA. Here you can find an audio effects loop that allows you to route effects in the signal. The synth includes also a MIDI-to-CV converter with post-glide v/oct outputs. An interesting new synth especially for acid music producers.

Overview

The Rare Waves Hydronium is a semi-modular synthesizer with an unmistakable true analog tone. Its rich array of CV patch points can interconnect with other analog synthesizers to inspire your music deeper and further in the creative zone. While it is designed to fulfill the role of a TB-303 inspired acid synth, Hydronium is not a clone circuit. Instead, it is an all-new design with its functions re-imagined and extended a little beyond what you might expect from the clone genre. It’s available as a DIY kit, or pre-assembled — in tabletop format and Eurorack — and your choice of colors! Its brand new for 2019, created and supported by Eric Archer behind all of our well-known Grendel gear.

Its tone is based on a single VCO, a resonant low-pass filter, and a simple decay envelope. And as you’d anticipate of any acid synth, it has programmable glide (pitch slide) and dynamic accents for individual notes. Hydronium’s classic tone is a natural choice for sequenced basslines. Switch the envelope to gate mode, and it also serves as a lead synthesizer when you need a bright, clean sawtooth or pulse waveform in the mix.

It can be played either by MIDI control or CV-Gate. In addition, its built-in MIDI-to-CV converter with post-glide v/oct output lets you use it as a bridge between your MIDI controller and other analog synthesizers. Hydronium features an audio effects loop that is positioned between its filter and VCA. This is a good place for distortion effects, phaser, and certain other effects that tend to increase the noise floor when patched to a synth’s line out.

The pre-VCA effect return silences the self-noise from the effect, preserving full dynamic range even when you bend its tone with a high-gain fuzz pedal, for example.