2021: A Year in Gear (What You've Bought or Want to Buy in 2021)

[sprnva]

Looking into this a bit more I'm leaning towards the DC7 now. Might as well try and get as much as I can running from the one unit. I've been thinning out things here over the last few months. Mostly on the software side. I can't see any thinning happening on the hardware side, and in fact I'd like to hook up a few more things but have ran out of power points. So the DC7 could absolutely help there while also tidying things up a little.

I'm still curious about the DC4 powered by a USB battery though. It could make for a nice solution to make a portable rig. Assuming there is a USB battery that can output enough power I guess.

Gonna go through my stuff and make notes about current draw and adapter sizes and see what I'd need to get.

[werp]

bought an asm hydrasynth keyboard last week. I may sell my desktop version. I don’t think I need 16 voices of hydrasynth and I’m now out of room...I could sell my 3 month old novation summit .... but...

[vurt]

Here's my micro setup. It looks like 0-Coast will arrive next week. I was really hoping to dig in this weekend. The worst part is that while it's in route, I keep toying with the idea of adding a 4ms desktop "pod" to house a small number of modules.

What I'd like to pick up is a filter module of some sort. Any suggestions of one (or a few) that's unlikely to be replaced later? I checked out unrelated comments on Reddit briefly and everything is a killah "must-have" module.

I've almost added morphagene several times (but at the moment I know it's because it looks crazy cool and I know samples).

couple of reasonably priced character filters, the doepfer wasp or sem are nice. or the erica polivoks.

i have the borg mentioned above too

the make noise and mutable filters are on my "one day in the future" list (which has now been bumped further into the future because my fridge is a twat )

as for morphagene

[elxsound]

Here's my micro setup.

Is that a laptop power brick running the DC4 in your pic? I'm thinking about some kind of power solution to thin out all the power adapters I have in my current setup (0-Coast, 0-Ctrl, Field Kit FX, guitar pedals, Volca Sample).

justin3am posted about the DC7 previously but that's a bit much for me right now. I'm gravitating towards the DC4 as it's cheaper and more compact and I think the 4 outputs would cover my needs fine for the time being. Also it seems to have a few options for it's own power.

Have you tried running it from a USB powerbank? I wonder would it be able to power all of the above from one. I have the Field Kit FX, two Boss pedals and a Zoom Multistomp all running from the Field Kit FX's psu with a daisy chain splitter cable. That might be a bit high on the current draw but even if it could run the FKFX that would be fine. I could put the pedals and splitter cable onto a Boss psu.

In this setup, the brick is powering the BlueBox. Their wall-wart is bulky it gets noisy when not plugged into the power-brik.

Normally I do run pedals off the Cioks4 (4x 600mA each), powered by the brick, but the Polly Effects Beebo doesn't like it.
The Beebo requires 500mA so it should work but for some reason, it just doesn't. I have the Eventide Rose which also draws 500mA and while it does work, it gets noisy when sharing the same power supply with other pedals, so I use a separate USB to 9V adapter for the Rose and a separate brick. This is the one I use here and it says it supports up to 800mA. I just haven't tried it with Beebo yet. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GD54Q66?ps ... ct_details

I also have the Eventide PowerMax, which is made by Cioks. It's *almost* the same as the DC7, but instead of 7 variable/adjustable ports, you only have 4 with the other 3 fixed at 9V. At full price, it's only a slight saving, but the Eventide PowerMax does go on sale, while I've rarely seen the DC7 on sale.

Maybe Justin can chime in about powering those? The field kit is on my list (but I'm still trying to wrap my head around how I'd make the most of it if I had it).

[justin3am]

Super weird that you weren't able to power the Beebo from the DC4. I find the output ratings on the DC7 and DC8 to be pretty conservative. I wonder if one of the Cioks parallel adapters would help but then you would have one device using two power outputs.

With the DC7, I've powered all three Make Noise boxes, a 64HP 4MS Pod, both Field Kits and still had enough juice to connect a few Hungry Robot pedals.

[sprnva]

Thanks for the info. I've been doing more research and the DC7 should be able to replace five of my power supplies. On Thomann, the PowerMax is actually a little more expensive for me than the DC7.

The 0-Coast and 0-Ctrl would take up one output each. The BAM would require two outputs and a parallel cable to combine the current. The Volca and Field Kit FX would each take one output (the FKFX comes with a 2A PSU but the manual states 640mA max for the power requirement), leaving one output for my pedals (all of which are comfortably under 660mA combined) which can be powered with the included 3-way splitter cable.

If the DC7 had an on/off switch it would be ideal as the Volca is the only device listed which has a power button. But I have all of these connected to a power board with switched sockets so I can just plug the DC7 into that and switch everything on/off in one go.

Update:

Thinking about this a little more I could probably put the Volca and pedals onto one output with a two-way splitter cable. That frees up another output. I was thinking about putting my reface CP onto that. The official Yamaha PSU is 12v 0.7A but the specs for the reface claim it only draws 6v and it can also be powered by 6xAA batteries. So I'm wondering if it would run fine on a single output. Has anyone powered a reface from one of these Cioks supplies?

