Conductive Labs co-founder Darryl McGee let us know that – after a 2 year absence, due to the chip shortage – the NDLR is back and “better than ever” – and making its official debut at Knobcon 2023, being held September 8-10, 2023 at the Hyatt Regency Schaumburg, Chicago.
The NDLR (‘noodler’) is an ‘ultra-arpegiator’, designed for people that want to play or perform with a lot of synths. The NDLR fits between your sequencer or keyboard and your synths and sound modules. It translates what you play into up to four parts – a drone note, bass line, pad notes, and a motif sequence – and can control up to eight synths at once.
Here’s McGee introducing the NDLR five years ago at Knobcon 2017:
The NDLR v2 features a soft power button, is now powder coated with a beautiful red base, and has been redesigned internally for a more readily available (and faster) microcontroller.
Otherwise, the new model has the same feature set as the original, which had gained many additional features since its introduction, plus a couple of new features to coincide with this launch.
Here’s Loopop‘s in-depth demo of the original NDLR:
Pricing and Availability:
The NDLR mk2 is available to pre-order for $379 USD. It will also be available at retailers later this month.
What’s new?? Any discount for previous owners? Any new updates for the old one? Any useful info other then it’ll be there?
It’s The NDLR (v2), that’s a little v2 because it has a different processor so we need to differentiate it from the original The NDLR. Maybe “rev 2” would be a better description. The differences are: it has a soft-power button, and the case is powder coated instead of anodized. The new process has the potential for more features being added, but so far we’ve kept them the same. There are couple of new features coming out with v2 that will also be in a v1 update.
Super-excited about this. I had held off on buying the v1 for various reasons, but I’ll definitely buy this updated version.
Eh, It’s the same thing, except for a different microcontroller because of availability issues.
That is correct. It’s the same firmware ported to the new processor. There will be a couple of new features being released on the original and new rev by the end of September.
Funnily enough I just made a short track with my Rev 1 NDLR a couple of days ago.. https://youtu.be/1gUUwvGJtZk?si=SYz2yfsJJsG9qRWx
Nice track! And making use of some features we rarely see in videos. The PAD strum, rhythm and the clock out.
Ok, no chips for a couple of years…. but also they did not work on or give us firmware updates for all that time ….. new features and bug corrections (… under construction menu … not funny by the way ).
Support of their products and customers is not what it should be at all
So count me out for any product in the future
We provided dozens of feature and enhancement updates from when we started selling the NDLR in 2017 to when we ran out in 2021. We literally added so many unplanned features that there are no bits left in the eeprom for saving more. The only features we are adding now do not require saving. We’ve essentially finished it, and its perfect for many happy customers. Sorry it did not live up to your expectations.
I think it’s great that they are back. Love the NDLR. I also believe it was the first Loopop review I ever watched.
Loopop is such a great explainer. Better than reading the manual!
Yea for us owner of the first one we are getting screwed. No firmware update, no swapping the teensy board info.
How are you ‘getting screwed”?
Did you notice that they are porting all the new features back to the original and that this one doesn’t offer any new features that the original doesn’t?
All they are doing is updating the hardware to use a different processor so that they can release this. This is good for everybody, because more users means more reason to develop the platform further.
I guess you do not own a NDLR.
If you read correctly most of the new features will not work on v1 because speed and storage. Now if I could mod v1, Us owners would not feel forgotten. aka screwed.
The article literally states that, other than the updated case and processor, “the new model has the same feature set as the original”.
Where do you and others get the insane idea that “most of the new features will not work on v1”?
It seems that you are imagining reasons to be dissatisfied, instead of being thankful that they are porting any new features back to the v1 hardware.
I’ve got a NDLR and it does everything they said it would do and more – and it sounds like another update is in the works, too. I’m excited to see that there’s enough interest in this to keep updating the platform!
Thank you Jert, you are correct. There is some possibility that we’ll eventually add something to the new one, like additional patches utilizing that additional storage, that can’t be done on the original. Because we do not have a plan to add a bunch of new features, we did not anticipate demand for upgrades, so we did not make a bunch of spare PCBs for an upgrade program. Maybe we could make more, but it will be expensive to do it in low volume. Not sure how many would really want to purchase new PCBs with no promise of new features other than a soft-power button. I
n our view, The NDLR is perfect and its complete. Anything added is probably something more that few will discover. We’ve spoke to a lot of NDLR owners and most have not scratched the surface of what it can do. We’ll make more videos to demonstrate those things but we feel for the most part, its just right as it is. The new one was not meant to replace the old one, its just what we had to do to make more.