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talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2013 5:37 pm
by 9520575
Hello,
Do you own a xerograph, or some other cool filter pedal? I want to control the xerographs's sweep with my goatkeeper. Maybe you know if this can be done. Or maybe you know another filter that is foot pedal sweepable. Like say the moogerfooger filter (which is another option). Or maybe the strymon mobius.

So, filters...

With expression pedal inputs lay it on me brothers...

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2013 5:40 pm
by sonidero
Image

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2013 5:42 pm
by hollowhero
The subdecay prometheus dlx and source audio poly-mod filter have expression control (in addition to envelope and lfo)

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2013 6:00 pm
by 9520575
sonidero wrote:Image


yes. this works too...

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2013 6:11 pm
by Tristan
I settled on the Xerograph Deluxe and I have a Goatkeeper 3 too, haven't tried to run the LFO out of the Goatkeeper to the Xero though, I'll try and report back but I guess it should work fine.
The Xerograph is definitely way more synthy sounding than the Prometheus DLX in my opinion, it can also do heavy resonance up to the point of self oscillating as the Prometheus DLX can't and it has a heavier more extreme and characteristic sound, that's why I didn't go with the Prometheus DLX, the Xero doesn't have the extensive waveforms of the latter though and maybe the Prometheus DLX sounds a little better on a completely clean sound.
Other filter pedals that have gained my interest (though I haven't tried them yet) are:
Robot Factory Brain Freeze, Photron
Sonuus Wahoo

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2013 8:09 pm
by 9520575
Tristan wrote:I settled on the Xerograph Deluxe and I have a Goatkeeper 3 too, haven't tried to run the LFO out of the Goatkeeper to the Xero though, I'll try and report back but I guess it should work fine.

Please do!

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 7:06 am
by Tristan
Okay, here's some random thoughts:
I tried feeding the LFO out of the Goatkeeper III to the Xerograph Deluxe and it works but it's not as easy as just getting a Prometheus DLX if those LFO waveforms is mainly what you're going for.
Basically you need to setup the Xero completely differently than when you'd use it as an envelope filter.
With the Freq all the way down or maybe only 1/4 up, also being moderate on the Goatkeeper Depth/Wave knob and putting that only 1/4 to 1/3 up I could get some nice results.
The Square and especially the Sine wave need a bit less wave depth so I'd put the Depth/Wave knob on the Goatkeeper 1/4 up then and keep the Freq knob on the Xero all the way down.
Random is a bit more extreme so you have to turn up the Depth/Wave knob on the Goatkeeper and the Freq knob on the Xero a bit more.

It works a bit counter intuitively, lower settings on the Depth/Wave knob of the Goatkeeper coax deeper sounds, as do lower settings on the Freq knob of the Xero (but that's logical offcourse).
Another thing that makes it a bit more difficult to work with is that the useful range of the Depth/Wave knob on the Goatkeeper basically resides in the area from the 2nd dot to the 5th dot so that's a lot of range on only a small part of the potentiometer.

Overall I'd say the Prometheus DLX sounds nicer on clean sounds, as the Xero is a bit nastier and peakier but then again that's why it's such a great unit for longer synth style sweeps with an expression pedal. :)
With drive it's a different story however, even given the difficulties of working with the Xero + Goatkeeper combination I think I prefer it over the
Prometheus DLX, it's so much more synthy sounding and capable of extremes that it's quite mind blowing, wow, I was having lots of fun with it!
My end verdict: For all in one and/or if you want to use it with a clean sound I'd get a Prometheus DLX, for freak out baby I'd get a Xerograph Deluxe. :)

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 7:29 am
by 9520575
Very interesting. I really appreciate that. Extremely helpful. The problem , for me, with the prometheus is its price is pretty close to a mobius. I'm more inclined to say well i should spend a hundred more and get more sounds. The sample and hold on the prometheus sounds really nice.

