Yeah totally. I think if I wasn’t already deep into modular I would have kept it. I just found that I could already do most of the stuff that ZOIA had under the hood with the modules I have and I didn’t like the fact that it was an isolated box outside of the system. I had a hard time even getting the delay and looper in Zoia to sync with my modular cv clock. It proved to be a futile exercise for something that I could do in eurorack much easier.
Yeah the looping is something that definitely was more advanced in Zoia, but I don’t need something that extensive.

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I never tried to sync it with anything so far. The loopers I use for more loose things, like I would the Cocoquantus for example.

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I can understand that. I am not in the position to get into Eurorack so this is for me the perfect compromise.

My problem with it is I spend more time working out ideas than doing anything with said ideas. Not a terrible problem to have but also not one conducive to productivity.

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Yep exactly the same. Oddly enough, that doesn’t happen with me with eurorack, just much more expensive!

I’ve had the Zoia for a couple of weeks and I like it quite a bit. I think the choice paralysis is real, and my recommendation for anyone experiencing this to bring out the Zoia when you have something specific in mind you would like it to do with it.

I don’t start with the Zoia. I don’t even use it every day. But when I have an idea to try out that I can’t easily reproduce with other tools, it’s been a great way to try things and iterate on ideas.

For me this is a valuable perspective to have when it comes to making music at all, to be honest. If I go into a session without some forethought of intent, I’ll end up slapping on a Rhodes loop, modulating the start time & length, and running it through a count to 5 & tape delay all night :laughing: That’s obviously ok sometimes. Exploration and all that. But not all the time.

The other thing I want to highlight is that I’m impressed with how intuitive I find working with the Zoia to be. Obviously, experience with modular synths or other modular instruments (ER-301 for example) helps a ton, but if you get the basics, the overhead of the Zoia interface itself was nil, for me at least. Pretty impressive.

Have you, or do you plan to, share any patches you’ve made?

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I adjusted a patch from Hainbach that will be uploaded, I think.

My own patches are very much made for each specific track. So in a way they are the track, or a big part of it. I don’t want to come of as selfish, but sharing them feels a bit weird to me. Maybe I will upload them at some point, but at the moment I couldn’t make myself do it. Hope that is somehow understandable, at least it’s honest, I guess.

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100% fair.

It’s interesting to me how these instruments themselves are flexible enough to be shaped in very personal ways, such that they are, as you say, part of the very expression, not simply tools.

I myself feel very protective even of signal paths I’ve found that I just love deeply.

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Does anyone knows how to sync a lfo to a looper ?

Obviously, experience with modular synths or other modular instruments (ER-301 for example) helps a ton

Hey @robbbiecloset, do you have experience with both ER-301 and Zoia? I haven’t run across anyone else who has. How would you compare the two in terms of workflow, power, flexibility, intuitiveness, etc.?

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Is it a parameter that can be patched? What is it you want to do?

I just realized it has a “tap” input option, that should be what I’m looking for !

Hm, I admit I hadn’t really compared them much before. I mean, they employ a similar strategy for allowing users to “build” instruments and effects, but for me at least, the similarity ends there: I use them for very different things and they each have their strengths.

As far as usability / workflow / etc, I don’t think I can fairly say either. It took me less time to get up to speed on the Zoia, but I’d been working in a modular context for much longer when I picked it up; it took me longer to “get” and be productive with the ER-301, but I had only been into modular synths for… 6 months or so?.. when I got it.

Sorry, I realize this probably doesn’t do much to answer your questions :sweat_smile: They’re both awesome!

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Well in fact, here’s what I want to achieve :
A sliced looper. You record a loop, then it’s split into 16 slices played by a sequencer at a rate = 16 faster than the length of the looper.
It might be possible with the “clock divider”, since, reading the docs, it seems to be able to clock by it’s own (unlike a typical clock divider) and can also multiply.

Red Means Recording has uploaded a whole bunch of patches to patchstorage and they look pretty tasty.

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Hello folks,

I am seriously considering purchasing the Zoia but had a few questions regarding its looping capabilities that weren’t answered by looking at the manual, I was wondering if some of the people in this thread could help me out?

One of my favourite tricks on my ehx memory man hazarai is to record one layer of a loop and set the overdub decay so that when I overdub I can entirely replace small sections of audio instead of layering like a traditional overdub. Is there a way that I can replicate this effect on the zoia?

Am I able to set it up so that with a single stomp press I can simultaneously erase a loop and be recording something else in its place?

I probably have other questions but if anyone is able to help me out with these two for now I would be very grateful!
Thanks

I’m pretty sure you can’t do that with the regular looper module. But there is the module called delay-line which basically is a delay without feedback, so it repeats things once. But if you feed it back into itself, it loops. So you could put a vca into the feedback path and mute parts while adding others.

There are a few downsides, though: You can’t tap in and out to set the first loop and its length. At least that’s how I understand it. I usually set the loop length in advance.

Also, the delay line degrades after a while of looping. I am not sure if this is a bug or supposed to be that way. But it does.

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I don’t have time now to experiment but what Tunnelwater is asking could be doable with another looper acting as a buffer and a mixer and audio switch to control whether the old loop or new signal gets put into the buffer looper.

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Thanks for the replies @boboter and @vegeta897, interesting stuff. I had thought that the delay line module could be the solution, I just hadn’t connected the dots to a VCA getting involved! Exact loop lengths aren’t particularly important for what I do so that’s okay. Strange to hear about the gradual degrading of the loop though, any idea how long until there is an audible difference? It seems like it’s getting lots of attention and regular updates so I suppose that lots can happen with it in the future.
Thanks!

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I’ve just got the Zoia. I’m also really interested in using it as a looper.
The possibilities with this thing are so huge you will quickly find other new favorite tricks you would never dream of with any other looper.
Had already great fun with sequencing the loop pitch.
I’m also sure there are a lot of things that aren’t possible. It’s a device that’s just not comparable to anything really.
The ease of setting up complex patches and saving them in a stomp box is its power.

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The degrading is audible rather fast. It basically gets a tiny bit worse with every repeat. So when your loop is longer it stays clean-ish longer. But you can basically hear it after a few minutes. I actually find that it sounds really cool and I already used it in a few tracks. But it is obviously not always desirable.

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