#41

I’ve come to appreciate that the XAOC crew brings a certain sensibility to their responses. I’m entirely OK with how they’re going about dealing with challenging MW types, myself included, as I’ve been complaining about the 3HP POTI for years now, only to find that Their New Thing will … wait for it … have a 3HP expander.

Their wonderful products speak for themselves. Talk about a design language!

It’s interesting to think about … with a finite set of customization dimensions available to use against a finite set of waveforms, you may not be able to achieve an infinite set of outputs, but you can achieve some subset of those a whole lot faster.

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#43

One of my favorite sort of incidental aspects of boutique ‘manufacturers’ (aka a few people, if that many, making and sharing their passion) is that the personality of those people is more evident and that some of them don’t give a damn about typical sales and customer service bullshit. This is often more about art than money, and I’m grateful.

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#44

+1
It’s also really refreshing to see a manufacturer with an idea that isn’t super concerned about what the “community” clamors for. The community on mw is far from everyone that uses these devices, and they should not have some greater input priority over vision and direction. “Here is a totally new tool from our brains” vs “here is the thing you’ve been asking for” seems to bring much more interesting and idiosyncratic tools into the world.

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#45

In theory, I agree with those statements. In practice, being the subject of that “personality”'s apparent contempt or dismissal doesn’t feel good.

i also recognize that I’m not in a great emotional state today and probably took it more personally than it was meant. And that there was some miscommunication going on there, and a couple of other posts probably put the Xaoc person on the defensive a bit.

Based on the initial information we were given, I had a prediction for what the module could do – both in terms of exciting original concepts and features, and replacing older designs.

In my head, I figured out how I’d implement such a thing. And it was awesome. It had most of the features I wanted in that physical layout, and was easy to use. I could save 10HP and have more, cooler, better envelopes in the bargain.

And then it turns out there’s one limitation of the module that prevents it from replacing older designs as well as holding back its potential for the new stuff. It seemed like arbitrary stubbornness on the designer’s part. Sure that’s their prerogative, but it felt like they had designed this awesome new car but it can only drive backwards.

And then: posts that were dismissive of ADSRs for being “crude” and outdated (implying there was something wrong with people preferring those), that sustained envelopes were “against the main concept”, and comparing wanting to replace modules to “war”.

So, yeah. It wasn’t a happy day, and felt like an extra slap when people applauded them for that.

#46

Sorry to hear that. I would submit that it’s risky to get too fixated on a module without understanding it fully. That’s why all the gearhead posts sort of alienate me and bum me out (and more are popping up on this forum) because a lot of it comes across as excitement without understanding - so it must boil down to some degree to sheer consumerist tendencies.

I also agree that the language barrier doesn’t help either with some manufacturers.

But, I love the artists who happen to share their creations more than the businesses that are sharing their products primarily to profit.

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#48

You’re smart, you’re creative, you’re passionate, you’re my kind of person. Here’s to tomorrows.

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#49

With a little bit of distance from it, I’d say I just took things too personally. I also got too caught up in GAS generally, and my own idea of what the module was.

I kind of need to take a step back and sort out what really works for my music-making and what just seems really cool. I’m about 94% happy with my setup right now anyway.

Sorry for kind of derailing the discussion there. :slight_smile:

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#50

I think reflecting on the effects of bad GAS in a Superbooth retrospective thread is entirely on-thread. It’s All Good.

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#51

Bringing it back to Superbooth.

Although the XOAC people were really nice when I talked to them, and answered my questions about upgrading Tirana politely, and we discussed how things I felt let Tirana down had been improved in Tirana II. Online discussion around synths is getting more toxic by the second. it’ll take a lot for me not to stand by the manufacturer.

my takes were.

I didn’t feel that the gender bias was particularly bad, considering it is still 50% a trade show. and the split of gender in manufacturers is still :roll_eyes:. This would have unavoidably skewed the attendance.
I didn’t see the TSL crew there, which was a shame as they always push that in the right direction, and release great products.

