New gear announcements for 2022

[Dandolin]

i figured

[qersty]

i guess i missed this jawn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q695EZ6Ahiw
merhumblegrumble

The packaging and build quality do not inspire confidence.

Looks like the enclosures are 3D printed? I'm not very familiar with 3D printing and the rigidity of the plastic, but seems like something that might not be super durable over the long haul.

I haven't had much experience but the 3D printed stuff ive held has felt pretty solid cause it is layers. kinda like plywood

[Tall Walls]

I'm on the fence about Habit. It seemed like it would be right up my alley, but over the course of the last day of working with it I've been getting consistently so-so results. Engaging the Spread and Scan in any amount immediately creates the glitchy soup you hear in all of the demos. There doesn't seem to be a way to get larger chunks to replay--it's as if there's some default internal slice size that everything gets chopped into. It's certainly not determined by the Size knob. It doesn't sound bad, really, but it all sounds very similar. It is interesting to have it in Feed mode and just let it do its thing forever. Maybe I'll keep it just for the super long delay time, but I can do that with my Grand Canyon and I pretty much never do. I got along with the MOOD right away, but I'm struggling to like the Habit.

[Dandolin]

yeah i think i read somewhere, either in the manual or over on the trainwreck thread on TGP that they implemented some granular-type smoothing to the scan during any "knob movements" which would also include ramping.... i could see that sounding very samey.

i remain intrigued by the possibility of interaction between the buffer and the current delayed signal, but it also seems to be a possible hit-or-miss situation where, to get consistently useful results you have to rein in your playing, maybe to a point where it makes it less fun/free to play with the thing.

i really don't know tho because at the current price, i wont be able to join the party (my fiscal limitations, not CB's pricing being problematic). I hear glimmers (no pun intended) of interest in the early use cases, but i'm still listening for something that really makes me uncomfortable about not having one, lol. 'tis early days tho - i'm amazed so many people have it in their hands already

i also hear folks just being dumbfounded by it (looking @ you PGS Reverb Andy )


i'd be interested to see if any smarty-pants with a ZOIA or Beebo can drum up a work-alike - but i don't think it's necessarily that easy to pull off because of the buffer and the way it's set up to interact with the delay signal, which is definitely the most interesting/innovative part of the thing for me

[D.o.S.]

yeah i think i read somewhere, either in the manual or over on the trainwreck thread on TGP that they implemented some granular-type smoothing to the scan during any "knob movements" which would also include ramping.... i could see that sounding very samey.

Feels like this is a damned if you do, damned if you don't moment though - if you aren't doing any smoothing I'd wager a large portion of the people who use the pedal are just going to complain that it sounds rubbish.

[Dandolin]

oh, aye, i think you're definitely right on that - and the interface is already so crowded, it'd be impossible to add a knob or switch (even a dip) to give some choice over grain size for the scan without giving up something that a substantial percentage of users would find critical....

[Tall Walls]

I'm still waffling over the Habit and my 48-hour return window is swiftly closing. I did manage to use Spread and Scan without creating generic glitches, but I'm not sure it's anything I can work with in an interesting way. The underlying memory is always three minutes long, which forces everything to relate to that amount of time. So I was able to create the effect of two independent loops by playing something for a minute and a half and then playing something else for a minute and a half. With Scan at halfway and Spread at full CW, one half of the entire loop would play over the other half. But it only works with a loop that's a minute and a half long. Not that this kind of indeterminate overdubbing is something that necessarily makes sense to do with this device--it's more of a demonstration of how the underlying memory works. I had to stare at a clock while I was playing to get it to work, which isn't all that much fun. Your options seem to be to either play at a very strict tempo, so that your layers will work rhythmically, or play mushy swelly stuff where tempo doesn't matter.

The long delay with modifiers is nearly cool enough, but even with that I have qualms. The Size knob gets you to four seconds of delay at about 1 o'clock, which means that the other 56 seconds of delay time are crammed into the last third of the knob's sweep. I get that delay times above ten seconds or whatever are hard to "feel," but with this setup you have no chance at finding any particular long delay time. You can turn the delay time all the way down and kill the dry signal to use the modifiers as real-time effects, but the latency is pretty noticeable. They mention this in the manual, and you can get used to it, but the effects aren't really special enough to make it worth it.

I guess I must be afraid that there are techniques I haven't uncovered that will make the Habit work for me, because based on what I wrote above I don't know why I'd keep it.

Edit: typo

[Dandolin]

yeah - you're certainly not making it sound very appealing

[MrNovember]

Thanks for the update on the Habit. I was concerned with a lot of the things you laid out in your post. I’ll probably skip the Habit in favour of a DL4 or RE2(02).

