At this point, the next album has 11 tracks (not yet mastered), the track order, a title, a couple of ideas for the cover, most of a patch notes writeup, and a hopeful release date of next Friday, which is another #bandcampfriday.
The synth has a new panel and knobs for the Phonogene…
…a Happy Nerding FX Aid XL…
…and a digdugDIY Purple Rain.
Starting from that: it’s a little 8-bit compressor, sample rate reducer, sample looper and (if you crank the gain up enough with Eurorack level signals) distortion. When I use it I expect I’ll mostly be using filters and careful EQ notches to tame its extreme lo-fi-ness a bit. It’s a neat thing though. digdugDIY tends to build a few things, put them up on Etsy and they sell out quickly, so I was pleased to finally catch one.
The FX Aid is a clever little module based on the Spin FV-1 effects chip commonly used in guitar pedal FX. There’s a companion app that lets you choose 32 FX plugins from a set of 105 built-in choices — delays, reverbs, flangers and so on — and you can also load Spin .ASM programs found online or write them yourself. It’ll compile them into a WAV file to update the module’s firmware, as well as a PDF file FX list for your reference — very handy.
This is the “XL” version — 6 HP instead of 4, with separate CV inputs for each parameter. Despite the larger size, the knobs are still very close together and not that friendly to turn. I’m told that Befaco-style micro knob caps work with it, so I’ve got some on the way for a little more finger room.
The reason I picked it up is a recommendation to use it as a resonator — and indeed it’s well suited for that, as well as really lush modulated reverbs. It’s not going to replace either the Mimeophon or E520, but it’s going to get a lot of use in the future.