I’m not at all proficient in using mine, but am so happy I’ve added it to my small system. Haven’t gotten into the goodies from the new update, and to be honest rarely even exit live mode - I mostly use it in a relatively simple way, multing a melody into it and messing around with THIS/THAT to create a wonky pitched-up or pitched-down accompaniment (a nice Mangrove loop pitched down an octave is just such a heavenly thing to my ears… ). Maybe I’ll get bored of that someday, in which case I’ll get around to exploring the zillion other modes and options, but for now I don’t see myself getting tired of it : ) Even when I don’t use it, it gives me comfort seeing it tucked away in the corner of my case, gentle lights blinking…
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definitely as i’ve practiced more and more with the interface feels more playable, and less and less am I going “huh oh what?” even in spite of the sometimes pleasant surprise of switching modes with CV attached
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My favorite use case is still 2 W/s using dub.THAT and different loop lengths (or different divisions of the tempo going into sample.THIS), and using an LFO + Cold Mac to crossfade the sound source back and forth between each.
Another related variation I like (also known as “who needs rainmaker”) is to patch the sound source to CM OFFSET, patch W/ #1’s out to LEFT IN, and then LEFT OUT to W/ #2’s input. Similarly, W/ #2’s output goes to RIGHT IN while RIGHT OUT goes to W/ #1’s in. Mult LEFT and RIGHT outputs to your output mixer. You can also pass the LEFT and right outputs through attenuators before they reach the other w/ for better cross feedback control. When FADE is at -5v cross feedback is active and when FADE is at +5v the W/s feedback to themselves. I usually keep dub.THAT at +5v as things get a little crazy as more generations stay in each w/ but it’s something that could be played with more… also somewhere else I wrote about the trick for locking dub.THAT to a level and then accessing a different LIVE cv mode on that - would be fun to do that and get into transport.THAT but I haven’t tried it yet…
A similar setup with just one W/ lets you achieve an open feedback loop…
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I’m also in the love/hate camp I think, although admittedly I haven’t had it for very long. Definitely understand the basics but I still have some trouble getting it to perform exactly how I expect it to. I’ve had some great moments with it for sure but most of my problems have involved editing cue points in some way. It would be really great to see some deeper teletype communication in the future!
The pitch shifting v/oct is great and the aliasing/bitcrushing sounds very, very good. I still love the feel of flicking the little switch and hearing the grimy lofi clicks and pops.
Problem is that it requires so much attention that I rarely use it. I can remember how to do basic functions with some button mashing but any switching of secondary functions requires the manual. And it still freezes from time to time.
I have three W/ that I use daily at this point. They are central to my setup. Started out with one and loved the compositional possibilities with it, so I bought one more at a time when they popped up for good deals in the trade section here. All of my w/ are set to dub.that. I use channel 2 & 3 of maths as my feedback knobs.
My standard patch sounds similar to what @voidstar describes, I’ll run a simple voice or two into one looping W/ (set to generate -5/+5v ramp on this) then out to Cold Mac panning section. Left and right out to different W/s (with different loop lengths), set up as a stereo pair each set to cue.this so I can tempo sync down the line. I’ve got a buff mult and a matrix mixer so I often turn off global monitoring and set up interesting wet/dry mixes on the fly.
I’ve also got a teletype, but I find I mostly use WS.PLAY to turn everything off/on in consistent ways for dramatic effect. I’ve had WS.CUE 0 freeze my teletype a couple of times (though not every time and I still try it every now again.)
I find the w/ physical gestures to be pretty easy to use, but I did have the little card in front of me for the first month. I feel pretty confident flying through the different modes, using cue mode to quickly delete cues, turning monitoring on and off, etc. I do find myself clearing tapes to start fresh more often than I expected. I’m definitely not confident enough to switch this/that modes without instructions handy. I wish that I could play loops in reverse without the serious clicks that happen at cue points. But still, I feel comfortable enough with them in my system to play them live and, while I haven’t yet, it is my big goal this year. I love how I can take simple source material and make it into something expansive.
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I pretty much use it for looping short segments of a sequence and phasing for playing live and octave shifting of those segments. I use the grids lights / patterns as a visual indicator of when to manually start and stop record. I run it at the end of the chain so I can take snippets of stuff as I’m playing. So for me it’s very much a live performance tool and to fill out the sound. I basically use it as an additional oscillator. It’s always out of sync with the main sequence but in a good way 
I just make sure I clear the tape and reboot before I start. I have an album out soon, that has W/ all over it.
