Digital "mini-modular" module

Why haven’t anyone ripped off this absolutely excellent idea that Roland did with the Scooper etc modules? It’s incredible imo. The advertising for it was terrible though. These modules never peaked my interest until now, i decided to really invest time into what they do, so i got one and spent many hours in the app (super easy to use) making my own mini modular setups for the module.
I did a drum machine, a super fat 6 Osc synth, a strange bass/dubstep type of synth that triggers various randomized bass sounds on input (e.g triggers on every drum sound).
Super fun and something that would have required many modules and tons of mults to do!

If you never tried them, you attach up to 6 virtual modules inside an app, patch them up in whatever way you like and route stuff to the physical controls / Ins to whatever you want to control on the module. You upload this configuration into the module and it stays there permanently (until you decide you want something else). Obviously you can save different configurations too.

What’s not so great with the Roland is 1) the choice of modules (31 of them) is somewhat disappointing. 2) all the filters sounds awful 3) can’t recall your saved modular configs from the module itself, you have to connect it to the app/PC… what would have been really cool is if the configs could be saved to and loaded from the module itself, perhaps even loaded via CV. 4) just 6 modules, would have preferred more, nice that you can mult how many times you want almost though.

Anyways, I wish some modular maker would do this properly, even better than what Roland did (they did pretty good, but you can tell it perhaps was not the main purpose of the modules).

Intellijel (or perhaps Expert Sleepers!) should do something like this, only better. A module dedicated to just this. Why not a collaboration with the Expert Sleepers guy :wink:

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Right?

I’ve got a scooper and a demora and I love them. Wouldn’t dream of playing a show without them.
Reprogramming them is a great way to learn things, and also a lot of fun to just play with and explore.

I think that they are pretty big hp-wise, and when you connect them to eurorack power they are massive power suckers. I actually keep them out of my cases and use their wall warts to make peace with the rest of my situation.

I also think that the documentation was very poor. With some serious study, and if you’re lucky enough to stumble upon the Roland AU blog post going over all the possible modules of v1 then it makes a little more sense, but it’s really a dive in and mess it up type of thing until you get the hang of it.

The concept itself is pretty great - program your device to be whatever you’d like it to be. Then take it out and use it… change it, or reset it to it’s initial state. They sound pretty good too.

I think we don’t see more things like this because of the rift between hardware and software worlds. I personally am always reluctant to go anywhere near my computer when it comes to music. I am a lot happier as a musician without the screens.

Perhaps this is the sort of thing we’ll see more of in the future, or maybe this will soon be something that no OS for any PC can open, and relegated as something that could have been so cool, if only they’d have updated the editor… That happens a lot with things which rely on the computer to program hardware.

But I agree, they are underrated, and very very cool.

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