OhWell
5053
I feel like the whole point of qpas/xpo is to make patching interesting stereo osc/filters animation more immediate and intuitive. (Down to cutting out the need for external vca’s, attenuators, etc. for modulation, normalized internal modulation, etc.)
I don’t see this as narrowly about stereo, though. I feel like one of the lessons of the last 10 years with modular design is that there is tremendous interest and appeal to designing for more intuitive and immediate exploration of synthesis techniques that normally require complex patching and extensive fine tuning.
I see how folks who prefer to build everything from patching simple components find that limiting. But designing for more immediacy with complex techniques is still a legitimate design choice with significant popular appeal. It also takes nothing away from folks who prefer to simple, open ended, patch programmable modules.
21 Likes
It makes me think something like the Qu-Bit synapse would be pretty perfect for mixing, modulating and routing all those XPO outputs before heading into a QPas
10 Likes
DMR
5055
I thought the same thing - it seems that most of the unique functionality of XPO could be put into a stereo timbre module that takes a triangle wave as input. For example STO + stereo timbre / animation. Then the stereo functionality could be used across a variety of existing LFOs / VCOs.
6 Likes
darylc
5056
Totally agree, it’s serving a much wider audience who otherwise wouldn’t either have the time or extra cash for what needs to be a much bigger set of modules.
Similar to how drum modules have become so popular too, I still use VCO’s & exp.fm techniques for that, but things like BIA or Fracture are not practical to create on seperate modules.
Agree again, I’m not against modules taking these ideals in account and it’s great that it will get more people into modular.
I’m really just saying, as an old fart who has been in this well over a decade, these types of modules would not fit in my studio setup, but would totally get into a live setup.
I was probably a little too downbeat on it with my post !
6 Likes
No not at all! I just reread my comment and realized how dumb it was… Lesson learned to not comment on forums while taking cold medicine 
2 Likes
This immediately reminded me of FM Aid, which works as described when you feed it a saw wave.
I guess the reason this kind of thing is less popular than oscillators with many features is because a single purchase and unified UI is easier to grok if you don’t have a large system with supporting modules, or understand the benefits of building voices with supporting modules vs do-everything sound sources.
While I have no plans to get XPO at the moment, it’s inspiring me to figure out how to recreate it. And a couple of these synced + a couple of QPAS + the Shakmat Aeolus quadrophonic mixers would make for a dizzying performance.
3 Likes
I don’t think anyone posted this, but ADDAC released the uber-floor controller of my dreams. It’s kind of ridiculous (overkill, expensive, probably impractical) but I sort of love it.
15 Likes
robbie
5060
The first project I ever backed on Kickstarter was a retrospective of Mondo 2000, by R.U. Sirius himself. That was … [checks] … twelve years ago and, as far as I know, he’s still at it. And I’m okay with that. Books are rarely anything but labours of love, and I feel backing them is more more aligned with the traditional crowdfunding ideal of fund the person, not the product.
(That said, this one seems less of an epic than R.U. Sirius’ opus, so it’ll probably be fine.)
1 Like
cbm
5061
I really like this in concept, but the cable from the pedal to the module is sure big. I wish they had thrown some more money at the problem, and digitized everything at the pedal, and turned it back into analog at the module.
1 Like
I have their smaller version of this ADDAC floor control concept that takes just one expression and one latch pedal. I have had a hard time making great use out of even that few control options. It is a lot of complexity to control a patch with your feet while using hands for other modular expression or playing guitar etc. However, having just seen a friend play organ in a church, managing that kind of complexity can be beautiful. The problem is the flexibility of modular makes muscle memory harder to achieve as functioned are re-patched each time.
7 Likes
I’m with you there. I think it’d be probably more performance-friendly to repatch one expression pedal to different destinations, or perhaps use a switcher. As @cbm said the cable is pretty ridiculous too—imagine that sticking out of your case…
Dewb
5064
Re: XPO, prior to the announcement I thought “I absolutely don’t need any more audio modules right now, the only thing I could possibly justify is a second STO or maybe a Mangrove if one comes up, so I can do more interesting parallel-modulated inputs into LRMSMSLR and QPAS.” So they got me good!
It might be a little less flexible than manually patching a stereo signal chain, but it seems like there’s an awful lot of building blocks in there, and you could still use it as a mono oscillator in a more complex stereo patch if you wanted to.
5 Likes
lumena
5065
Wow,
Looks very nice. it’s also very nice that it uses a db25 cable as they are easy to find if one fails. Not quite an instant buy for me but If I were to change cases I would be thinking about it as a great solution. I currently use the Pulp Logic N.O. Switch and the Express Tile.
I couple that with 2 Boss momentary switches and a expression pedal. That equals 2 1/4" cables and 1 TRS cable. So really the db25 looks quite nice.
Looks quite tempting.
The 3 tiles can be stacked in a 3u case via a 1u to 3u adapter so really no 1u row needed.
3 Likes
Yeah, I’ve been using the Doepfer a177-2 with the recommended piano style pedals and it works alright. I’m also hoping to have a dual momentary powered gate pedal built by a savvy friend—two switches, press one and get a 5v signal out of the corresponding input…
1 Like
Synapse is a great indeed! Also the RxMx could pair really well. In the presentation they used an X-pan though and I’ve ordered it immediately. The little system they had for the presentation with Maths, WoggleBug, XPO, Qpas, X-pan and Mimeophone should be a great little system for exploration.
As a MN fanboy though this was beyond what I could have imagined. Literally every sound in the presentation had me jumping from enthusiasm. And that with just another analogue VCO which I believed that it was already a game over thing, not possible to offer us anything new anymore. I was wrong. What a wonderful concept the Xpo. Well done Tony.
3 Likes
robint
5068
Mine will be delivered today. I´m sure someone here already has one. If so, how do you like it?
Just pulled the trigger on All Animation pedal by Akkusativ, a pedal builder from Berlin. I had been looking for something like this for a long time but was never quite happy with the proposition. There are plenty of feedback loopers like Kniv, Hors d’Oeuvre, Klein Bottle, Signal Blender or Tri Parallel Mixer but none of them can be controlled by envelope. The only options I’ve found were Copilot FX Autodialer, Spaceman Effects Mission Control, ToadWorks Enveloope and a clone of Schumann F Loop but none of them looked quite right.
This new pedal seems to be offering everything I wanted regarding controlling feedback loops with both envelope follower and attack-decay envelope (I don’t care much about LFOs). It can also output CV for controlling other pedals. Hope it has been done right and feels well. Will have to wait until September though to check it out.
27 Likes
mateo
5070
Surprised to not see discussion of the XPO here. What are people’s thoughts on it? And we can we expect a stereo system like the demo system in the launch stream?
100
5071
Exactly my thoughts when I was told about a replacement for the System Cartesian at some point. It would be great. There’s some chat about XPO on the Hype thread but now it would make more sense to bring it over here now it’s announced.
1 Like
pugnax
5072
I’m really excited about it. I just put together a 258t+bifold+qpas for some stereo animation, but I think I’m gonna try to snag an xpo when they’re available. I sold my ø-coast recently and severely underestimated how much I would miss the overtone and multiplier circuit - hoping that xpo might capture some of the same magic.
1 Like
