Strymon is making a Magneto module!

[MARK27]

Re: pre-order wait - I placed my order on February second and received it yesterday (Feb 24). However, I’m betting the wait times will be shorter at this point since they are in full manufacture.

[brandonlogic]

https://soundcloud.com/brandon-logic/2-24-18-mod

Sounds good! Is that the built-in reverb?

thanks! mostly yes, but i did add some reverb in ableton to the voices that weren't running through magneto in the patch.

[rustyjaw]

My first patch starting with Magneto as the centerpiece (also a healthy dose of Argos Bleak):

[video][/video]

Still madly in love with it, and slowly learning its ins and outs...literally

[batch]

Got mine a week ago. Have to say this thing sounds beautiful, just beautiful!

[Cowan]

Received my Magneto yesterday and am mega psyched. (Pre-ordered from Sweetwater about a month ago.)

Could someone (maybe from Strymon) explain the architecture of Shift mode a little more? Specifically, why do Heads 1-3 seem to start playback at slightly differing times in ECHO mode? What I mean is: Head 3 seems to start playback of the input signal instantaneously, Head 2 seems to lag a few milliseconds behind Head 3, and Head 1 seems to lag a few milliseconds more behind Head 2. I get that the delay time you set determines how much of the input signal will repeat on Heads 1-3, and I get the varispeed component, but just trying to understand the signal path a little bit more and how this feature functions. Thanks!

[polyoptics]

Had some fun with magneto over the weekend — great module.



[video][/video]

[Cowan]

I encourage everyone to send some random gates to the Shift CV In.

[drowld]

Had some fun with magneto over the weekend — great module.

Nice !
What are the joysticks here ?

[tthogs]

Considering this for my ambient sets. Im curious about the sound on sound looper feature.

So as i understand it, you still get the first 3 heads and have control over them in the same way you would if in other modes and only the 4th is the sos playhead. Is it easy to set up the 4th so that it doesn't distort or go overboard into feedback? Has anyone out there tried this yet?

[Bath House]

I got mine yesterday - preordered with my Sweetwater guy during NAMM/right after the announcement.

As I said earlier in the thread, the El Capistan has been a cornerstone of my sound for the last several years. It's all over most of the tracks on my award-winning records https://younghierophant.bandcamp.com/ and as a professional mix engineer, I end up using it on every single record I work on, even on things like vocals. I love the stupid el cap a LOT.

Here are some thoughts after only a few hours of use -

It sounds amazing. Way better, "higher fidelity" than the El Capistan. I'm sure a bunch of the code is shared among the two but it's no contest - it doesn't at all sound like a "module version of the El Cap." It's way better sounding pretty much across the board. It actually sounds so good that I wish there was a noise or hiss that could be dialed in along with the other degradations - this thing is SLICK sounding. I can't get over how good it sounds. I definitely like the wider range on the crinkle and wow and flutter, and tape age sounds better than on the el cap - it now sounds better than just a muffling LPF.

Though this wasn't really documented anywhere, it seems to be happy with a wide range of signals - I have it set up on an aux send on my mixer just like how I use my El Cap and it was happily gobbling up drum machines, recorded stems of live instruments, regular live synths (i got lost just jamming with it and my Odyssey for about 30 mins). This is not just a "modular level" device in the slightest.

Operation is a blast - having to turn on feedback per-head will confuse everyone on earth but you get used to it. The learning curve is pretty shallow (though I could use an El Cap blindfolded, including the secondary functions, so I may have an advantage). I though having to tap in the tempo was odd at first, but the expanded range that it affords you using the big knob is worth the tradeoff. I'm still not sure exactly how the relationship between delay time and fidelity works - the knob varies it once you've tapped in your "master" time, but does the "master" time vary the fidelity as well? In other words, if I tap in a 5-second delay, with the time knob at 12 noon, is it inherently a lower-fidelity response than if I tap in a 1-second delay with the knob at noon? Unsure yet.

