ZOIA!!

[Mark Hammer]

Oh.....my.....goodness.

We have a couple of "name" pedal-makers in my municipality, including Fairfield, Retro-Sonic, and Empress.  Steve Bragg from Empress came over last night and we put it through its paces for a few hours.  It was a pleasure to be able to discuss it without dealing with the din of NAMM, or shoving mics in people's faces.

First impressions:

1) It's so small! I thought it would be about the size of one of the larger Diamond or EHX pedals, but it's tiny for what it has and does. Same size as the Echo System. I also can't get over how much information can be displayed on that tiny screen. It's a little hard to read, but Steve said that the next size up, in terms of both resolution and size was a very big price differential. The one big knob lets you scroll through menus and submenus. But bring your reading glasses.

2) It does everything. And I mean everything. Steve brought an Arturia keyboard controller, set up the Zoia as a multi-oscillator synth, and used it as the tone generator for the keyboard.  I plugged in my Casio MIDI guitar instead of the keyboard, and used the Zoia as a tone generator for that, both in monophonic and polyphonic mode.  After I demonstrated stereo reprocessing for him, using the TC Alter Ego that a buddy had left with me for fun, Steve started working on a patch in his notebook. I plugged a "regular" guitar in, and he simulated the re-processing of the guitar through a two-channel delay, where the output of one channel is fed back to the input of the other.  It can MAKE sounds, and can process sounds you give it...in stereo.

So, it slices, dices, makes Julienned fries, can have more oscillators than you'll ever need. There is the flash-card slot in the back for both upgrading and saving/loading patches.  Steve said they had about 60 "modules" that can be connected at present, and are planning others. A "module" could be an oscillator, an envelope generator, VCA, a delay, and a whole buncha others that one might normally find in a deluxe modular synth....except it fits in the palm of your hand.

Did I mention it was small?

If you wanted to make a through-zero flanger you'd set up a patch that had two parallel delays, one fixed and the other swept, such that the swept one would sometimes be "ahead" of the fixed one by a smidgen. I was mentioning to Steve about what is termed "theta processing" last night. It involves inserting a few specialized stages of phase shift after the delay signal in a flanger, such that the notches in the bass range are spread out a little differently, to remove the "boxiness". Eventide used this in their old Instant Flanger. But it could be replicated in the Zoia. I gather the phase shift stage modules in there now are of the "lead" variety (i.e., phase shift increases with audio frequency). Theta uses "lag" (more phase shift the lower you go). BUt that's simply another, albeit less common, module that could be programmed or form part of a firmware flash update.

3) It is as deep as deep gets. Steve started developing it about 2 years ago, so by now he is nimble in quickly programming it. But for myself, it was a flurry of hand movements and a blur of flashing buttons when he was setting up other sounds. Each button/pad has an RGB LED under it so it can be any colour. I suggested that it come out of the box with a default colour scheme such that any printed instructions would make sense when referring to button colour, and let people assign the colours that make sense to them later on.

I was hoping that there would be some sort of fixed and predictable columns-by-rows structure to it. But no, it's more flexible than that. So sometimes, Steve would press a button on one row, and I'd see 5 consecutive buttons light up with that colour, one brighter than the others, but the same-coloured buttons "wrapping" around to the next row. I can safely say that, were I to have one right now, I would not be able to program it to do anything more complicated than be a tremolo, for maybe a few months. But the fact that it CAN do everything would certainly keep me trying.

If your comfort zone is a 3-knob overdrive, this is not for you. If your comfort zone includes accessing the second set of parameters on a big Strymon pedal, then it might be for, but it's not guaranteed. If your comfort zone includes programming a DX7, then you'll be fine with it. The big challenge for Steve and Co. will be producing the demonstration and instructional videos, and a "learner's guide" that would step the new owner through setting up a couple of sounds/functions, from the simple to the "mind-blowing killer patch". The hurdle will lie in making it feel as comfortable and familiar to the user as a 3-knob overdrive or delay. Steve is understandably there, but the question is whether it would take the new user 2 years to be as comfortable.  Anticipated release date is JUne.  I gather, intended to sync up with Summer NAMM.

[ElectricDruid]

It sounds like amazing software and powerful hardware in the box. The question mark for me is the interface. Is it easy enough to learn and use that you'll actually use more than a fraction of the powerful stuff it'll do? My suspicion is that the answer (unfortunately) is probably not. Your comments about DX7 programmers aren't encouraging. The DX7 was famously so obscure to program for the synth players of that era that it was the first synth to spawn an industry of synth patches to buy.
I'd love to see something like this work and be successful, but I don't know if it's really realistic in a pedal format, and a small one at that. Does it come with a PC-based editor package? Could I design patches on my laptop and stick them on it like that so I'm not painting the hallway through the letterbox? That would help, but ultimately, I don't know if I would go for it even then - who wants more time spent editing stuff on the computer? Music is plagued with that already.

My personal view - others may feel differently, obviously. I like knobs on stuff, even if it takes up more room (buy a bigger house!).

Tom

[EBK]

Tom, that reminds me of a guest musician my band had for a brief time who brought in some some sort of synth unit that I called "the radioactive duck fart simulator" (it glowed bright green and made many menacingly unmusical sounds).  He would spend several minutes programming in a patch to produce a sound that only he knew as correct.  Whenever one of us would ask him to tweak it a bit, perhaps making it a tad shallower in the envelope filter or perhaps with a slightly softer attack, he would basically answer, "I can't without redoing everything."  He would fiddle with the controls some, either changing things or pretending to change things, and the result was always the same.  He clearly was in over his head with that thing.

[Mark Hammer]

I have suggested to Steve that they develop apps that might allow users to create or edit patches in a graphical environment, and that they work on both demonstration videos and an instruction manual.  My guess is it will appeal largely to the synth crowd, who are already accustomed to complex patches, and think in terms of modules.

Much like TC's Toneprint app, and enabled pedals, where you can either use the software app to produce your own custom patches, or simply download presets from the library, people will be able to download module interconnections (patches) from a library if they don't wish to take on the challenge of doing the programming themselves.  And the stomp-button interface allows one to scroll through existing presets/patches and a descriptive title on the tiny screen.

IN that sense, it IS a bit like those keyboards or multi-FX that come with their own library of preprogrammed sounds, but also let you invent your own.  And as I suspect we are all aware, a lot of the time people just use what's already built in, without embarking on any programming themselves.  Not the most desirable thing, but not a crime.

And, as much as this is going to be a commercial product, the DIY part lies in the creation of a virtual effect, using the capabilities of the pedal.

[vigilante397]

I watched a couple videos on the thing, and in a word, it's neat. I definitely agree it's largely a synth appeal, though there is some overlap of guitar/synth crowds and those people will be tickled pink with the possibilities.

That being said I'm an overdrive and delay (maybe even tremolo if I feel crazy) kind of guy. I would love to watch somebody that knew what they were doing play with one of these for a couple hours, but it's very apparent I'm not the "target market." I have a good friend that I know would sh!t bricks if he ever got his hands on one though

[Rob Strand]

Which button do you press to get Coka-Cola, or maybe Miso for the Japanese version.

[Mark Hammer]

I was gonna say "the brown one", but since all the buttons can be whatever colour you want, how would anyone know which one is the brown one?

It uses a Blackfin DSP.

[~arph]

I have never seen a brown light.

That aside, just like he states at the beginning. He is inspired by max/msp, pure data. And aimed at a public at that level. It is an audio toolbox, what you make with it is up to you,.
Definitely not something for your average guitar player.

I think its awesome. Just downloaded pd again