2025: A Year in Gear (What You've Bought or Want to Buy in 2025)

[mjolnir]

I've been studying how to use the ZOOM R8.
A lot of YouTubers seem to have completely overlooked:

1) change the quantization away from 1-bar and the WAV sequencer becomes a sampling drum machine instead of a phrase sampler.
2) load up 1-shot drum samples as 1-shots instead of loops.
3) the ZOOM R8 works in Linux as an audio interface as "ZOOM R8 USB MIXER" or "ZOOM R8 (2 channels)". I think even standard syntax "hw:R8" works.
4) the common 32 MiB microSD cards also work inside the R8 with the microSD adapter that comes with the chip.

[foosnark]

MiniBrute 2S arrived today
Only had a couple of hours fiddling with it, but great first impressions.

It's a great little synth, I think it's often underrated. Both "East Coast" and "West Coast" even more so than the 0-Coast is. I saw another fan compare it to the Buchla Easel, and... I think it's actually a fair comparison in a lot of ways. (Add a passive vactrol to it, like the Mystic Circuits 0HP ones, and it's even closer.)

The patchbay is definitely worth exploring. I don't recall it coming with any stacking cables, but those are useful for things like patching Osc 2 to both sync and linear FM. There's a bit of weirdness in how things are laid out there -- if you want to use "Att 1" to attenuate a signal you'll probably also want to patch a dummy cable into Cutoff to break that connection. But once you get to know its quirks it's really powerful.

Even better with another semi-modular. I like Strega with it, pairing its dirty delay with the distortion MB can provide (especially going through the "Metal In", replacing the triangle osc).

[vurt]

jumbler arrived

[vurt]

im still hoping (slowly fading) that ill find them in a box with pops or lego.
things got a bit frantic and messed up in the move, and trying to get a house full of synth and collectibles, into one bedroom, is proving difficult
i should buy them again quick, before tariffs kick in

Is the Trump tariff war causing increased prices for electronic gear, for people in the UK?

I recently rushed to build a new computer for myself, because I figured tariffs would soon make computer component prices skyrocket here in the USA.

tbh, im not 100% sure either way.
but make noise purchase components which i assume come from china? so will be priced accordingly.
id imagine it's different for companies who get stuff built in china, as they can ship worldwide from factory, but built in usa has to go through at least one set of tariffs.
im just worried the price will increase, on items i may well have somewhere already, and don't want to be paying double again

[foosnark]

So, for those who have a Jumbler, could you clarify a couple of things?

- When you set Rotate far enough off noon, the outputs cut off. When that happens, do they all cut out suddenly, or one at a time? Do they go quiet more gradually with Radiate turned up, or is it a sudden cut?

- I have this assumption that with Rotate at noon and Radiate set fairly high but not maxed, it works a lot like Nearness -- e.g. if you monitor outputs 1 and 6 as a stereo pair, you can control where signals are panned by choosing which input to patch. Is that true?

- The manual hints at this, but I want to confirm: let's say you patch two oscillators (high and low) into into inputs 1 and 4, monitor outputs 1 and 4 as an L/R stereo pair, and set Radiate moderately high. Is it possible to modulate Rotate with a sawtooth in a way to get a sort of circular panning, where it sounds like the low/high oscillators are orbiting smoothly around the center?

[pekbro]

I imagine make noise will pass any tariff costs onto the customers.

[vurt]

I imagine make noise will pass any tariff costs onto the customers.

i would imagine so too, hence wanting to get in before the tariffs start up.

[vurt]

So, for those who have a Jumbler, could you clarify a couple of things?

- When you set Rotate far enough off noon, the outputs cut off. When that happens, do they all cut out suddenly, or one at a time? Do they go quiet more gradually with Radiate turned up, or is it a sudden cut?

- I have this assumption that with Rotate at noon and Radiate set fairly high but not maxed, it works a lot like Nearness -- e.g. if you monitor outputs 1 and 6 as a stereo pair, you can control where signals are panned by choosing which input to patch. Is that true?

- The manual hints at this, but I want to confirm: let's say you patch two oscillators (high and low) into into inputs 1 and 4, monitor outputs 1 and 4 as an L/R stereo pair, and set Radiate moderately high. Is it possible to modulate Rotate with a sawtooth in a way to get a sort of circular panning, where it sounds like the low/high oscillators are orbiting smoothly around the center?

can't help yet, too warm in my room to play yet, but ill give it a try when i get in there

[foosnark]

I imagine make noise will pass any tariff costs onto the customers.

i would imagine so too, hence wanting to get in before the tariffs start up.