[foosnark]

What I'd like to pick up is a filter module of some sort. Any suggestions of one (or a few) that's unlikely to be replaced later? I checked out unrelated comments on Reddit briefly and everything is a killah "must-have" module.

Filters are really subjective, but few filters are actually bad, so I'm not surprised

I don't do much typical subtractive synthesis in the modular, so I like my filters to have some other functionality. I happened to land on these:

Mutable Instruments Blades: I like the character in general. The routing is really flexible, and dual filters give you a lot more character options than a single one. The drive/folder stages are nice.
When it's self-oscillating you can use the CVable mode for phase modulation, so you can have one filter modulating the other almost like a Buchla 259 style complex oscillator

Schlappi Engineering Angle Grinder: I got this to replace the Joranalogue Filter 8, which to me sounds a little plain. It's got the same feature set (except 4 outputs rather than 8 ) but also, waveshaping in the feedback path which makes it way more interesting as an oscillator and gives it some cool tricks as a filter too. It's super stable and clean, unless you have just a little bit of damping in which case it can be very chaotic and squirrelly and fun Also its highpass sounds better to me somehow than any other I've heard, for whatever reason... I don't know what it is about it.

Xaoc Katowice: a CVable shelving EQ / frequency band splitter, but you can use it as a non-resonant filter too. I was expecting to use it for multiband processing in the rack, but honestly, my favorite thing to do with it is phaser/tremolo stuff.

I've used several other filters in the past, and among the best of those IMHO were:

Random*Source Serge VCFQ: I sold it when I felt like I had too many filters, but it does sound really nice, sweet and organic. Pings nicely, but does not self-oscillate without self-patching and very careful tweaking. If I was more into subtractive synthesis generally, I probably would have kept this and let go of Angle Grinder instead.

Mannequins Three Sisters: nice character, does formant stuff as well as lowpass/variable width bandpass/highpass, nice for FM. The mix output distorts on purpose if you push it even a little bit, which almost nobody likes... but you can safely mix outputs with a passive mult.

Xaoc Belgrad: I felt it was kind of complex and awkward to work with, but sounded quite good and was very flexible.

[elxsound]

@sprnva I had an extra wi-fi plug that I was using with the PowerMax. It didn't introduce any extra noise either. It has an on/off button but also does the "Alexa/Google, turn on/off pedal board" thing.

@everyone, thank you for the filter recommendations! I'm going to do my homework because I see there are lots of different ways they were designed to be used, but that's a great thing. I already have a wonderful low-pass filter on the Ottobit Jr., but triggering the filter, is going to be amazing.

For the pods, they have two different depths of 34mm and 51mm (in the "X" size). I would love to keep the modules under 34mm in max depth, but I'm not against the 51mm if something warrants it.

Homework time!

[elxsound]

Super weird that you weren't able to power the Beebo from the DC4. I find the output ratings on the DC7 and DC8 to be pretty conservative. I wonder if one of the Cioks parallel adapters would help but then you would have one device using two power outputs.

With the DC7, I've powered all three Make Noise boxes, a 64HP 4MS Pod, both Field Kits and still had enough juice to connect a few Hungry Robot pedals.

I'm going to play around with troubleshooting it this weekend and either reach out to Cioks or PollyEffects if I can't resolve it. It is strange. I haven't tried it with the PowerMax, but that'll be one of the first things to attempt.

I've mostly been focused on getting used to connecting/disconnecting this little setup because it all has to come down when not in use. It's getting easier even if it's less than ideal

[ghettosynth]

I think that what filters you like are also dependent on what you want to do with it. I don't mean that in a completely trite way, even though it may come across that way. I mean that some filters have a lot of character, but have quirks that will get in the way if you expect it to be more precise and technical. Do you want it to self oscillate and then act as an in-tune sin oscillator over multiple octaves? Or is that less important than it being somewhat unstable and characterfull?

So it ends up being a balance of features and design. The one thing that I would suggest is not to get feature drunk at first. A good filter won't be all things to all applications.

Also, you cannot possibly have just one filter. It's just not possible.

[vurt]

yeah, eventually it's nice to have a few "flavours" but for a kick off, added to the ottobit, one that adds something beyond lopass would be a good idea!

[Shabdahbriah]

Yeah, agree completely with what they ^^^ both said ^^^ (and the others)

+1 on the Schlappi Engineering Angle Grinder. Very versatile/expressive.

Speaking of 'variety', and features without being overly complex, not to mention price ($120), here's a new kid (nice local guy, actually) with a sweet stereo filter. Check-out what he does @10:48. Simple but effective.

So, something like this and a likewise inexpensive and 'character-full' Doepfer Wasp, would be a fun, accessible, and potentially rewarding combo for some additional shaping, warping, colouring, and textures, as you cross-pollinate your MN sound toys. [2c]

[Shabdahbriah]

.. dp

[imrae]

If you DIY and don't want extra features I love my God's Box Humpback. Clean with a good squelch, retains bass with resonance and makes an excellent V/oct sine oscillator.

[pekbro]

So i guess i signed up for one of these things.

https://www.modulargrid.net/e/other-unknown-beettweek

Gotta be on account of my Logitec FF steering wheel affinity.