Mutable Instruments Blades

[Gringo Starr]

It's a lovely patch, Squallaz, but maybe not the best way to hear Blades...

I only heard reverb.

It is a nice sounding patch though.

[neumedi]

First, after several days with it... still loving Blades... all I'd hope it to be and more.

But...

Good gravy, am I the only one who is having problems with the ridiculously bright led's?!? I have other modules with fairly bright led's (like my Klavis Logic XT), but my Blades is like staring into the sun bright - enough that it closes my pupils too much in a dimly lit room. Pretty sure I'm gonna scour the house tomorrow for some semi-transparent material of some kind to tape over them with.

[starthief]

They're not the brightest LEDs I have encountered, but they are kind of excessive. I haven't tried them in a darkened room yet though.

[XiXora]

Yeah, the new Mutable LEDs are rather piercing to me too.

[neumedi]

Yeah, the new Mutable LEDs are rather piercing to me too.

Now that you mentioned "new", I realized my Blades is right above Rings in the same case, and yeah, the difference in LED brightness is pretty stark.

But Rings also reminded me... kudos to Emilie for adding colorblind mode to Rings firmware, and for making Blades non-color-dependent. The brightness can be easily dealt with, but for colorblind (ahem, color deficient) folks like me, it's nice to not have to rely on the color itself.

[XiXora]

Now that you mentioned "new", I realized my Blades is right above Rings in the same case, and yeah, the difference in LED brightness is pretty stark.

But Rings also reminded me... kudos to Emilie for adding colorblind mode to Rings firmware, and for making Blades non-color-dependent. The brightness can be easily dealt with, but for colorblind (ahem, color deficient) folks like me, it's nice to not have to rely on the color itself.

I suppose I can deal with being blinded to help folks like you out :p

[Scedwin]

Any insider info on the ETA on Blades for U.S. shops? Looks like everyone is in preorder/not in stock status at the moment

[starthief]

I guess the first wave sold out. I bought mine from Detroit Modular when it was first announced.

[newrun]

First, after several days with it... still loving Blades... all I'd hope it to be and more.

But...

Good gravy, am I the only one who is having problems with the ridiculously bright led's?!? I have other modules with fairly bright led's (like my Klavis Logic XT), but my Blades is like staring into the sun bright - enough that it closes my pupils too much in a dimly lit room. Pretty sure I'm gonna scour the house tomorrow for some semi-transparent material of some kind to tape over them with.

I have the same problem with some leds. Not sure why manufacturers do this. Anyway, I put washi tape over them. You can still see the led and it doesn’t seem to leave a sticky residue.

[Funky40]

oh WOW, i´m speakless reading this

[Kosmikos]

I’m wondering whether to get one of the second batch. Apart from the light issue, how are you getting on with it? No buyer’s remorse yet?
I initially thought this lacked in character during the filter sweep demos and sounded a bit dry, how is it doing under envelope modulation?

[starthief]

Still love it.

I don't think it lacks character at all, particularly when using both filters in series or parallel or somewhere in between. But even just using a single filter, I like the sound.

I'm also not going to ditch my Angle Grinder or VCFQ. And don't ask me to pick a favorite from among the three

[neumedi]

I'm with starthief - still love mine as well, and agree that it does not lack character at all...

I'm not a huge expert in filters... but have had several in my tabletop/keyboard/VST synths over the years... and have owned 5 in Eurorack format... my quick take on the Euro ones to put Blades in context:
- Belgrad - love the Tito - easily my favorite filter when looking for high-resonant squealing/squelching timbres, but also great for smooth self-oscillation. Downside is that I find it difficult to get dual peaks to land where I want them to, and so I generally treat it as a traditional mono filter.
- QPAS - very smooth, fun to wiggle with cv, and sounds great. While using the exclamation wild card inputs is fun an all, I generally (and lazily) go to it for filter pinging with higher frequency sources.
- Morgasmatron - lots of control. Overdrive is cool. Nothing wrong with it at all - but to be honest, it's my least used filter, and not currently racked.
- XaVCF - did you say character? It's my favorite filter to send crazy envelopes to... with resonant at mid-level. Not as much control as most of the others, and it is a bit flat at very low res, and too easily gets to high-pitch squeal at high-res, but just so good when it it's sweet spot.
- Blades - honestly, easiest way to describe it is as what I always wanted Morgasmatron to be. True stereo, full control over each channel, able to blend channels, plenty of cv and outputs, and independent drive and wavefolder controls that allow to quickly, and easily, dial in a wide variety of "character". I would say it doesn't have as noticeable of a character as something like a XaVCF, but that's only because it has a smooth gradation of many characters. Stop on any combination of drive and wavefolder, let it soak in, and you realize there's plenty of character. And then after a bit, when you realize there's just a bit too much, or too little of a certain character, and having a nice smoothly gradual drive and wavefolder controls to wiggle with, and you really appreciate that you can dial things just a bit back, or a bit forward, as desired. A bit higher drive with a bit lower wavefolder, or vice-versa, and along with cutoff/resonance/blend, you can dial in a lot of different characters that all sound really good.

All the above massively subjective - YMMV.

[gloamtrotter]

Any insider info on the ETA on Blades for U.S. shops? Looks like everyone is in preorder/not in stock status at the moment

also wondering this, anyone have any info?

[starthief]

On the Mutable forum, Emilie said "best case scenario, February, worst case, April"

[gloamtrotter]

Cool, thanks!