I love the transport controls - very similar to the OP-1's tape tricks once you dial in good timing for the "spindown" effect of hitting pause, plus the retriggering and reversing are a ton of fun. Once I can stop just playing with this thing, I'm going to set up a Cirklon instrument def mapped out to these controls and get absolutely ignorant sequencing the transport.

The sound-on-sound looper degrades with each cycle over time, just like the El Cap. I haven't really heard much mention of this yet. It seems to be less extreme than the El Cap, where you can only really get a good minute or so before you've degenerated into noise. I set up a loop and walked away for 15 minutes and came back to howling.

I understand why the head feedback switches via CV are hidden behind a dipswitch, but ADVERTISE THIS. The first thing anyone should do is flip that switch before it's in your case.

I'll be honest, I don't understand the clock implementation at all yet, and its disproportionate inclusion and addressability on this thing. It kind of looks like you should be able to do Octatrack-style loop grabbing by syncing it up with clocks, so I guess that'll be cool later on once I can explore it.

Do this: put it into one-shot mode, sample something, and then scrub it with the time knob back and forth. Scratch your sample like a record. Wubba-wubba-wub.

Feature Wishlist, if updates are possible:

1. CV control over the four tape head levels. I'd imagine that every single person wants this and it's the only design oversight that jumps out at me. The four clock outs are the obvious source for this. I truly don't understand why this wasn't in the original design instead of those four clock outs, but I won't beat it to death.

2. Custom dialing-in of different pitches in shift mode. The octaves and the one fifth are great, but it would be lovely to be able to dial in your own ranges.

3. This one is a stretch, but the outstanding Montreal Assembly count to 5 pedal has a cool mode where each of the playback heads can "travel" at an independent rate across the recorded buffer, including backwards. I would love to see something like this implemented in either shift mode or the loop mode. Imagine three of those four heads playing back their own portion of the loop, one slowly sliding along it while another zips along in reverse, layered!

Either way, this is instantly my favorite piece of gear from the past decade. Holy crap, it's good.

[Bath House]

Considering this for my ambient sets. Im curious about the sound on sound looper feature.

So as i understand it, you still get the first 3 heads and have control over them in the same way you would if in other modes and only the 4th is the sos playhead. Is it easy to set up the 4th so that it doesn't distort or go overboard into feedback? Has anyone out there tried this yet?

The 4th is basically the "length" of the loop - you have to turn it up all of the way to get the full unbroken loop. It doesn't actually "echo" on its own - its repeat is the total loop. The other heads then add echos to this if you turn them up. Like the El Capistan (and real tape delays) the quality/fidelity of the loop does degrade over time.

[Zymos]

Yeah, I'm never going to use those clock outs, if they could magically turn them in to CV in for levels, it would be amazing.

[Bath House]

Yeah, I'm never going to use those clock outs, if they could magically turn them in to CV in for levels, it would be amazing.

They're so weird that I have a hard time figuring out what their intended practical usage is, even.

[Zymos]

Yeah, I'm never going to use those clock outs, if they could magically turn them in to CV in for levels, it would be amazing.

They're so weird that I have a hard time figuring out what their intended practical usage is, even.

It does let you do some self patching, but that's kind of a limited scenario...

[Zymos]

Yeah, I'm never going to use those clock outs, if they could magically turn them in to CV in for levels, it would be amazing.

They're so weird that I have a hard time figuring out what their intended practical usage is, even.

It does let you do some self patching, but that's kind of a limited scenario...

[brandonlogic]

1. CV control over the four tape head levels. I'd imagine that every single person wants this and it's the only design oversight that jumps out at me. The four clock outs are the obvious source for this. I truly don't understand why this wasn't in the original design instead of those four clock outs, but I won't beat it to death.

2. Custom dialing-in of different pitches in shift mode. The octaves and the one fifth are great, but it would be lovely to be able to dial in your own ranges.

Thanks you for bringing up these points.
I agree with these and I mentioned these back on page 13 of this thread too!
Yeah if the clock outs can't be reconfigured to be cv ins, then maybe instead they could be individual tap audio outs? That would be the next best thing if cv in is not an option, then you could modulate the levels externally at least..

im also in the camp that will most likely never use those clock outs.

bumping my comments back on page 13 since more people have this module now:

Most important thing: I think it desperately needs the ability to set up your own custom ‘shift’ mode. That pre set shift configuration is great but it’s going to get old real quick. We need the ability to make our own.

