Hologram Electronics has introduced Microcosm, a new ‘effects toolkit for adventurous musicians’.
The Microcosm offers 11 different effects and a looper that can capture up to 60 seconds of stereo audio. The effects let you slice, stretch, rearrange, and manipulate your audio in a variety of ways. You can tweak the sound further using Microcosm’s built-in pitch modulation, stereo reverb (with 4 selectable modes) and resonant lowpass filter.
Here’s what they have to say about it:
Microcosm rearranges and reinterprets your sound in new and exciting ways using a variety of granular sampling, delay, and looping techniques. Cascading microloops can be locked into tight tap-tempo synced rhythms, diffused into glacial ambient textures, woven into hypnotic drones, and much more.
All loops, overdubs, and settings can be saved and recalled later using the pedal’s 16 user presets.
Features:
- 11 granular and looping effects with 44 preset variations
- Stereo Input/Output
- Expression Input, mappable to many controls
- MIDI In/Out/Thru, clock synchronization
- 60 sec. Phrase Looper with many configuration options
- 16 User Preset slots for saving loops and settings
- Stereo Reverb (with 4 reverb styles)
- “Hold” sampler function to freeze effects and patterns
- Adjustable Pitch Modulation
- Resonant Lowpass Filter
- Choose between True Bypass Switching / Buffered Bypass with trails
- Tap Tempo
Pricing and Availability
The Microcosm is available to pre-order now for $449 USD.
This is great
DROOL
Why are these wonderful pedal companies making these incredible pedals with all of these capabilities but only allowing you to save such a tiny amount of patches I just don’t understand it, and they always talk about how they allow you to save more with the editor …. they make great tools for people they know don’t want to use a computer unless they have to or need to do something best done with an editor but we should be able to save and recall at least 50 patches and more when you are talking about tools for experimenting. These days pedals are tiny computers, they can handle saving more than 16 patches. There is nothing more frustrating than being in the zone and really enjoying yourself but not being able to save your settings because you can only save a few presets in This day and age, I want to save allot of presets without having to connect to a computer!!!!!
Does it accept line/synth audio levels? The demo is far too guitar oriented so its not clear what this is aiming for. Personally I will no longer buy any pedal that does not accept line level. I have the classic small stone type pedals and the Minifoogers that I use with the DIY transformer but I will not add any new things that are not line level.
Suggest that a demo specific to synthesizers and sound design, without any guitars, might be a better approach.
Agreed. If you like the capabilities of this device but not the form factor then I’d say save up for an Elektron Octatrack. The learning curve is quite a bit steeper than the Hologram but there are many different ways to use it rather than needing to follow a particular workflow exactly, and I would say it is the ultimate in real-time sampling/audio mangling flexibility. It’s equally good at dialed-in precision and performance/improvisation/exploration.
The only negative things I would say are that for storage it relies on the now somewhat antique compact flash cards – but they’re stupid cheap now so just buy a huge one and a couple spares and forget about it. Also, Elektron’s manuals are not fun to read and annoyingly shallow – the important information is all there, but they really need more tutorials and workflow guidance, so expect to join a support forum and read a lot of third party tutorials, and expect this to be a long-term learning process. fortunately there’s a thriving and friendly community around their gear.
I have the Hologram Infinite Jets and it works well with synths. I share your concern when it comes to pedal demos. Some of my favorite pedals have no synth demos, and its always a bit of a risk of how versatile a pedal will be. I personally look for a guitar demo to do chords and solos in a wide variety of octaves. In my experience the pedals that don’t work well with synths tend to have solo only demos played in the higher registers. A bass demo is a good indicator of a pedal working with at least a mono synth.
I also have a subscription to Pedal Genie. Which allows me to demo 1 pedal at time for $40/month. It’s worth checking out if you love pedals and want to try before you buy.
I had a pedal genie subscription a few years ago. Have they gotten better with inventory. I remember filling up my queue and never getting any boutique pedals, only the one you could find at like guitar center, EHX, Boss, etc.
I gave up on pedals for synths and line-level instruments and instead took the plunge into eurorack (specifically effects).
You can fit a lot more effects into a rack the size of a pedal board, and you get more control as well. At prices like $449 for a pedal, it’s not that hard to justify cost wise either.
Yes! This right here! You can get way better results from Eurorack and you have ALL the control. This pedal is very similar to Beads by Mutable Instruments except for the looper. And Beads has all the control. I have the microcosm and I have only been disappointed as far as how it works with synths. Sounds pretty cool on guitar and a little vocals but the sounds get stale quite quickly. Generally speaking, you just don’t have control over what the macro knobs are doing which is endlessly frustrating for me personally. Its kind of like the Novation Circuit m1 but at least with the circuit you could go into the software and tell the macro knobs to do what you wanted them to do and adjust amounts and all that.
I hoard gear like no tomorrow but in this case I cant wait to sell.
Some people will be super excited about the microcosm but its not for me.
Looks pretty cool. I would also like to see how it works with keys.