Patchblocks

I think a fair amount of people might be interested in this. Pretty awesome idea. Watch the vid...

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2013/11/patchblocks-modular-synth-units-programmed-visually-sounds-gallery/

Seems a bit pointless.

But to have little programmable boxes is nice & fun, I guess.

I found out about these today and hurried over to tell you all about only to realise that Kcinsu had beat me to it and I overlooked it last time I was on here. Anyway... gotta disagree with TH5555 on this one. I can think of a ton of uses for these.... little FX units, noise gens, mini drum machines. I could also imagine them being quite a handy way to add some DSP into a modular system or even like that new Korg Little Bits thing. Or to interface with the Microbrute that's coming out with it's patchbay.

I don't think it's on the cards yet, but from reading their forum it sounds as if there is a possibility that they might do a MIDI I/O patchblock which would presumably mean you could then get into the realms of building really portable generative sequencers and all sorts.

Aye, I am quite intrigued by these. Think I'll keep an eye on it and either pledge for 1 or 2 of the blocks. At £30 each you're struggling to dumb midi controllers or shonky behringer FX pedals for that price.

seems pretty fucking awesome to me, especially if you would like to do some reaktor/maxmsp midi processing/dsp stuff but totally off the computer.

edit: wait does it require the use of software running at the same time? If so a lot less exciting but still cool.

Boxcutter plays Patchblocks. Not all that interesting, but the track at the end is nice.

[youtubehd]UJpHoPFFvEc[/youtubehd]

Once they're programmed you can disconnect from the computer and they're stand-alone... the videos have them being used unconnected to a computer. They've also just announced that they're working on MIDI in and MIDI out blocks so they can be used for groovy cool integrating with other gear fun.

The patcher software is also now available (Win only just now - OSX is coming) so you can get a feel for what can be achieved. Just had a play about... seems pretty fun although a bit unrefined still.

bump because I just found out about these

  On 11/8/2013 at 6:58 PM, th555 said:

Seems a bit pointless.

Only if you don't know how modular synthesizers works. And the fact that they're hardware and not software means you can integrate them easily with other things. It would be crazy if they made voltage processing I/O for these things so you could patch them in to your other synths.

A bit pricey, though. 50 bucks for two knobs and two buttons.

Is their language turing complete?

Yeah I reckon for integrating with a modular synth they're useful.

this is super fucking cool.

You guys completely miss the point I think. You basically get Max in a module. The price is awesome for being able to do arbitrary DSP.

Is a Nord modular turing complete? Is a Eventide processor turing complete? Pretty sure that is not a relevant parameter for this.

If you don't get this you're just a knob.

:D

max/msp is turing complete. If it's turing complete you can literally do just about anything with these. Of course I agree though; modular synthesis is far from the only thing that you can do with these of course, but the type of musical versatility of these is similar to the type of musical versatility of a modular synthesizer, although these are technically greater. 35 quid is still too much for though, even if you can do a lot with only one patch block (max/msp is 99 bucks for student pricing and I still haven't paid for that).

ya $99 + $1000 for the damned computer you need to run it + $300 for an audio interface for IO.

:P

I backed this, and really looking forward to receiving a couple. I was looking at the Monome Aleph but it is waaaay too expensive for a random punt, nice to see something that you can try out for a lot less that might lever up into something more powerful later. Seems like there is a nice gap in the market for a reasonably powerful DSP device in a box.