Intellijel Cascadia — Advanced, Performance-Oriented, Semi-Modular Synthesizer

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#1

From the web page—A massive semi-modular system in a small case with the footprint of a laptop. Cascadia has MIDI in/out/thru/USB, Eurorack compatible signal levels and pro-level audio I/O to interface with the rest of your studio or get your studio started. Check it out—

Details Here: Cascadia Desktop Semi-Modular Synth - intellijel

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#2
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#3

Congratulations! It’s a real beauty!

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#4

Amazing! Congratulations to you and the team. Can’t wait to lay my paws on it!

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#5

Wow! What a beautiful instrument it is.

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#6

Congratulations! Beautiful in every way. I can see so many elements coming from all of the greatest Intellijel modules - Rubicon2, Quadrax, Polaris, Atlantis… the list goes on.
What an elegant, well thought out and designed machine.

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#7

This is really beautiful. I love the idea of pairing it was some pedals and a controller a performance setup. Nice work, Intellijel!

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#8

I’ve just ordered a Cascadia in the EU and couldn’t be more excited! Congratulations on completing such a beautiful bit of work.

I was curious if you have any idea if a DeckSaver will be produced anytime soon? It seems like the perfect candidate for one for safe transport. I guess to the same end, any idea about making a carry case for it?

I’ll note, I would have posted this elsewhere, but putting it in the Euro section doesn’t make sense… :slight_smile:

Thanks!

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#9

Love it Danjel, I was even considering it until I saw US Dollars :sob: - why oh why must we Canadians suffer so! :laughing:

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#10

Fantastic work Dan and team! What a beauty she is.

I have a small question,
I can’t see any cv inputs for control over the levels of each waveform in the mixer.

One of the things I always want to do with my Atlantis is easily subtly modulate the waves mixing together.

Of course this can be done by sending each waveform to its own VCA, and I assume the idea here is to give building blocks rather than add more VCAs to the mixer section.

Am I correct or is this possible without using more VCAs?

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#11

Hi peachesandbacon,

You’re right in that the mixer doesnt contain any VCAs, but as you noted, there are two VCAs you could use for this, depending on your patch.

You could get around this by sending a heavily attenuated envelope to the wavefolder cv input, since the fold cv is controlling the pre-folder VCA gain and folding only starts at a certain amplitude.

The ring mod can also be used as a vca in a pinch.

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#12

Got my hands on a Cascadia this week and it’s great! Really enjoyed my first jam and the midi connectivity and the effects loop really do make for some fun.

Just one question, is there a case/decksaver coming for it too?

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#13

We are working on both a decksaver lid and custom bag.

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#14

First couple of days with my Cascadia. Far exceeds my expectations. Sound is warm and amazing, and most importantly, versatile.

One thing I’m not as familiar with though is guitar pedals and their expression inputs.

Right now I only have a Boss PH-3 Phaser, so I’ve been using that in the pedal send/return patch. Works out really well.

However, I’m stuck on getting the expression out of Cascadia to control the pedal’s rate. So if anyone has done this successfully with a Boss pedal, please let me know.

From what I understand with the PH-3, is that if a Boss momentary switch is attached, that can be used to set the phaser rate. But if a boss expression pedal is attached, you can actually sweep the phaser rate, instead of setting it by tap. Currently using a TS 1/4 plug from Cascadia to the pedal.

Do I need to use a TRS (if safe) or is this maybe not possible with the boss pedal?

Might pick up another pedal over the weekend, especially a delay or reverb. So any suggestions on pedals that have worked with the EXPR out would be appreciated as well…

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#15

You need to use a 1/4 TRS cable for the expression control on pedals. See page 77 of the Cascadia manual.

#16

Ha, thanks for confirming. I must have skimmed right past that part.

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#19

Another video from Mylar Melodies, this time showing te beginnings of a basic Krell patch:

I have some additional tips:

Here are some tips for furthering your Krell patches:

  • ENV B can simply be switched to LOOP mode instead of patching the EOF to the GATE in
  • ENV A is also capable of time control if you use the CTRL input and switch it to TIME mode. This gives some interesting dynamic control too
  • The latest Cascadia Firmware adds a new MIDI LFO mode that is random quantized pitches. You can configure this for bi/uni and octave range. Super handy to have a secondary random source and one that is more pitch focused.
  • You can create some additional pseudo random sources by taking a few LFO outputs and mixing them together in one of the various available mixers.
  • Since the MIXER section at the top is DC coupled, feeding an LFO into one of the channels adds an interesting DC offset that will play nicely with the folder (symmetry)
  • You can use the ALT noise sources to get some more unusual noise patterns for modulation. If you blend those carefully with pulses and then adjust overall level, you can get pseudo random pulses for triggering things
  • random modulation of the FM index for VCO A adds a lot of complexity to the patch
  • Patching in a delay pedal to the SEND / RETURN and then modulating the delay time with the EXPR source can be really fun
  • Worth experimenting with filter modes. BP is often really useful for Krell but you can then also feed (or in parallel) use VCAB/LPF.
  • If you gave a DAW or MIDI controller source, there are many MIDI to CV outputs on the Cascadia you can use to augment the built in modulation sources
  • The slew output provides an additional but related set of random CV since they can be set to move at a different rate from the output of the S&H but you can also patch some of your other signals there too and derive some interesting new shapes. Alternatively you can put pulses there and turn them into additional envelopes.
  • FEEDBACK - so many places to take feedback from and patch into , this will massively expand the palette of possibilities.
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#20

Trying out the Cascadia and it’s very impressive. Everything sounds great. Well done!

Here’s a two feature requests that would eliminate a number of cables on the panel:

  1. Vibrato LFO. Sine waveform. Slow rates. Subtly affects incoming ext/midi pitch. Fade-in time. Controllable from the front panel. (Have a look at the Barp 2600 for a good implementation.)

  2. Midi portamento controllable from the front panel. With higher resolution that just CC5.

Cheers, Robert