For public attendance, it didnt seem as bad and the roster of artists peforming was a better split that previously. where Superbooth has a far to go is in bame representation. both for performers/manufacturers and attendees.

to the Tech!

I am falling out of love with Eurorack, so didn’t go wild looking at every new module. but here are some picks.

Instruo showed a complex oscillator which was really impressive as well as a 8 channel mixer/CV gen which I can imagine would be jumped on by the Lines crowd. It offered 0-10V with offset and was like a version of the faderbank project with channel mute, offset and all other goodies.

Worng modules has something called a vector controller, which was like if Réne and Cold Mac had a baby. I really liked their M/S decoder as Middle/Side is under/badly used.

Expert Sleepers showed the FH2 which has a midi monitor in it, and looked like the one ring to rule them all in the ES range.

Mystic Circuits was one of the nicest people there and has some nice modules including a voltage controller called ANA.

The 5U stuff was minimal but incredible. there was almost no serge. Mark Doty hung around the Buchla booth but I didn’t get to talk to him.

Vector sequencer was really good, but not for my needs. Daniel Miller called it his best in show… and that guy knows about electronics…

non tech.

I really enjoyed the gigs although the sheer size of the place meant I thought a few daytime gigs were sparsely attended and the beach venue which was the least personal (being outside and further away from audience) actually was the best, as it was close to food/ drinks so became a cool space to hang out and catch something unexpected.

Honorable mention to Bernard Rasinger’s Laser & Eurorack show which was incredible and had strangers looking at each other in amazement afterwards…

My final take was of a really great workshop by Tom Ammerman on 3D audio on Headphones. He engaged with a group of 12 of us (25% female) and answered questions from people from France, UK, Germany and Spain for 90 mins and I left feeling really inspired and thankful that we have a place like Superbooth where this cross generational, cultural and geographical sharing of enthusiasm can take place… (And I was only there to hear the Kraftwerk.)

Instagram pics here if anyone is interested. https://www.instagram.com/hamilsynth/

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#52

Piggy-backing on the few earlier posts about Peter Edwards’ Dark Matter for Bastl… I really want to play with that thing! Or, maybe I just need to get a cheap mixer that I can potentially destroy with feedback. :wink:

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#53

Did anyone happen to look at this haptic control surface while you were there? It looks really cool.

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#55

That is pretty cool. Sad to not have known about it while I was there as that would scratch an itch for a fluid MPE-ish controller.

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#56

Yeah, I saw the demo video, I just wanted to get someone else’s hands-on experience.

I assume they’re using some kind of vibe motor to provide some haptic feedback to your input on the device, which is a really cool space that seems unexplored (Lofelt, the Berlin haptics company was exploring this a bit). I just wanted to see what it actually felt like to use it and how good that feedback felt.

edit - or maybe they’re just relying on the physical response of the surface rather than any kind of active haptic system. I honestly can’t tell from the video or their website.

#57

The webpage certainly doesn’t make it clear what’s happening.

From the gesture and sound processing, I immediately thought it was doing something to that Mogees thing from a few years back.

They are calling it haptic, so one would think there’s some feedback of some kind.

#59

“Haptic” probably is a stretch, though maybe you can feel the surface/object vibrate enough to count.

(My favorite example of that is a hang drum or propane tank drum, where you can feel the whole instrument resonating strongly and the tone you produce depends on how you hold or mute it. Though I guess frame drums also have a lot of that going on.)

#60

unfortunately, you didn’t miss much …

its basically its a one touch x/y + gate surface… there is no feedback loop (so haptic is a stretch indeed)
seemed pretty responsive, but a hard surface, the software for the standalone version sounded nice, has a few features likes scales or continuous output.
(a few things for the eurorack version were still incomplete)

I was a little disappointed given some of the claims made beforehand, I cant remember the pricing (as id kind of lost interest) but i think it was ‘ok’ though not cheap

not really sure what the eurorack alternatives are at this price point (pressure points?)
but something like the joue, for standalone, is more flexible.

but perhaps the disappointment/expectations clouded my judgement a bit.

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#61

I checked this out the other day. I don’t think it adds anything for me that my standard mixer can’t do!