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

[whyterabbyt]

what dpez happen if you boil a tape loop?

it makes your tea taste warbly.

[justin3am]

In my eurorack modular, I frequently use a pair of mixers to create an open feedback loop, and wet/dry mix for signal processors which can operate 100% wet. This gets tricky with stereo/dual-channel processors because I don't have as many stereo mixers in my rack. My utility mixers are all mono, because I mainly patch in mono.

I came across this module Umbra...

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4362151513 ... lator-10hp

It's a stereo patch-able feeback loop with VCAs to control the input level, feedback amount and return level. I'm glad that they didn't attempt to cram it into 4HP or something. It looks nicely spaced out. There are some features I wish it had, but this is gonna work out really well for my purposes. I suspect it will pair well with SSF's Autodub.

[elxsound]

Damn. That’s the first module in a bit that has my GAS up. Nice thoughtful controls.


This is definitely a vurt kinda module too

Please let us know what you think once you get it. I see 3 week build time, and seems it’s getting popular too.

[ghettosynth]

In my eurorack modular, I frequently use a pair of mixers to create an open feedback loop, and wet/dry mix for signal processors which can operate 100% wet. This gets tricky with stereo/dual-channel processors because I don't have as many stereo mixers in my rack. My utility mixers are all mono, because I mainly patch in mono.

I came across this module Umbra...

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4362151513 ... lator-10hp

It's a stereo patch-able feeback loop with VCAs to control the input level, feedback amount and return level. I'm glad that they didn't attempt to cram it into 4HP or something. It looks nicely spaced out. There are some features I wish it had, but this is gonna work out really well for my purposes. I suspect it will pair well with SSF's Autodub.

Keep us up to date on how you get on with it. I just watched a video about this module just this morning. Also, I agree that cramming playable modules into tiny spaces is self-defeating.

[justin3am]

Will do!
I have an Hors d'oeuvre? pedal from Fairfield and it's really handy when I need a feedback loop but don't want to setup a mixer. I also have some passive feedback loops which are a ton of fun with fuzz and wah pedals which can't handle a buffered output. I had recently thought about putting a pair of passive feedback loops behind a blank panel (may still do that) but then I saw this!

[foosnark]

nicely spaced out

Me too. ...oh wait.


Mimetic Digitwolis showed up at my doorstep. The little worries I had about it being fiddly to work with are gone -- I was comfortable with it in a few minutes without even looking at the manual again (I skimmed it back when preorders opened). I got a cool polyrhythmic rotating sequence going without much trouble at all, and played with the quantizer mode a bit too. Haven't messed with MIDI yet, but there's already a firmware update so I'll grab that before I start digging too deep and actually looking at the manual again

[justin3am]

I was surprised at how much Mimetic Digitwolis does, without seeming over-complicated. The display is also very readable despite how much info they are cramming into such a small space. Very cool sequencer/quantizer!

[Shabdahbriah]

I came across this module Umbra...

That looks really useful. And I love the aesthetic.

[foosnark]

Yeah, even with my poor eyesight that tiny screen does the job just fine.

Updated the firmware, got out the new USB to MIDI adapter I'd bought and have been playing with that too. You can use notes either to program the note sequencer, or to set which scale notes the sequencer or quantizer are restricted to, which can get pretty wild. You can also use CC values to program steps, which works great with my 16n Faderbank.

Even just getting the four channels to interact without external inputs is pretty great. I've got one running now where triggers on C and D randomize and zero the note values on channel A (and also fire modulation envelopes), with channel B doing a rising ramp for more modulation, and all the channel lengths are different so it's this evolving pattern... fun stuff

[kritikon]

How do you guys have any idea what these things do? You must be psychic or something. That Umbra thing has some completely unmarked jacks, some with googly-eyed Egyptian heiroglyphics, then a couple of cryptic jacks with "Imbue" and "Drain" that I have to say means absolutely less than f**k all to me . I swear that Guardian cryptic crosswords for the Chinese version are easier to figure out. Where do you go to learn modular language? I've never seen any courses at any of my local polytechs...


...I have a sneaking suspicion that really you just patch wires in and out and twiddle knobs in a very hopeful manner until some noise just randomly comes out of it. Amiright?