[Dandolin]

if i buy another delay, it'll probs be the Lexicon PCM-42-alike Shikawkee's been busting his butt on forever....
[don't ask him 'bout it tho - NDA]

[whitecapsof]

eagerly awaiting that NDA device but realized I have no allegiance to the lexicon sound, having never used one. plus tgp is gonna buy them all and it'll be $800 on reverb...

sounds like there is some control over habit's scan window then? maybe impractical for most uses but I was expecting this to be a purely sound-on-sound feature anyway

[cosmicevan]

Jeez, what a wild...week(?) for delays?!?!?! Everything intrigues me...everything is more money than I want to spend...and everything I'm not jumping on now, though I want em all. I definitely see myself snagging a habit at some point in time. As a tweaker, it's right up my alley. It just feels like another piece of gear that is super deep that I won't have enough time to devote to. I already have like 10 of those. Thank goodness this isn't a we only made 10 so buy it now or pay out the nose. We'll see, but I'm sure sooner or later I'll cave.

I'm more interested in the RE2 and the RE202...not sure why though...but again, not jumping at anything. Trying to calm it down across the board. So many pedalz...so little doll hairs.

[Tall Walls]

sounds like there is some control over habit's scan window then? maybe impractical for most uses but I was expecting this to be a purely sound-on-sound feature anyway

I never nailed down the Scan/Spread behavior. If you set them to some position before you start playing you get more interesting (to me) results than if you turn them after; that seems to be where the glitchiness comes in. Maybe. But if you turn up the Scan you also have to be patient and keep playing until the underlying memory fills up. I got some sounds I liked, but I also got a lot of corny-sounding stuff (well-represented in the demos), and overall working with the pedal felt like a chore. And I was conceptually irritated by the unchangeable three minute memory--"A nice length for a piece of music," according to the manual. Says who? It reminds me of my least favorite part of the MOOD--the quantized clock, so every loop is some multiple of half a second. If I ruled the world there'd be a dipswitch to allow you to choose quantized or unquantized clock. That's the only change I would make.

Probably the best part of the Habit was setting it to Feed and letting the contents of the memory continually recycle with changes wrought by the delay, modifiers, and Spread. I could picture it creating a nice audio environment for an art gallery. Alas, I have no art gallery.

I wonder how many people will stick with the Habit. Chase Bliss clearly made a lot of them--the one I had was serial number 1000-something.

[Seance]

I had to stare at a clock while I was playing to get it to work, which isn't all that much fun. Your options seem to be to either play at a very strict tempo, so that your layers will work rhythmically, or play mushy swelly stuff where tempo doesn't matter.

Probably the best part of the Habit was setting it to Feed and letting the contents of the memory continually recycle with changes wrought by the delay, modifiers, and Spread. I could picture it creating a nice audio environment for an art gallery. Alas, I have no art gallery.

All of this is of interest to me. For many (not all) of my uses, the Habit seems like it was custom-built for me.

Since I use pedals to improvise soundtracks to my animations, I in effect do have an art gallery at least some of the time and I frequently do stare at a clock (or the animation) while I play so that I can generate something that at least loosely corresponds to the timing of the visuals.

An unchangeable three-minute limitation is a bit of a concern, but then again, having an esthetic forged in the last century, my animations tend to be 12 minutes or longer. And so perhaps my animations could accommodate useful multiples of that 3-minute buffer?

More From Form (14 minutes)
https://vimeo.com/233878453
Phosphene Ophelia (15 minutes)
https://vimeo.com/388773121
Theoria (11 minutes)
https://vimeo.com/381368427

But then again... supply chains don't grow on money trees!
And I already own pedals that allow me to attempt variations on these sounds/feels.

[Bartimaeus]

frustrating that for all its flexibility, the habit ends up hard-wiring some of the most useful aspects?

it feels like after the Count to 5 became such a huge success, every new micro-looper insists on turning your playing into a kinda same-y soup? tensor excluded, that one really lets you control how much you want.

i guess i missed this jawn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q695EZ6Ahiw
merhumblegrumble

The packaging and build quality do not inspire confidence.

Looks like the enclosures are 3D printed? I'm not very familiar with 3D printing and the rigidity of the plastic, but seems like something that might not be super durable over the long haul.

I haven't had much experience but the 3D printed stuff ive held has felt pretty solid cause it is layers. kinda like plywood

you may be right. but tbh i can't imagine build quality was a priority. surely this kind of pedal is made for bookshelves and instagram demos?