UDO Super 6 - Patches Studio & Randomizer

Identified Dancing Objects
1

Hi everyone, I want to show you something I’ve been making for the Super 6: a Patches Studio that runs in your browser, with a random preset generator built in.

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A little background first. I really love this synth, but there’s one thing that always slowed me down. Making and managing presets is just hard work for me. I’m someone who likes to move fast. I want to dig through tons of sounds, throw out ideas, and see where they go. The Super 6 sounds incredible, but it doesn’t really let me work that way. Every preset takes careful, patient tweaking, and that eats a lot of time.

And honestly, the bigger pain was managing the presets at all. There’s no official software that makes this comfortable. Every time I wanted to reorganize something I had to plug the synth in, swap files by hand, and I couldn’t even hear a preset before loading it.

So at some point I thought, why not build my own studio? A place where I could generate sounds and listen to them right away.

The tricky part: the Super 6 has a closed architecture, so you can’t just generate the preset files directly. The values inside them aren’t public. So I went a different, simpler way and used MIDI CC to control the parameters instead.

Here’s how it feels to use. You plug in your Super 6, open the web app, and just start playing in the studio. You shape patches, generate new ones, and send the ones you like straight to the synth with a single click. When a sound makes you smile, you save it right on the synth the normal way. That’s the whole flow. Nothing in the way, and you can hear everything as you go.

Here’s what already works in the current version:

  • Runs in the browser, nothing to install. Works in Chrome or Edge over Web MIDI. Connect, pick the Super-6 output, and you’re in.
  • The panel works both ways. Every fader and switch goes out live over MIDI, and when you turn a knob on the synth, the on-screen panel moves with it. LOCAL stays on, so the synth keeps playing from its own panel too.
  • A preset library you can browse by category (Pad, Bass, Lead, Keys, Arp, Strings, Drone, Brass, Stab, Pluck, Lo-Fi, FX, Drums) or search by name. Open a patch and it loads straight into the synth.
  • Auditioning is built right in. There’s a mini keyboard you can play with your computer keys, plus a transport with chord progression, step sequence, melody and drone, adjustable BPM, octave shift, and an instant all-notes-off.
  • A random generator that builds a fresh patch using real sound-design rules for the style you pick, so what comes out is musical, not just noise.
  • A “Vary This Sound” button that nudges the current patch by a random amount for happy accidents, with one click to jump back to the original.
  • A little dice on each panel section, so you can re-roll just that part (filter, envelopes, modulation, and so on).
  • One click to send any favorite to the synth, then save it on the Super 6 itself.

For now I’m just sharing a few screenshots and a short video. It’s still a work in progress and I’m building it piece by piece. If this is something you’d actually want to use, I’d love to hear from you. Drop a comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading.

SynthyCraft 2
3 Likes
3

Wow! Looks extra! I’m waiting for it :heart_on_fire:

4

This looks killer and something I’d really be interested in using. Thank you for the update!

5

This looks absolutely fantastic! Please continue to develop this further. A lot of people on here have been waiting a long time for something like this.

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you went the extra mile going further then just patch management, love it!

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I wish this editor success. It’s been tried before, though afaik never made available to Super6 owners. Did UDO release a full list of NRPN for every setting on the synth, or did Synthy Craft work them out by laborious trial and error? Let’s wait and see if it is released. Proof of the pudding and all that.

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Hi everyone,

Thank you for responding to my post about working on a Patch Studio for the UDO Super 6. I can see that what I am building is genuinely useful, and it makes sense for me to bring this application to a finished release.

I want to clarify one important thing first: this is not a patch manager.

The synth has its own technical limitations, so I decided to work around them by using MIDI CC data directly to control sounds, settings, and patch creation. In other words, everything related to patches is stored inside the application. All you need to do is send a finished patch to the synth, and when you like the sound, you simply save it on the Super 6 itself.

For me, this is the simplest, most effective, and most practical approach.

You will be able to generate patches, edit them, save your own collection of sounds, and build a library of custom settings inside the app. Managing patches in a dedicated application is far easier and more convenient than doing everything directly on the synth, because you can use prepared starting points, random generators, editing tools, and other features that make the whole process faster and more creative.

I have decided that the first version will be a native macOS application.

If you are interested in other versions or platforms, please let me know.

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Brilliant, can’t wait for the first release!

10

Did you figure out something clever around mod matrix not being controllable? It seems unlikely it will be supported in MIDI unless UDO choose to do a major revision of the firmware.

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Hey, yeah I actually dug into this properly before answering. Short answer is no, there’s no way around it. I went through the whole MIDI spec in the v1.4 manual (the CC list, the RPNs and the NRPN patch parameters) and the mod matrix just isn’t in there at all. Everything that has a CC or NRPN is a fixed front panel control, and the NRPNs are basically higher resolution versions of those same knobs. Nothing addresses a matrix slot, so no editor can reach it over MIDI. You’re right that it would take a real firmware change from UDO for that.
The upside is that almost everything else is reachable. My app controls all 68 of the CC mapped parameters, including the built in modulation amounts: LFO1 to filter, pitch and VCA, Env1 to the DDS, both envelopes, the LFO2 amounts, drift, PWM, dynamics, chorus and delay. So the generator can still spit out really alive, moving patches purely over MIDI, since that’s where most of the character and movement in a sound actually sits.
The stuff that only lives in the matrix, like velocity or aftertouch or a pedal going somewhere, you just set that up by hand on the synth when a patch needs it. It’s quick with MOD ASSIGN. So I usually generate and shape the sound over MIDI first, then add the expressive matrix moves on the hardware after. Works really well in practice.

Let me know if you’re tinkering with something similar, happy to swap notes.

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I started on something 5 years ago but put it on hold since only the fixed controls were controllable. Instead I helped Sunny Synths with figuring out the patch format for Super 6. In my opinion the most viable way of integrating the synth with external tools is making it fully MIDI controllable and support patch handling with sysex.

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I must await approval from UDO.
@udo-audio check your e-mail please

14

Sounds like a positive add on feature - when do you think we could try it?