Hologram Microcosm

[UglyCasanova]

Paraphrasing another ILFer, Hologram seems to eat up their previous offering with every new pedal they release. Might as well had been V1, V2 and V3. Hot take.

This looks nice though.

[Blood_mountain]

I think this may cover some ground that will allow me to remove some duplicates from my board depending on how the effects sound. Looking through the 4 options for each effect Im very impressed with the level of detail that goes into the differences. This could be an all-encompassing glitch and micro/macro looping box on a grander scale than the Tensor which is awesome.

Im most excited for how much this pedal appears to be focused on real-time performance playing. The other Hologram pedals have been kind of a bummer to use in the moment because they want you to do a ton of work to set up presets that work for some specific kind of thing. Also, back jacks.

It's way better than the other Hologram's. I think they've learned a few things.

If you need to trim down your rig it can help but it's not exactly like other devices in the category.
Perhaps if you have a few glitch/sampler devices it can replace one or two but it's not a Stamme(n), not quite a Ct5 (which is okay, I love my Ct5),
not exactly a Mood though closer to that than anything with more loop time, not really a Tensor and not quite a Hexe. It's pretty damn cool though.
I think I may make a second performance video today though I can swear how good it will be after a few hours but it will entertain me.

The joy in all these things is that their workflow is different so while nothing will be exactly like anything else it is nice if I can drop something like a duplicate Fabrikat from my board because the Microcosm does some of the Fabrikat things well.

How are the glitch settings? Comparable to the Infinite jets? The one thing I really loved about the IJ was being able to record dimension knob movements on the glitch settings to create random patterns.

[whoismarykelly]

Got mine in the mail and spent an hour and a half with it so far going through all the presets. Im experiencing a very similar thing to what I have experienced with other Hologram pedals which is the knobs not feeling very responsive in changing the resulting output. Opposite extremes of the Activity knob seem very similar at times which is very hard to understand. I figured some of these presets would get very extreme in what they do to the signal but thus far everything feels very restrained and I'm looking for the wild stuff. Need to keep plugging away with it and maybe Im missing something. Overall I was anticipating a massive amount of different sounds and almost everything in the pedal feels like I could be on any of the other presets and get a roughly similar result.

Edit - After spending some more time with it I think it really depends on a fair number of the presets being set full wet to really get anything dramatic going. Most of the programs will do mild vaguely glitchy/pad/granular 'stuff' under your signal while you play but it takes the program being fully wet to actually get any nuance out of knob turning which is kinda bizarre. If you set it 50/50 on the mix there isn't much exciting going on which is a big difference from other pedals in the genre like the Particle, Tensor, Fabrikat, etc...

[shikawkee]

After a week with mine I'm sort of 50/50 on it. Like whoismarykelly said it's super weird that fully wet is necessary on a lot of stuff to really hear it develop. Otherwise it can be very vague and hazy.
I think it works well as an "ambient machine" but I'm more in the uglycasanova camp now in that all Hologram effects start to sound alike or are just extensions of the last one.
Not really sure I'm gonna' keep it. I think, for me, I prefer Tensor/Mood/Ct5 combo.
I already have reverbs and delays I really like.
It's a tool and as such it can be useful if you don't have those either devices but I don't think it's better. It's just one device not three is the best I can say.
If you have those other devices already don't get rid of them. YMMV.

[D.o.S.]

Paraphrasing another ILFer, Hologram seems to eat up their previous offering with every new pedal they release. Might as well had been V1, V2 and V3. Hot take.

This looks nice though.

It's not a hot take it's a good take?

TBH more pedal companies should operate like software companies. But, uh, if I was in the market for something like this I would probably still opt for one of the other options mentioned.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Like whoismarykelly said it's super weird that fully wet is necessary on a lot of stuff to really hear it develop.

The Shallow Water of glitch?

[shikawkee]

Like whoismarykelly said it's super weird that fully wet is necessary on a lot of stuff to really hear it develop.

The Shallow Water of glitch?

Haha, yeah. I just fear, as with many things gear, that people are always looking for something to replace something and that is not the case here IMO.
If I may be so bold I think it's grossly overhyped. Maybe because there were zero demos before we got our hands on it and the lockdown and anticipation got the best of us.

