#1131

That’s a gamechanger. Can’t wait to try this out.

#1132

@grey asked if I could share my impressions of the Evaton AModulator over in the Show Us Your Modular System thread and I figured it makes the most sense to put it here in case other folks are looking for thoughts on it.

I have mixed feelings about it so far. It does and sounds like what you’d expect it to for the most part, but it has some frustrating behavior.

It really does sound like your audio is coming from a distant radio station, but in order for that to happen, you need to have a way to hold your antenna in a precise space where the Nomad will pick it up correctly, and you have to be very careful where your body and hands are. It seems to want your hands to be floating a few inches from the faceplate for the signal to be discernible but not too high fidelity. If you touch the faceplate, the signal improves in quality to the point where it sounds like the broadcast is much closer, almost no RF noise comes through, and the audio is just a bit distorted. You can also get it to do this by laying the Nomad’s antenna across the AModulator faceplate. The more you increase the AModulator’s broadcast gain and the Nomad’s RF gain, the more intense the distortion will become and it sounds pretty cool.

This leads to an issue with the frequency shifting behavior though. If you touch the faceplate with your hand or antenna, frequency shifting doesn’t work anymore. Instead, the second you nudge the Nomad’s tuning, the audio signal is replaced by a very obnoxious sounding carrier wave. I would have liked to be able to get frequency shifts to occur when the audio is clearer, but it is only audible when you have your hands and antenna away from the faceplate, and the signal is harder to hear among the noise.

And my biggest gripe of all is with the Nomad’s tuning. It will constantly drift downward for about an hour and a half before it becomes stable enough to hold a frequency. So if you plan to use it to transmit audio that’s more than a few seconds in length, you’ll have to turn on your system long before you plan to work. This is a huge problem for me since I have limited hours I can actually work on music during the day and now I’ll have to factor this lead time into any session that I want to put the AModulator to use.

I think I’m going to keep it and use it, but it’s not going to completely replace the other methods of simulating radio broadcasts I’ve been using–it just isn’t reliable and flexible enough. One thing I’m very curious about is seeing how my proper shortwave receiver picks up the AModulator’s signal, but it’s out of commission at the moment. If that sounds good, I’ll just take the Nomad out of the equation and record things through a proper radio since all my issues really come down to the Nomad rather than the AModulator.

Also, it’s really fun to put the AModulator/Nomad in a delay feedback loop. You get degradation from the RF noise and the general signal loss and frequency drift, and it’s just cool that your feedback loop is traveling through the air by radio waves at one point in your chain!

EDIT: Got my shortwave receiver working and it does an excellent job of picking up the AModulator’s signal once you get the antenna within a couple inches of its faceplate. Sounds great and has no drift so that will definitely be my method for simulating radio broadcasts going forward.

1 Like
#1133

Thank you for the thorough write up. If you contact Evanton, I’d be curious if they have any suggestions for the drift.

#1134

It’s already been addressed by the designer where he said it was necessary trade off to implement fast CV control:

“Finally, because the Nomad is a direct-conversion receiver, warts and all, one of those warts is that it is somewhat drifty with temperature. I’ve done about as much as I can to reduce the driftiness, but you will notice that over several minutes it will wander around a little bit. I felt this was an acceptable trade-off, as the true talent of the Nomad is how well it responds to a quickly changing CV input to generate quirky sounds.”

Which is fine–the thing is certainly great for making weird noise and I’ll definitely keep it around for that.

1 Like
#1135

Hi all. Not sure if this is the right place for this, so let me know if I should be posting somewhere else. I’ve just started in Eurorack and ordered my first few modules. I’m particularly interested in bass music with glitchy rhythms, but am trying to make something fairly versatile for my first pass at this. With that in mind, I’ve tried to get modules that are fairly multipurpose, so I can experiment with a lot of different stuff. One place where this has happened is on my filter choice. I ordered the Qu-Bit prism as my only filter. I’ve seen a lot of recommendations for analog filters though, so I’m wondering your thoughts. Will I be alright with my only filter being this digital filter (with a good deal of other functionality to boot)

#1136

Depends on what other modules you have and what you want to do. One filter is plenty to start though. Stay small until you know your current modules and understand where you want to go and why.

1 Like
#1137

I have a prism. The filter is decent, but I personally wouldn’t be able to manage with just that. You’ll likely find that you want to use the other effects on the prism and so suddenly you’re commited to only applying the filter to the voice that you’re delaying/and or bit crushing.

It’s a good module though, it took me a little while to warm to.

I agree with and will restate the classic advice: See how it goes and then make your next purchase from a position of knowledge. Try not to guess what you might need next.

