Pre-release Hype Megathread

[OhWell]

What @jlmitch5 and @Starthief said!

[mrsoundboyking]

I love Mutable as much as the next modular enthusiast but wish the new module didn’t have such a violent name. What’s next? Guns? Slippery slope

[2197]

not all blades are weapons : ) blades of grass, blades on a propeller etc.

i think it sounds great. and interesting to read it’s not designed with stereo in mind, but rather dual mono. i never vibed with qpas as much as i thought i would, now i’m feeling keen to replace it with a blades instead.

[xcc]

Grass?! That’s a fightin’ word in these parts.

[josker]

Blades of Steel… [ducks]

I think it’s a very clever design, like we’ve come to expect of her. The modeless approach is something that, to me, seems like it’s been a goal for Mutable designs in recent times – I always like versatile modules, but this is especially nice, as everything is just continuously variable. There’s nothing to memorize. This might be a stretch, but it kind of seems like a similar concept to Tides, now doing away with all the modality.

The amount of things this can do is pretty astounding. All the filter configurations, dual distortion/wavefolding, voice module, stereo applications, pings, crossfading… Pretty cool. (The Dipole, of course, does a lot of the same stuff, but I think Blades is a cleaner design, with more flexibility and tricks up its sleeve.)

[Mangrove]

That’s not really similar to what 3 sisters does, though, Blades is closer to the two filters on the matrix brute. I do agree that the continuously variable control are nice.

[mdtz]

i’ve been thinking about moving on the from the dipole, and this comes along. thank you for mentioning it. what flexibility over the dipole are you thinking of?

[DMR]

I think the Blades looks great, while the Stereo DIpole can’t do everything Blades can do, from the description of Blades it also seems like Stereo Dipole can do some things Blades cannot: 4 separate outputs vs. 2, 4 resonant peaks vs. 2, apply CV to the frequency or resonance input of both channels without a mult, control resonance of both channels in a dual-mono / stereo situation without needing an offset module.

[jlmitch5]

It’s the same thing as the span control, three sisters just has one that goes up and down and blades goes up or down (because there’s 3 instead of two), the middle point on blades is span ccw on three sisters.

EDIT: at least I think based on watching that video, I do not have blades in front of me to compare.

[josker]

I’m thinking of the folding capability, and the continuously variable response and routing. I haven’t played with one, but the prospect of not having to set switches and being able to get to the in-between spots appeals. And, of course, having CV over those things sounds like a lot of fun.

as @DMR points out, I didn’t fully think it through, though The Dipole has features that make it great for stereo applications and the four peaks make for nice possibilities.

I think this is good to state here: One thing I’ve noticed is that often when geeking over features, I tend to gloss over how the thing sounds, which is a bit of a rookie mistake… Hoping I won’t do it too many times in the future.

[Zeke_B]

I would keep an eye on Reverb. Back in November, I bought one for myself and one for my daughters two weeks later (both to pair with the new Benjolin) and each cost less than the brand new price, which is bizarre for OOP modules these days… That said, both are V1 I believe, but they still sound great!

[huron]

Look at the logo on the module. It’s a saw blade. Not a weapon. A tool used to shape wood. Wood being sound. Come on now…

[Justmat]

it’s not very helpful conversation wise, but i can attest to “cannabis blades” being a thing as described

[srogers91]

Here’s hoping one of the inevitable clones will be called “Hot Knives” or “Spots”

[Mangrove]

Not to be pedantic, but to me that’s a bit like saying the continuous blend between filter modes is the same as having a crossfade. When you try and implement the continuous spread between three filters that converges on a center point with other modules you’re looking at a lot of modules/patching/setup to replicate 3 Sisters, whereas if you have two filters all you need to do to emulate this feature is plug the same CV into each input and then turn one of the knobs to change their relative position. It’s definitely convenient, but doesn’t get you into the formant territory of 3 Sisters.

Anyway, I don’t want to be nitpicky, I just don’t see this is as being all that similar.

I will say that owning a Pro-2 is part of the reason this is less interesting to me, the dual filters there have all of these features, and now that I look at eurorack, I can’t see much with the continuous morphing available here.

[jlmitch5]

it’s all good, good opportunity for me to verify I’m not misunderstanding something.

What is happening with the span control is that there is a linear offset that is applied to the LOW and HIGH frequencies relative to the CENTRE frequency. At fully CCW this offset is 0…at CW. I’m basing this off trent’s livestream where he recreated the span control with crow, which was very interesting. From the three sister’s technical map, I believe my understanding is confirmed.

In the locked mode, the left filter on blades is equivalent to CENTRE, and the right is equivalent to LOW or HIGH (depending on if that frequency knob is set less or more than 12 o’clock). From Blade’s manual

I. Filter cutoff coupling. When this button is pressed and illuminated, filter 2’s cutoff frequency is set relatively to filter 1’s cutoff frequency. For example, when filter 2’s FREQUENCY knob is at 12 o’clock, both filters share the same cutoff frequency. With the knob past (or before) 12 o’clock, filter 2’s cutoff frequency will follow filter 1’s, but transposed up (or down).

The formant mode can be emulated by setting both filters to bandpass. You could implement a crossover with setting the two filters to LP and HP…though the 3 bands are a bit key in three sisters crossover as CENTRE is like a variable width bp filter (which I hadn’t really thought about until seeing this technical map diagram…which is pretty sweet.

The CCW quality stuff is wild on three sisters, I still don’t full wrap my head around it, I do know that sounds tend to punch out what you go towards CCW which can be pretty sweet in a mix. I have no idea if you could emulate the !Q VCAs the technical map talks about with Blades.

I can’t speak to any of these other synths you are talking about, as I’ve never tried them. I do love my three sisters though, I’m very excited to have both of these once Blades comes.

[Mangrove]

Sorry, I must be horribly unclear, I’ll try and be more eloquent. What I was try to say is simply this:

Doing what you described is much harder with three filters than two. If you think about the type of patch you would need to make to do what blades does, it’s fairly simple using a few utility modules. If you try to recreate it with 3 filters, you’d need 3 filters, voltage inversion, a voltage offset source, a mixer, you would then need to make sure that all three filters are set to the exact same frequency so that the other two can expand outward from the center. Then you would need to mix the offset voltages (negative or positive) with whatever voltage you are using to control the “center” filter. To do what blades is doing all you need to do is send the same control voltage into the two filters, and include an offset into one of them, and maybe frequency match them so that setting your offset to zero centers both filters.

Maybe part of what’s unclear here is part of what I am saying is very much literal and practical in that you can’t claim something that has two filters can do the same thing as three. If you try and recreate the formant structure or any instrument, you nearly always need at least three resonant peaks. Part of it is a bit more related to it’s actual implementation, which is simply to say that the actual process for doing this is a bit different, even though yes, this is a component of the process used to yield those results, it actually requires a lot more work to accomplish this particular aspect of three sisters than it does to recreate this particular aspect of blades with other modules. This conversation started by my asking how this module is unique, and the argument was made that this can do what 3 Sisters can. It cannot.

TL;DR Three is a larger number than two.

[dianus]

Mysterious, esoteric, Erd never disappoints

Erd All the Colours of the Noise

[grey]

I wish I had a rack where this module made sense. I love their designs.

[Mattb]

Re:Blades

“state-variable-filter which directly yields HP, BP and LP signals, which are then sent to a “trifader” (goes from a to b to c as the CV varies).”