us your designer ’ s approach here ? You ’ ve got Oscillators , LFOs , Filters , Envelopes … all at your disposal . It ’ s just super easy to access . How did you go about laying this out ?
[ Glen ] Well , one of my theories in product design and one of the things that I go by is the 90 % rule . So whatever someone is going have to do 90 % of the time , that needs to be on your front panel and right in front of you where you can get to it . So , 90 % of the time you ’ re recalling patches . You might want to edit a filter , you might want to edit an envelope . And those should all be quick and instant to get to , you shouldn ’ t have to dig through menus and that kind of thing .
I ’ ve worked with a lot of poorly designed keyboards over the years and learned out of that pain as an end user myself .
[ WM ] After playing your HydraSynth Deluxe , I can see you thought this out well . Tell us about the concept of the poly touch key bed ?
[ Glen ] For me , growing up as a sax player , expression in music is everything . And synthesizers had polyphonic aftertouch back in the seventies , and then it kind of went away . They just went to non-velocity keyboards … just on and off , like an organ . But at least organ players know how to use a swell pedal and bring in dynamics and stuff and use draw bars to change tonal qualities . I think that playing a synthesizer should be the same thing . There should be life and there should be an acoustic aspect to it . And the poly touch keyboard really
allows you to do that . So when you ’ re playing a chord , if you ’ re pushing on certain notes , all of a sudden you ’ re giving it this movement that gives it more of an acoustic instrument feel and not just something going on-off .
[ WM ] So I recorded a little instrumental tune of mine and used the HydraSynth for a portion of it . I got an organ patch I really liked , but it had that feel , that movement and that emotion to it because I could lean into the keys more and could get that vibe . It was terrific .
[ Glen ] Yes . Like with a good organ patch , you know , instead of just having your Leslie type of thing ‘ on or off ’ for the whole thing . What if you just want to hold a chord pad , but then on your melody , place something and then lean into a note and bring in vibrato ? Or bring in your Leslie on one note and you can do that kind of thing on a synthesizer with poly touch .
[ WM ] Yes , that ’ s amazing . So what are some of your favorite patches on the board ? What are your meat and potatoes that you would use mostly , especially in the church context ?
[ Glen ] In a church context ? Well , the HydraSynth is a pad monster . It ’ s great for backing , it ’ s great for layering . If you ’ ve got a digital piano sound and then you want to fill it out you might hit the piano and get that percussive sound . But then you might have some kind of a pad that ’ s moving and filling in the background .