1 Like
#1139

This is good advice. I think I may have gone a bit overboard on my first modules overall, but I’m committing to really diving deep on them before re-evaluating. I was a bit worried about getting the prism instead of a more traditional analog filter. I chose to go for more functionality though. I figure, since it will be the dedicated filter spot, that’ll be the priority. And then I can use the other effects on top, or when I don’t need a filter. So as long as it can hold its own against the forbidden planets of
The world, it should do fine until I can get something more dedicated if I need it

One more dumb question. I recently got my case: the intellijel performance 7U 104 HP. I love it overall since the 1U row and built in audio jacks seem so useful. However, it seems to not sit flush on my desk. No matter which orientation (sitting, standing, or on the legs) it wobbles fairly noticeably when I touch it. Is this normal? It’s possible my desk may be warped, but not everything else I have wobbles on it. If a little wobble is normal, I can be alright with that, but I want to check and see if this is common. It’s obviously pricy, so if mine has an issue, I’d love to identify it quickly.

#1140

Try loosening the all the screws that fasten the rail ends to the case a little, and then twist the case back into plumb. It’s one of those things that’s easier to fix yourself, compared to the hassle of shipping it back for an exchange.

1 Like
#1141

That makes sense. So would I just push them in as far as I can? Ideally it’d sit flat regardless of which orientation I have it in, which would make it hard to sort of align and screw. But yeah if I could just do it myself, thatd be ideal especially given how tricky it is to find these cases now

#1142

It’s hard to know what needs adjusting or how to do it from afar. I’d loosen every structural screw, straighten the outer case as best I could, and then retighten the screws very carefully so as not to pull it out of plumb again. You may need some bricks to hold the case flat on the table while you retighten.

#1143

I had some mixed feelings about Prism. The overall sound is quite good really – I have no complaints at all about the filter, and the effects pair well with it and have some neat character. I think as a compact and inexpensive stereo filter with a little something extra, it’s a good deal.

My issue with it was, I was more looking for a delay that happens to have a filter… and the delay is a little lacking in some features. Putting feedback and wet/dry mix on the same knob limits some applications, and delay time changes don’t modulate or track well if you want to use it for chorus/flanging, Karplus-Strong or phase modulation.

#1144

Ah I see. I can live with that. I’m actually doing most of my effects out of the rack, through the zoia (and I guess in ableton if need be). I may change my tune down the road, but effects weren’t a primary focus with my first modules. So anything it can do on top of being my primary filter is a bonus

1 Like
#1145

I’ve just started out with Eurorack and managed to luck into finding a used Teletype and set of Mannequins modules (2 x Mangroves, a Just Friends, Three Sisters and Cold Mac). I feel so fortunate to have found these, and think I’ve got a good year of learning just with them (although honestly I’ll probably get a horrible case of GAS if my other hobbies are any indication).

However I now need to ask a monstrously silly question that I’ve never really grasped with Eurorack. What do I do about outputs for all the voices? Should I look at an audio mixer module and an ALM HPO? Just use an outboard mixer so I have lots of panning, EQ and effects send options before running it out through the headphone send? The most capable seems to be the outboard mixer… but I really have no idea and I can’t seem to find an authoritative opinion (although I may well have missed it).

If anyone has advice on how they do it, let me know!

#1146

What kind of music are you planning to do? Because depending on what you want you may need different options. And also, are you planning to use it for live performances? Just for recording? Part of a bigger system with the computer as the center? …

I would say to pick a VCA with various inputs. The JF can do the ADSR to open the VCA’s, but right now you can use the Cold Mac to mix several modules together by patching the outputs from each one to the left inputs. The mix will be the bottom right jack. However, you won’t have control over the amount of mix of each one.

1 Like
#1147

Do you already have an outboard mixer? If so, try that and see how you like it. That said, basic mixer modules are among the cheaper ones and are useful for patching in a number of ways outside of mixing audio for a final output. Preferably something flexible like a mutable shades (doesn’t hve to be shades, though) which is a mixer that will also allow you to attenuate (and/or invert) a signal. For instance if you want to patch anything into one Just Friends’ cv inputs you’ll likely want this attenuated… and maybe mixed with something else :wink:

1 Like
#1148

The two things I’m thinking as guiding principles are 1) keeping effects out of my rack and instead using guitar pedals and other outboards and 2) not playing live, just doing stuff at home.

Would something like an 8 or 12 channel Mackie be enough for this without needing to look at an in-rack mixer? I should add I’m looking at picking up a quad VCA as one of the first modules after that to add some additional control.

#1149

For audio, you may be fine with an out-of-the-rack mixer (I use two standalones for audio), but if you want to mix or attenuate/vert CV, you may want to look at some in-rack options.

I have five in-rack mixers in 17U, not counting VCAs, and sometimes find myself wanting more, typically for attenuversion.

1 Like
#1150

Interesting. I was planning on picking up a Tangle Quartet and a Triplatt which from what I understand should at least give me enough in terms of VCAs and attenuversion capabilities to get started.

Combined with a small outboard mixer for stereo field management and effects sends I think I should be sorted.

#1151

That should get you there for attenuversion. For offset, I believe the only option here would be to use a channel of Triplatt and Cold Mac. If that is something you find you need, you may want to look into a mixer module with offset (O/A/x2 or Shades).