Muff's Modules & More

[novielo]

never mind, i red the last page... sorry

[theglyph]

[Synthasonic]

O.k. so I have a question for those who've used some of these modules. I have built and used a 9700s, as well as a couple other Paia modules. Without getting down on them, let's just say that I don't think the quality and accuracy is what you see in modules from Blacet or Modcan. Does anyone here have experience with some of the newer modules and care to comment on this? It's one thing to sell off gear because you don't use it anymore, but it's still awesome and great. It's a whole different thing to try to sell something that doesn't work right, and never did (my 9700 falls into this category, even though it was gone over by the techs at Paia and works 100% according to them.) Opinions?

[werock]

True, they're probably not in the same league as Modcan, but I guess it's unreasonable to expect so from the Paia prices.

Comparing to Blacet is a bit more difficult - I've got a few of the newer Paia modules but nothing I can directly compare to a Blacet equivalent. But some general observations:

1. Build quality on the new modules is excellent, the panel paintwork has a nice finish.
2. The functionality per module is generally more vanilla than Blacet - many of the Blacet modules have multiple uses & functionality which is not always obvious at first.
3. I like the fact the new modules are 1FU width.
4. Performance wise, the Noise Generator seems a little quiet, not drastically so, but it is noticable and the level pot seems to have most of it's gain at the far end of the pot travel, but in most cases it will probably be left at the max value anyway. No problems with the Ring Mod.

As for things like the jacks & pots, only time will tell how well they will stand up - I have a couple of Blacet modules where the jacks are a bit buggered - nudging a patch cable results in scratchy noise. These modules were bought used, so I don't know how abused they have been.

I haven't got any of the original 9700 modules, but from various comments the new modules seem to be different beasts entirely - and as has been said on here before, a rack full of the VCAs & Mixers would be super value. Not having either of those it would be interesting to hear how the Paia VCA (LM13700 based?) compares to the SSM2164 based Blacet designs.

[BugBrand]

In my opinion Paia has always offered designs which are functional but not nearly as advanced as, say, Blacet.

I saw the schematic for the Noise Gen and to me it appears extremely basic but that seems to be the trade-off for such low prices. Blacet designs, on the other hand, are extremely solid / robust circuit-wise and that is what I think makes for a really topnotch modular system.

[vmgas]

though not as advanced i think paia is still plenty fun and useful
there are enough ins and outs on the vcf and vco to get a good bit of use out of them
i'm still using all my paia stuff i started out with and really dont have much intention of swapping them out anytime soon.
the 1u modules are plenty useful and as said before way affordable
the only thing i really can complain about is how tedious some of the 9700 series is when it comes to building

[Newambi]

Love Paia

[mkenall]

Been eyeing these

[dhamaryder]

Someone had asked about the quality of the new modules. I was happy with all of the ones I got(Noise source, cv source, mixer) except the mixer, and I got several of those. When you mix two or three signals and have the volumes about 1 o'clock the signals become quite distorted and certain areas of one signal or another will drop out significantly. I got the mixers because they are SO handy, the size, plus the fact that they have 5X gain. But overall I'm kind of disappointed in the mixer.
steve

[e-grad]

[Cat-A-Tonic]

[dhamaryder]

I do often use it to boost weaker signals. And yes, I have come to think of it more as a "feature" but i guess i wouldn't have minded having the option. For example I will often use it to mix two of the outputs of my Bass+++percussion synth and I have to be so delicate in mixing them. It's better if one or the other is dominant. If they're both equal volume then the bottom falls out and many other frequencies are hollowed out. It's very strange.

[werock]

I find it a bit surprising that there isn't a bog standard 4 way mixer in Frac land.

I know the Blacet quad VCA can be used as a mixer, but it would be nice to have a single width 4 channel mixer, with no gain.

I don't know why the old Blacet mixer only had 3 channels, surely they could have crammed in another channel

[e-grad]

Don't forget about the new Splitter/Mixer/Buffer which includes a 3 channel mixer as well.

Since 3 channels are fine for me I'm curious: Why do you want 4? Mixing all 4 trad. waveforms of a VCO?

(Of course the Blacet VCO has actually a 5th out.)

[werock]

Yeah, it's usually for mixing VCO waveforms (from multiple VCOs) - maybe I need to learn that 'less is more'...

But here's another example: Consider the Euro Doepfer Clock sequencer. One of the uses of that (from the manual) is to output each step into a mixer so you can attenuate the voltages to feed to a VCO to get a mini sequence running. If you try to do something like this in Frac you'd need 2 x 3 channel mixers for a 4 step sequence.

It's no big deal, it's just that it seems there would have been room for 4 channels on a Frac panel.

[e-grad]

[fluxmonkey]

the guy on the right:



honestly, when cords are plugged into the jacks it does interfere a bit w/ the knobs. the other configuration i've built a few times has 3 ins, and all 4 jacks clustered at the bottom, and ergonomically it's better. tradeoffs...

[werock]

DIY to the rescue