[coldbrightsunlight]

The secondary coronaGAS virus is very real!

[whoismarykelly]

I will say one very nice feature is the shape settings on burst loops which I don't believe exist in another microlooper. You can get cool synthier textures by adding the sawtooth or triangle waveforms to bursts.

Fully wet, which is the way a lot of microloopers work anyway, seems to be the way to go. I do think I might enjoy having two CT5s in this space a bit more but Im going to put the Microcosm on my board and see how it works for a few weeks.

[Blood_mountain]

Like whoismarykelly said it's super weird that fully wet is necessary on a lot of stuff to really hear it develop.

The Shallow Water of glitch?

Haha, yeah. I just fear, as with many things gear, that people are always looking for something to replace something and that is not the case here IMO.
If I may be so bold I think it's grossly overhyped. Maybe because there were zero demos before we got our hands on it and the lockdown and anticipation got the best of us.

Very interesting. I appreciate the info and perspective!

[whoismarykelly]

Another thought about this pedal after playing with it for a while is that it feels a bit like the Ottobit Jr on the glitch modes. But unlike the Ottobit Jr which triggers on tap tempo beats, there is a metric going on inside the Microcosm that decides when it will glitch and that metric isn't really apparent. Sometimes if you're playing it just wont glitch anything for like 4 or 5 measures. As far as I can tell there are a number of programs that are heavily influenced by the envelope of your playing but there isn't a sensitivity adjustment. If you start playing they will almost always trigger immediately but if you keep roughly the same input level for a while nothing will trigger for a surprisingly long time. If you mute the strings and then play another note the effect will trigger immediately. This can be kind of annoying because nothing will happen for a while with sustained playing which is when I want the pedal to drop in glitches and stutters.

[worra]

I also got one of these today and I'm on board with some of the things said in this thread.

I tried it on the digitone first and that wasn't a great experience for me, the pedal really relies on dynamic events to trigger things like the micro loops and granular/glitch stuff, so the relatively even dynamics of a synth doesn't play well here. Also, I left the pedal on instrument level because using line level just added an annoying pad that made the wet volume too quiet (again, hologram!).

I had a better time on guitar, some of the effects really shine here, I'm digging the mosaic and strum modes most so far. The looper works nicely, nothing bad to say about that so far. I'm still getting used to things so it's too early to make a call on whether or not this is a long-term keeper but I am a bit disappointed with my experience using it on synth so far. More stuff to come I'm sure.

[shikawkee]

I also got one of these today and I'm on board with some of the things said in this thread.

I tried it on the digitone first and that wasn't a great experience for me, the pedal really relies on dynamic events to trigger things like the micro loops and granular/glitch stuff, so the relatively even dynamics of a synth doesn't play well here. Also, I left the pedal on instrument level because using line level just added an annoying pad that made the wet volume too quiet (again, hologram!).

I had a better time on guitar, some of the effects really shine here, I'm digging the mosaic and strum modes most so far. The looper works nicely, nothing bad to say about that so far. I'm still getting used to things so it's too early to make a call on whether or not this is a long-term keeper but I am a bit disappointed with my experience using it on synth so far. More stuff to come I'm sure.

Just sold mine. Too frustrating. I've had it.

[Blood_mountain]

I also got one of these today and I'm on board with some of the things said in this thread.

I tried it on the digitone first and that wasn't a great experience for me, the pedal really relies on dynamic events to trigger things like the micro loops and granular/glitch stuff, so the relatively even dynamics of a synth doesn't play well here. Also, I left the pedal on instrument level because using line level just added an annoying pad that made the wet volume too quiet (again, hologram!).

I had a better time on guitar, some of the effects really shine here, I'm digging the mosaic and strum modes most so far. The looper works nicely, nothing bad to say about that so far. I'm still getting used to things so it's too early to make a call on whether or not this is a long-term keeper but I am a bit disappointed with my experience using it on synth so far. More stuff to come I'm sure.

Just sold mine. Too frustrating. I've had it.

I'm still thinking I'd like to try one. If by chance anyone who has one and is not excited by it want to trade for a Mood I might be into that.

[$harkToootth]

These reviews make me sad inside.