#405

Funny you say this, I was initially planning on getting a arbhar but I officially took it out of my Modulargrid yesterday because I am pretty sure I could replicate a unit that could do similar enough stuff. hoping to do so this weekend. That was just my personal opinion though because I was tight on space. Its not going to be exactly the same, but there is a lot of room for creativity in developing your own units on ER-301.

Probably not because my guess is that you are going to find many ways to use it even if that is the reason you justify purchasing it. I love that you can create full units within it and recall them, making the module into whatever you want it to be. and also the fact that it has four channels means you could have a sampler on one channel, a granulator on another channel and so on…

2 Likes
#406

I don’t really know anything about the Arbhar. For the ER-301, you could have a look at the documentation for the Manual Grains unit, which will give you some insight into how it handles granular as well as what controls are available to you. It’s probably noteworthy that those controls can be hand-set, modulated by an incoming signal from another module, or modulated by an internal DSP chain in the ER-301 (or a combination of those).

http://wiki.orthogonaldevices.com/index.php/ER-301/Manual_Grains

That is one of three granular players currently available, and there is also a grain based delay unit. They all have different strengths/purposes.

2 Likes
#407

I don’t know enough about the arbhar to give a fully educated insight into this comparison, but I think it’s likely that arbhar will be more specialized and do granular in its own way better than if you were going to try to recreate it with the 301. That’s not to say that the 301 granular isn’t amazing. The flip side is arbhar won’t be able to do granular like the 301 (buffer time, buffer editing, real time granular, having access to way more material via the sd card, etc), as well as everything else you can do with the 301 which is literally overwhelming. Also, arbhar seems to have an amazing reverb which really enhances whatever granular stuff it spits out.

I think you could confidently replace clouds with the 301 save for reverb. In my opinion reverb is the big hole in the 301. The available reverb is barely fine. I use other stuff for reverb, but it would be cool to have something better in the 301. The delay options are amazing though. But, even with all the delay options I still have a magneto and mimeophon in my case.

So, long story short: if you like granular I’d get arbhar and 301.

1 Like
#408

My main problem, sir or madam is that I like it all!!

I’ve heard this about the 301 reverb. That makes sense, considering how much headroom reverb can eat. I definitely would remove the clouds and rings. I enjoy them, but they don’t provide as much at the moment. Plus, with an ES-8, I could access some solid facsimiles pretty easily. Finally, for reverb, with two diy norns and an ES-8 I feel I could probably get some good reverb (modular through the plateau thank you!).

Some of what excites me is the buffer manipulation some write about as well as the i2c with the teletype. Having the ability to work with these buffers so in both a very deliberate and yet potentially random way is very intriguing and something I can’t really shake the excitement of.

#409

I haven’t dug into i2c with the 301 yet but I would really like to. I’ve also got an Es-9 on order with the intention of utilizing the computer as an effects and sequencing option as well which I think will really compliment the 301.

1 Like
#410

I’ve got a line on a 301 made in 2017. Has anything major changed between then and now? It’s rev 7.

1 Like
#411

Rev 7 needs a slight/easy mod to work with i2c. It’s super easy, and there is a walk-through on the O|D forum.

the thread link.

3 Likes
#412

Thanks thanks thanks thanks!

1 Like
#413

Man, I really, really DO want what a module that works that way. At first I thought it would be the Zoia EuroBuro, but then the more I look in to the 301, the more I desire it… It sounds like it does so much of what I want it to do.

Interesting! I’m curious if you decide to go with ER-301 over Euroburo. Both are highly desirable, but for me, the Euroburo is 100% going to work as described and be exactly what I need. I sold my Zoia in anticipation of it (perhaps prematurely, I wasn’t expecting covid-related delays, lol). I don’t have hands-on experience with the ER-301, but a big appeal of the Euroburo for me is immediacy and building tools in the moment. The UI experience is fantastic and very fast once you get used to it. I will say this, though: its granular features are nice to have but they won’t replace my Nebulae v2 anytime soon, whereas my friends with ER-301 really do feel like the granular aspects of it cover Neb’s functions and more quite handily.

