I have been very much back in Euro, since Autumn, after taking many years off to focus on software & the portability & power of computers in an attempt to give people the things that I assume are what they think they want, from me. Impossible to gauge at any meaninfgul metric; I’m most certainly wrong.

That said, this particular switch-up; really only the last in a long series of them that, accumulated over time, make allegiances seem flippant & inconsquential, was set in motion by the arrival of the new O_c modules. Around them, I’ve built a setup comprised entirely of other small computers; it’s academic really to see any difference in signal flow between the two things, with the only appreciable change being physical connections vs. virtual ones.

In truth, you can be all things; certainly so to yourself, and the outward appearances of any one endeavour are not within ones own control anyways.

Either way objects are carrying out tasks in software, whether on dedicated processors or shared. In the latter case it became a central concern as to how these would all be channeled into one stereo image, and for this I am, once again, entirely impressed by the foresight & design of SSF’s Vortices range of mixers, and how the specific use case it seems to have in mind exactly matches my own.

To divert into signal flow for a second, you really can’t ask for more in such a small package: 3 stereo channels, four mono (a pair each of pan-able & cross-fade-able) in 12hp, each with dedicated VCAs on a separate breakout 2hp. The genius move IMO is in how much (useful) redunancy & accessory they’ve added: the discrete stereo & mono sections each have their own 2-channel aux inputs & outputs (this in addition to a sum master output) & this creates essentially a 2-stereo-bus Aux section which, while always on at 100% send, plays incredibly nice with any number of effects unit (I’m using every single input & output of an H90 in “Dual” mode where a very lush algo reverb & pitch-shifting stage gets the stereo fieldd, then a selective granular “glitching” & reverb gets activated when volume thresholds are met; the H90 does the gain-staging gorgeously, to the point that I’ve never needed any kind of voltage step-down/up system).

While you’ll have to have something downstream to reintroduce the effects (the 6hp Befaco STMix does a wonderful job here, passing the Vortices “Master” through its lower stereo aux, with the H90 A & B each on their own pot, leaving an extra two stereo channels for other modules/effects within & without the synth) without creating a time-travel-paradox, it’s still a wonder that so much can be accomplished w/ the relatively small footprint & it all sounds great & transparent (opted for the HiFi variant for this leg, which doesn’t introduce itself in any perceivable way as opposed to the OG’s “Tape” emulation).