I still wish the playback Head gate outs were instead cv inputs for the head levels... (or individual tap outs). those head level’s just beg to be modulated by lfos. The fact you can’t is really unfortunate. I don’t think I’ll ever use the four head clock outs. For me, I just don’t see the point. I (and most people) have module delicated to clock mult and division, I just don’t need this feature on a delay.

There as a few times I felt there should be more range on the speed knob. I felt like it should be able to speed up more that it does at max (higher freq feedback trails).
When you not using it as a clocked delay, just letting the delay run freely, it seems like there should be a wider range, from slow delays to very fast delays by just turning the speed knob. But the amount you can change the delay time with just the knob isn’t much, you need to use tap to get much faster or much slower delays.

Strymon seems very good at listening to customers feedback, and suggestions, im sure they will work some of these things out.

[bgribble]

For anyone thinking of “preordering”, it seems that production is caught up with orders, or nearly so. I placed an order on Feb 21 and got a shipping notice today m, Feb 26.

[raised eyebrows]

Hi all, just wondering if anyone here has spent much time with the phrase sampler mode? I just got my Magneto yesterday and along with the good stuff (immediately jumping into making piles of beautiful dense saturated reversed rhythmic feedback noise goodness) I hit a point of confusion, so wanted to check in here to see if I'm screwing anything up.

The ability to sample a pitched sample to 'tape' and then play it chromatically via CV was one of the big selling points of this module to me, and I was thrilled to give it a try, but unfortunately I'm having some trouble. I've recorded in a phrase using splice in 'sample' mode, have the tape speed knob set to 12 o'clock, and have hooked up my cv keyboard (an Arturia keystep) with gate to 'play' and pitch to 'speed'. So far so good, but for some reason I'm only getting 1 octave total of control (i have to go -2 octaves on my keystep, and then I get exactly one octave of C to C.

In this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jOnh5ZI5FA - at 1:30 or so the sample is clearly transposed by a range of multiple octaves. just wondering if this is a Keystep or user error issue, and wanted to see if any of you were having any luck getting a range of more than an octave when using this mode. I've tried this with the speed set to both 'pitch quantize' and unquantized modes and have gotten the same range. The manual states that "By using the SPEED CV input, you can achieve a six octave range, allowing you to go three octaves lower than would be possible using the SPEED/PITCH knob alone without any incoming CV" in the 'Self Oscillation' section, but it's unclear whether that is still true in sampler mode - I'd assumed it would be, but maybe not?

Module is amazing otherwise, just am hoping to figure out how to get this feature to work..

[Ptbarnum]

For anyone thinking of “preordering”, it seems that production is caught up with orders, or nearly so. I placed an order on Feb 21 and got a shipping notice today m, Feb 26.

Me too, ordered on the 14th, shipping today

[strymon]

I'm still not sure exactly how the relationship between delay time and fidelity works - the knob varies it once you've tapped in your "master" time, but does the "master" time vary the fidelity as well? In other words, if I tap in a 5-second delay, with the time knob at 12 noon, is it inherently a lower-fidelity response than if I tap in a 1-second delay with the knob at noon? Unsure yet.

Only the SPEED/PITCH knob affects the fidelity of the delay repeats as this relates to the playback speed of the 'tape'. At higher playback speeds, you get higher fidelity delay repeats, and at lower playback speeds you get lower fidelity repeats. Changing the delay time via the TAP tempo button, CV, or CLK IN does not affect the fidelity of the delay repeats.

[JohnLRice]

Yeah, I'm never going to use those clock outs, if they could magically turn them in to CV in for levels, it would be amazing.

They're so weird that I have a hard time figuring out what their intended practical usage is, even.

The clock outs was the feature I was most looking forward to! (unfortunately I had to cancel my order because of rising expenses and zero income . . . )

I wanted to try using the clock outs to fire the EGs of my 4 voice setup. I think it would have been awesome . . .