I saw news that Future Retro (who is also US-based -- I had thought they were British!) is having trouble with the unpredictability of Trump's Calvinball economics. They've stopped production of the Vectra, and they can't reissue the FR 777 like they had planned because of parts availability problems.

[justin3am]

Yeah, many companies who rely on imports from China would have to charge more than people are willing to pay for their products to offset tariffs. I've spoken with a few people who say their employers are delaying shipments from their manufacturers and may stop selling products in the US, because that makes more economic sense than hiking the price. My employer is struggling with similar decisions. Hopefully the stock that we already have in the US will be enough to get us through the next few months. Other companies may be in a more precarious position already.

[justin3am]

I don't know if the same tariffs are being leveraged against all components, that are on complete products. I seem to remember that Make Noise do some level of assembly in the US.
A friend was telling me that if you have PCBs stuffed with active components in China and then shipped to the US, that is still being taxed at a relatively low rate (25% or 34%, I can't remember), where an assembled product will be taxed at 145%. So if a company has their PCB assembly done in China and mechanical assembly here in the US, then they won't get hit as hard.
I know of at least one company that's looking into moving production from the US to Canada because some components they need are being taxed at 145%.

[vurt]

So, for those who have a Jumbler, could you clarify a couple of things?

- When you set Rotate far enough off noon, the outputs cut off. When that happens, do they all cut out suddenly, or one at a time? Do they go quiet more gradually with Radiate turned up, or is it a sudden cut?

- I have this assumption that with Rotate at noon and Radiate set fairly high but not maxed, it works a lot like Nearness -- e.g. if you monitor outputs 1 and 6 as a stereo pair, you can control where signals are panned by choosing which input to patch. Is that true?

- The manual hints at this, but I want to confirm: let's say you patch two oscillators (high and low) into into inputs 1 and 4, monitor outputs 1 and 4 as an L/R stereo pair, and set Radiate moderately high. Is it possible to modulate Rotate with a sawtooth in a way to get a sort of circular panning, where it sounds like the low/high oscillators are orbiting smoothly around the center?

1) it can be smooth or sudden, depending where radiate is set.

2) with radiate set around 3oclock i get this effect.

3) yes it seems to, not just a left and right pan (im nicking this one)

[foosnark]

1) it can be smooth or sudden, depending where radiate is set.

2) with radiate set around 3oclock i get this effect.

3) yes it seems to, not just a left and right pan (im nicking this one)

Fantastic, thanks!

I'm leaning more toward going for it. I was playing with Silhouette today and I do like its lo-fi reverb... but there are a few ways I could make space for Jumbler, and dropping Silhouette is really only one of them.

[update: yeah I went for it ]

[vurt]

1) it can be smooth or sudden, depending where radiate is set.

2) with radiate set around 3oclock i get this effect.

3) yes it seems to, not just a left and right pan (im nicking this one)

Fantastic, thanks!

I'm leaning more toward going for it. I was playing with Silhouette today and I do like its lo-fi reverb... but there are a few ways I could make space for Jumbler, and dropping Silhouette is really only one of them.

ill try and work out a way to set my camera show i can show you and you can listen, just to be sure.
but i got distracted with the sub and saw from xpo after i added some strega, nothing much going on in either really, but jumbler made it sound cool. im looking forward to actually patching it, with some sampler inputs too.

ive been doing similar with the first mode on cvilization, but now i can free both of them for mucorder, and possible future modes.

[vurt]

I don't know if the same tariffs are being leveraged against all components, that are on complete products. I seem to remember that Make Noise do some level of assembly in the US.
A friend was telling me that if you have PCBs stuffed with active components in China and then shipped to the US, that is still being taxed at a relatively low rate (25% or 34%, I can't remember), where an assembled product will be taxed at 145%. So if a company has their PCB assembly done in China and mechanical assembly here in the US, then they won't get hit as hard.
I know of at least one company that's looking into moving production from the US to Canada because some components they need are being taxed at 145%.

yup, it's a shitter all round really, im guessing there will be knock on effects around the world, causing not only price increases, but then people lose jobs so no money to spend, so more businesses lose out...

good luck at your place