[cryophonik]

If kritikon suddenly goes missing, we’ll know why…

[justin3am]

How do you guys have any idea what these things do? You must be psychic or something. That Umbra thing has some completely unmarked jacks, some with googly-eyed Egyptian heiroglyphics, then a couple of cryptic jacks with "Imbue" and "Drain" that I have to say means absolutely less than f**k all to me . I swear that Guardian cryptic crosswords for the Chinese version are easier to figure out. Where do you go to learn modular language? I've never seen any courses at any of my local polytechs...


...I have a sneaking suspicion that really you just patch wires in and out and twiddle knobs in a very hopeful manner until some noise just randomly comes out of it. Amiright?

We've seen the same kind of thing in plug-ins, right? Some makers take a more creative approach to UI but the functions are usually spelled out in documentation.

With Umbra, the 'Imbue' control is also labeled "In', indicating it controls the input VCA. The 'Drain' control is also labeled "Rtn", it controls the Return VCA. Lines show which jacks are related to each function. It's a signal router consisting of multiple VCAs, which are connected together such that they form two feedback loops when nothing is connected to the Send/Return jacks.

At some point you don't even read the panel. It's just visual cues and memory. You go over the manual a few times and it becomes familiar.

[foosnark]

I'm really curious about this one:

https://joranalogue.com/products/walk-4



Seems like it has tons of potential...

[ghettosynth]

How do you guys have any idea what these things do? You must be psychic or something. That Umbra thing has some completely unmarked jacks, some with googly-eyed Egyptian heiroglyphics, then a couple of cryptic jacks with "Imbue" and "Drain" that I have to say means absolutely less than f**k all to me . I swear that Guardian cryptic crosswords for the Chinese version are easier to figure out. Where do you go to learn modular language? I've never seen any courses at any of my local polytechs...


...I have a sneaking suspicion that really you just patch wires in and out and twiddle knobs in a very hopeful manner until some noise just randomly comes out of it. Amiright?

3AM is correct, but I also think that there can be more to it than that. It comes out of just having developed a technical background over time. The U/I labels can be tedious when they go too far, or even worse, when the vision behind the module goes too far and expresses it in the module. I'm probably the exception here, but I often dislike Make Noise for this reason.

A good example of technical background demands are in the ring mod as reverb video in the ring mod thread where it was discussing how phase inversion has a psychoacoustic effect in terms of making you think the sound is coming from somewhere else. Then divkid shows you how to leverage this idea in different ways with respect to the faux reverb effect. But to really grok this you need to have thought at least a little bit about psychoacoustics, you should probably understand what a balanced modulator actually is and why, where, and how, it reverses the phase. For me, much of that background comes from radio electronics where intuition about FM, AM, SSB, DSB, among others is built naturally around their use.

At some point you start to develop an understanding of when things are genuinely technically interesting or just something of a jumble of low tech elements crammed behind a panel. You start to see the lineage in more detail, e.g., Bode->Buchla->Serge->Make Noise and you can tease apart where there is actual innovation and where eye-rolling is deserved.

Also, you start to appreciate from your own playing style when, if, and how the U/I design matters to you. In the case of Umbra, I think that it's great, but, it is on the edge of going to deep into aesthetics if the module were much more complex.

But, reading the manual once is how you understand what it is, and sometimes, the manual can help you figure out how to use it, but, when it can't, you have to project onto your own background. I quickly realized how useful the NLS Logorrhea module could be the minute I looked up the main chip that they used for VCAs. I didn't even need to look at the schematic, because seeing the datasheet of the chip told me what I needed to know. The manual states that it is the back end of a vocoder, ok, that's helpful, but the datasheet locked in specifically how it's implemented and, thus, what precisely is meant by that.

I don't really know what it's like to come at this without an electronics background. I do think that some people just plug stuff in until it sounds good. I harshly judge almost all Rings->Clouds ambient for this reason and refuse to create that, even though I could, and I might even like how what I created sounded.

(One of my newest filters)

[vurt]

...I have a sneaking suspicion that really you just patch wires in and out and twiddle knobs in a very hopeful manner until some noise just randomly comes out of it. Amiright?

speaking for myself, pretty much.