[strymon]

Received my Magneto yesterday and am mega psyched. (Pre-ordered from Sweetwater about a month ago.)

Could someone (maybe from Strymon) explain the architecture of Shift mode a little more? Specifically, why do Heads 1-3 seem to start playback at slightly differing times in ECHO mode? What I mean is: Head 3 seems to start playback of the input signal instantaneously, Head 2 seems to lag a few milliseconds behind Head 3, and Head 1 seems to lag a few milliseconds more behind Head 2. I get that the delay time you set determines how much of the input signal will repeat on Heads 1-3, and I get the varispeed component, but just trying to understand the signal path a little bit more and how this feature functions. Thanks!

This has to do with the playback speed of each of the heads when in SHIFT mode. As Head 3 is playing back at HALF speed, this head always plays back once on the beat every 2 cycles of the delay time. Head 2 runs at double speed and is heard playing back 2x for every cycle of the delay time, with an offset of 1/2 of the delay time. And Head 1 runs at triple speed and is heard playing back 3x for every cycle of the delay time, with an offset of 1/3 of the delay time.

[Zymos]

Any chance the behavior of gates/triggers for feedback on and off can be made to toggle, instead of only when the voltage is high as it is now?

Loving Magneto as it is, but I guy can hope, right

[strymon]

Hi all, just wondering if anyone here has spent much time with the phrase sampler mode? I just got my Magneto yesterday and along with the good stuff (immediately jumping into making piles of beautiful dense saturated reversed rhythmic feedback noise goodness) I hit a point of confusion, so wanted to check in here to see if I'm screwing anything up.

The ability to sample a pitched sample to 'tape' and then play it chromatically via CV was one of the big selling points of this module to me, and I was thrilled to give it a try, but unfortunately I'm having some trouble. I've recorded in a phrase using splice in 'sample' mode, have the tape speed knob set to 12 o'clock, and have hooked up my cv keyboard (an Arturia keystep) with gate to 'play' and pitch to 'speed'. So far so good, but for some reason I'm only getting 1 octave total of control (i have to go -2 octaves on my keystep, and then I get exactly one octave of C to C.

In this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jOnh5ZI5FA - at 1:30 or so the sample is clearly transposed by a range of multiple octaves. just wondering if this is a Keystep or user error issue, and wanted to see if any of you were having any luck getting a range of more than an octave when using this mode. I've tried this with the speed set to both 'pitch quantize' and unquantized modes and have gotten the same range. The manual states that "By using the SPEED CV input, you can achieve a six octave range, allowing you to go three octaves lower than would be possible using the SPEED/PITCH knob alone without any incoming CV" in the 'Self Oscillation' section, but it's unclear whether that is still true in sampler mode - I'd assumed it would be, but maybe not?

Module is amazing otherwise, just am hoping to figure out how to get this feature to work..

Magneto's SPEED CV input is calibrated for 1V/octave over a range of -3V to +3V and the Arturia Keystep can only send positive voltage. When voltage is supplied to the SPEED CV input, the SPEED/PITCH knob still influences the the resultant speed/pitch, and the incoming CV is added to the knob position. 0V at the SPEED CV input will not cause the speed/pitch to deviate from the knob position value.

This means if the SPEED/PITCH knob is set to 12 o'clock noon for normal speed, it is adding a 2V offset to any incoming CV. The SPEED knob's virtual voltage range is 0-3V. As the Keystep can only send positive voltage, then it can only play back the sample from normal speed (0V from Keystep) to double speed (+1V from Keystep) in this setup. The keyboard would also need to send negative voltage to go down in pitch relative to the SPEED/PITCH knob position. Or, to get a greater range, you can turn the SPEED/PITCH knob all the way down to get a 3 octave range with 0V to +3V from the Keystep.

[strymon]

Any chance the behavior of gates/triggers for feedback on and off can be made to toggle, instead of only when the voltage is high as it is now?

Loving Magneto as it is, but I guy can hope, right

Definitely possible with future update.