Rare Waves Hydronium Euro

rare waves hydronium, kit

modular grid

Rare Waves Hydronium is an excellent analog synth for electronic music producers. This is a great-sounding music instrument with MIDI and CV-Gate control. Its 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.

The PDF instructions we provide with our Hydronium DIY kits state:
This is an intermediate skill level kit. We strongly suggest you practice on a simpler synth DIY project before beginning here.
 

TECHNO BABBLE

The Rare Waves Hydronium is a semi-modular synthesizer with 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.

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.

Hydronium Eurorack module width is 28 HP.

Eurorack case compatibility – Hydronium Eurorack  fits all cases with Vector-style rails.  Hydronium Eurorack with the original PCB (Main PCB revision C2) requires 113.7 mm (11.37 cm, 4.475 inch) between the rails. If your case has thicker rails, such as Doepfer, it can be a tight fit, and in some Doepfer style cases it may be too large to fit. If your Hydronium Eurorack does not fit your case, contact us and we will exchange it for a revised Hydronium that can fit.