This one. You can hear it clearly on tracks 1, track 4 and track 7
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i bought one when it came out, and even when the firmware was at its worst, i picked up a second one used.
for me, its so reminiscent of the dr. sample sp-202’s lofi sounds. i used to use that thing all the time, and always dreamed of something like it in eurorack. its magical, and ive acheived greatness with it tenfold.
the best ways i use it, similar to @mlogger, both are at the end of my signal chain. stereo capturing. i start a simple sequence of like 4 notes, slow with my sequencer. doesnt matter which kind. i loop that first part in a 8 bar loop, then as soon as i hit the loop switch, i change something on the sequence, and stop the sequencer after one note, and open the release of the sound to be longer.
so to reiterate, i start with a 4 note sequence and record it for like 16 seconds, then leave that playing, and then start manually starting and stopping my sequencer and make the notes have a longer release on the vca. when you capture the slower sequence over the steady one, you’ll start getting somewhere. when you start enjoying it, lower the octave and start recording more short notes maybe another octave up from the original.
another fun way is just literally trying to loop a perfect loop but with two w/s in stereo. you can switch the loop almost perfectly, but after like 3 iterations, the left and right will loose sync and start to phase. make sure to have the original audio silenced, so you can just hear the loops. perfect end of a song.
you do have to wipe the tape every time to use w/s reliably. im ok with that. ive used teletype to get crazy forward and backward behaviors, similar to cocoquantus.
its a nice module.
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Just another data point… since installing the latest firmware I haven’t wiped any tapes on either of my W/s and have experienced no crashes.
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I’m considering getting W/ and wanted to ask if it’s also possible to use it as a straight ahead beat repeat/stutter effect? I didn’t find any mentions of this functionality, but considering the feature set it should be possible, right?
Sort of? The pervasiveness of the tape metaphor means you won’t come as close as, say, 2hp’s Freez. The closest I can think of is to do it somewhat manually: have the tape rolling and recording, and flick the toggle down and then up quickly to start looping, and then press loop (and record) to go back to normal. Note that this is not quantized.
Stuttering, or otherwise varying and syncing the length of the loop you set can be done with CV (triggers into sample.this), but note carefully that the CV will affect W/ even when not looping.
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Thank you for the feedback! I was considering Freez, but the buffer size seems very small. I guess the best way would be to simply give W/ a shot and see if I can somehow integrate it in my setup. Will keep you posted!
i’ve gotten into stutter territory with W/ but entirely by chance, and in general would second @alanza’s post above. a uClouds (esp with the Beat Repeat firmware loaded) is probably as close as you would get outside of Freez but not in a massive module. longer buffer, tempo sync, etc.
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Now my brain is going on this… I think this could work.
I suppose you could do it with some creative patching and most of MATHS
On a blank tape or the last cue point of the tape, w/ recording,
THIS in SAMPLE mode
THAT in DUB mode
-5V offset and a 5V gate into a mixer, mixer out into THAT to set the overdub mode from all the way off to fully engaged when the gate is high.
Gated trigger stream into THIS using same gate as is going in to pre THAT cv mixer.
When GATE is high, overdub blend will be set to full (0 V into THAT) and trigger stream will jump back to the last cue point repeatedly. The triggers should be clean as an offset of +/-1v and w/ will attempt to jump forward or back to the next/previous cue point.
Granted this is all speculation, my system in patched up for recording right now so I can’t try this…
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playing with my new used w/ for the first time and i came across a section of tape with audio recorded from the previous owner. so fun to play along with electrical circuits from a different time, a distant shore, an unseen face. what a magical lil time machine 
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Just got one late last week and loving experimenting with it. It took 15 minutes of complete frustration followed by several a-ha moments to get it up and running. Well worth the time. Wanted to share this patch I used for a gamelan remix project that highly features w/ glory!
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I used my W/ a lot when it was first released - and really really liked it. However at some point the bugginess got too much and I all but stopped using it.
Over the past couple of months I’ve gotten back into using it more and more. It’s so much more stable now, and the new firmware allows for so many more possibilities. I think it’s probably my favourite modules, and it’s now the only module of which I own multiples.
^ here is a recording I just made using one of them - in live mode, using Kria to control the this and that of cue mode.
Also - I saw Dakim performing this week. He didn’t appear to be using a W/
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This might be a really stupid question, but coming from the Morphagene where the module can set/detect the input level from the source:
What kind of levels does the W/ expect on its input? It is modular-level only or is there some sort of adjustment possible for line-level?
The input has no gain adjustments for line level, and I’ve found it useful to attenuate modular signals going in a bit to avoid clipping.