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 1:33 pm
by Tristan
You're welcome, I see, I can't help you much there I guess.
I have a Timeline but I'm thinking about selling it because the whole preset thing isn't really my bag and my DMM 550TT is actually more versatile for me funny enough.
The Mobius is digital offcourse, which makes it a different beast all together, though I guess soundwise it wouldn't be as far from the Prometheus DLX as it is from the Xero, I don't think they really can make a digital filter as extreme as the Xero.
For random sample and hold stuff I opted for a phaser instead of a filter because I like that sound even more, I ended up with the Quasar DLX but I'm not blown away by it really, it's a good machine but even though it has all those switches, knobs and modes it doesn't really get as thick or swooshy as a Small Stone or as beautifully subtle as a Phase 90 for instance.

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:03 am
by 9520575
After watching demos and reading manuals, i think the subdecay prometheus is what I'm after. I want an LFO controlled filter, that has an envelope too as well as being a lowpass wah. Extra bonus if i could hook up my goat keeper to make it some kinda seek wah type sound, but i feel like that pixalated mode would be even better. I heard a lovely demo where the user got some harmonic tremolo type sounds out of it. Really great. I had a timeline at one point and wasn't taken with it. Now, time to track down a used prometheus dlx.

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 10:44 am
by Dramatis Persona
I really miss my xero deluxe, but I think it works better on bass than guitar, the freq knob is calibrated for bass frequencies, if you are playing guitar is totally useless before 1 o'clock (you can't hear any sound coming from the wet signal). The oscillation is really cool, but too trebly, loud and uncontrollable. The reverse sweep is useless on guitar. The only thing I really miss is that the xero can do a female banshee/ghost vocal sound with a bottleneck on high strings and gregorian choir on bass strings, like a mellotron, an ondes, or a teremin! Awesome.

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 12:28 pm
by SmallEQ
9520575 wrote:After watching demos and reading manuals, i think the subdecay prometheus is what I'm after. I want an LFO controlled filter, that has an envelope too as well as being a lowpass wah. Extra bonus if i could hook up my goat keeper to make it some kinda seek wah type sound, but i feel like that pixalated mode would be even better. I heard a lovely demo where the user got some harmonic tremolo type sounds out of it. Really great. I had a timeline at one point and wasn't taken with it. Now, time to track down a used prometheus dlx.


Bigger, Presets and cheaper, but you might want to consider the Source Audio PolyMod filter. Any of the tremolo/seek wah effects (among other things) heard in the below tracks were done using the LFO functionality of the Bass version after a few minutes of tweaking. I think it would do a lot of the stuff you're talking about above.

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/smalleq/a-bef-jam[/soundcloud]
[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/smalleq/wobbity-wobbity[/soundcloud]

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 4:37 pm
by Tristan
Dramatis Persona wrote:I really miss my xero deluxe, but I think it works better on bass than guitar, the freq knob is calibrated for bass frequencies, if you are playing guitar is totally useless before 1 o'clock (you can't hear any sound coming from the wet signal). The oscillation is really cool, but too trebly, loud and uncontrollable. The reverse sweep is useless on guitar. The only thing I really miss is that the xero can do a female banshee/ghost vocal sound with a bottleneck on high strings and gregorian choir on bass strings, like a mellotron, an ondes, or a teremin! Awesome.


Very interesting, it would be great if you could share some settings that gave you these female banshee/ghost vocal, gregorian choir and mellotron/ondes/theremin sounds. :)

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 4:38 pm
by ChetMagongalo
I personally don't miss my Xero too much. I liked it best running a fuzz into it but for normal filter sounds I greatly preferred my Prometheus which was more flexible and had options I liked more. But that's just me.

Re: talk to me about your Xerograph

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 7:20 pm
by 9520575
Hrm...
So, the xerograph least $, least features, sounds excellent.

Prometheus, more money, more options, nice sound.

Mobius, most expensive, moderate features, sounds alright.

Polymod, close to the xero in price, a shit ton of features, sounds alright.

I feel like I'm more confused. That source audio fucking has everything, but it sounds meh. That could be just the demos though. The xerograph and prometheus just sound the best, to me.

The source audio said something about user created step sequences, yes i want that. Well, then more manuals to read. if i could get a 15% coupon somewhere, prometheus would be about $277. Polymod is $229. So, fiddy bucks difference. Or about forty beans less, xerograph.



Thanks for all your input thus far everyone! Very Helpful