It’s good to be spoiled for choice, in any case.

1 Like
#414

Let’s talk more about crow/301. Sounds like, at the very least, crow can serve as the ultimate modulator by controlling various aspects of the 302 via i2c. Yeah? Like, sending precise sequence for jumping to specific slices within the variable sampler? Easy as pie with Crow?

I don’t fully understand how the 301 “sees” input over i2c and where one would assign that, but I assume the info is out there (I haven’t looked, but will today).

What I’m ultimately after (right now anyway) is a way to control the buffer playback speed in a sequenced, quantized manner- say, restricting the change to 1, .5, and .25.

2 Likes
#415

Easy to do. You basically write the command ii.er301.cv(PORT, VOLT) in your crow script or Druid where port is a number 1-99 and then you set up a SC.CV device with the same port value as the modulator to playback speed on variable speed sample player. You then would figure out what voltages map to 1/2 and quarter speed (that’s the only part that might be slightly tricky as you’d have to play around to figure out the values that map exactly to the speeds you want as that’s a continuous control.

6 Likes
#416

Starting to wrap my head around things slowly. Was pretty happy with where I got with the Manual Grains module. Having fun!

9 Likes
#417

Gosh dang. Can’t wait to find get my hands on one of these bad boys!

1 Like
#418

I have been curious about the er301 but never looked into it, mostly to avoid gas. But I have been thinking about it more lately and remembered @scttcmpbll’s tape unit. I currently have a magneto in my case pretty much exclusively for the tape saturation and warble effects. How close could I get to the magneto sound out of the er301? Because if I’m understanding things right, I could basically have 4 mono or 2 stereo magneto like channels instead of just one stereo pair?

#419

I have both and you won’t replicate magneto with tape trash or trash echo. I suppose you’ll get close if you’re only looking for tape like sounds, but the units from @scttcmpbll are more versatile in terms of imparting anything from subtle “tape” to completely blown out “tape”. Also, the units on the 301 use up a not insignificant amount of cpu. I think they are worth it though. Finally, magneto has significantly more features as a delay with four heads, shift mode, looping, etc.

2 Likes
#420

Thanks for the reply. I don’t find I use much of the Magento. But maybe I do. Ha. I certainly don’t modulate it much. Kinda set and forget.

1 Like
#421

So do you use it for a looper? Some of Omri Cohen experiments feeding it with piano or radio to the looper function have been really cool. Modulating things can also bring some very interesting playability to the Magneto. Personally, I don’t think the ER-301 makes for a good Clouds or Magneto clone which is okay just a Disting is not a Piston Honda. Some of the utilities and custom units offer great ways of building voices or dealing with complex sample playback along with granular features too.

#422

I think the 301 will get you closer to clouds than magneto for sure. If all you’re looking for is tape like sound then the magneto and the 301 may be overkill. You can impart tape like sound with many cheaper tools, including actual tape (the 301 is quite expensive, as is magneto). If encourage you to dive into magneto a bit more.

As an example of a use case for 301, in my current patch the 301 is doing the following: looper, shared granular buffer from looper (real time granular), trash echo on the granular buffer, filtering all around, sample playback and manipulation, bass from sine osc and envelope, mixing of other voices from the modular.

1 Like
#423

Not really. I shouldn’t say I don’t modulate it, but i probably don’t use 80% of it’s functions. I would probably miss it, if the ER-301 wouldn’t give me at least most of the functionality. But I feel like it’s huge for the functions I do use. It’s always delay and tape saturation/warble/aging. Sometimes shift mode.

#424

Never had a clouds,.so… Not sure if I need something to take me there either. I think a lot of what you are describing about your current patch is what intrigues me about the 301. The granular, and sample manipulation, etc. I am just thinking, if I can get close to what I use the magneto for out of it as well as all the other fun stuff, it might be a better use of space. But I do love the sound of the magneto.