Axoloti seems great, and I love tweaking/building stuff inside software modular environments, but sometimes I just want to get on with it and make some music, instead of spending hours/days/weeks/months adjusting a patch until the user interface/sound is at a level I’m satisfied with. Devices like this seem like a happy medium between the two, and I’m very interested in getting more information about the workflow (I’ve emailed empress asking for a demo unit so I can make a video, even though I’m a relative nobody, but hey, 60k views on a TE-commissioned pocket operator video must count for something, right…?)
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This was what somebody at TipTop Audio said on the MW forum:
Axoloti runs at 16 sample buffers so the I/O latency is under 3ms and the code is efficient enough that it can do a fair amount on the Cortex M4. DSP is fixed not floating point on the Axoloti, which has up and down sides. Sync and control via the MIDI DIN is pretty responsive, with only the audio latency as a factor.
The Axoloti software is a Java app which looks a whole lot like the Nord editor, but it lacks some of the higher level stuff of the Nord (not that the Nord app was polished though!). You have to build the patch in the software, down load it to the board and then tweak parameters. Changing any of the patch modules requires building and downloading it again. Loading patches and audio off the SD card is possible and playing audio clips works quite well.
Axoloti is made for hardware hackers to attach their own controls, sensors and output to the board. You can set up MIDI CC controls as shown with the Push. One of those methods has to be done to control the Axoloti without a PC though.
I’ve used the Cortex A9 CPU used in the the Organelle for about 3 years. When I first received the early eval board audio interfacing was completely busted on the chip! After working with a CPU engineer for a few months applying firmware and kernel changes, the A9 could handle duplex stereo 16/44.1 audio. Unfortunately, that is the limit of the CPUs audio interfaces so higher bit and sample rate multi-channel TDM is impossible.
The single A9 is pretty much like running Pd on Linux with an old Pentium 3 laptop. I was not impressed with the Single core A9 for audio: latency was never below about 15ms and even 50% CPU load could cause dropouts. The Organelle manual mentions keeping the load under 75%, but that is best case in my experience. Switching to the Dual core A9 and applying some kernel and Pd massaging got latency under 8ms with an entire 100% of a core running DSP. If the C+G has a CPU card (which it very likely does), swapping a Dual in and changing the kernel would halve latency and double DSP performance.
Source: https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2116564&highlight=#2116564
But you know what, with all due respect for the TipTop guy, in the time that has passed since that post, people have been doing stuff with Organelles and seem to be enjoying them anyway.
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Didn’t know that the Mutable code made it to the Axoloti. The more the merrier!
is anyone else still really confused as to what this actually is…? Because I am, looked at the video 3 times, and still have no idea what this thing does? is it a synthesizer? is it an fx box? like, what would be ONE good musical purpose of this? Don’t get me wrong, i really like other Empress products, but this seems like a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-nothing thing to me, and the SIZE…!?
from the little i read about it, it’s a sound processor/fx unit and sound maker/synth.
the size is pretty tiny…still looks really interesting tho and pretty darn affordable for what it looks to be.
All these things have different purposes, markets, users they are aimed at:
Axoloti has pretty limited hardware but makes very good use of it due to using a RTOS (Chibios) which is why the latency is so low. its ideal for building your own stuff… but yeah, if you just want to plug n play thats hard for some. (axoloti control may change this 
) … what you get for 65 euro, is great value.
Organelle is nice for a grab and go device, whilst PD makes it accessible to lots - frankly, its also damaging its performance reputation - native FX/synths would yield better results.
its a compromise though. I think it does a good job… one thing, swapping out the SoC ( = cpu) is trivial (undo 6 screws!) and cheap - I changed mine to a quad core with 4 times the ram.
Bela is somewhere between the two , proper RTOS and decent IO , but mainly its being used by techies, so no patches for musicians to use … aimed more at instrument builders - this might change when the eurorack option is added !
then we have Zythian/Mod Duo/PiSound/Owl … all other options, all with their own benefits
( I recently starting using the PiSound running Modep, and its fantastic , I run my Organelle into it)
Its a great time, we have so many choices, and looks like we are set for a lot more…
back to Zoia ,
I dont think is comparable, there is zero indications that the modules are going to be replaceable by the user.
(we dont even know if the firmware is going to be open source either , do we?)
see this screenshot from Empress
notice how its a fixed list of modules and its C++ code. no indication of dynamic loading…
i.e. it looks like the firmware is contains the modules , so a bit like the H9
so basically its a bunch of modules that can be connected ‘easily’ via the grid (which represent the input/output/parameters of the module) … if its really easy to use, it’ll be great.
(I do think that LCD is too small though )
having been playing with Axoloti/Bela/Pi/Organelle, its made me appreciate a good hardware UI, and its really nice to have a few boxes I dont have to write code for… I can just pick them up and play them
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Nothing! I checked youtube again, I hope some videos of it surface so we can hear more
Here’s a walk through doesn’t look too bad! cant see how this works as a foot pedal thou!
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It’ll work perfect for me, I’m a guitar player with eyes on my feet and fingers for toes… 
This thing looks cool though…
I imagine it’s intended to be optionally used by guitar players or other instrumentalists that would set everything up beforehand and just use the foot toggles for preset selection and maybe some other stuff…
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Plus you can control the Zoia with a midi pedal, in addition to the toggle switches.
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Whoa! That’s like a hardware Reaktor/Audulus, eh?
I also play sax. Yeah i could feed the Zoia with that! A pedal board in a box is such a pain, it’s bulky and heavy, and expensive, and always requiring attention and maintenance and changing of the plug connections. The Zoia and an expression pedal, and perhaps a Digitakt for backing, and that’s it, and you change it with the push of you toe.
I also then play the Roland Aerophone (it fingers just like a sax). Again i can plug the Aerophone into the Zoia, for everything from A to Z. The Aerophone has midi (USB) out, with lots of ways to control the midi out in performance, and play the Zoia as a synth. And the Aerophone has a Roland SuperNATURAL poly-synth built-in that could be feed into the Zoia used as a effects processor.
Empress if you're reading
I’m hoping the Zoia can be connected straight to a USB midi controller like the Aerophone.
Thinking the Zoia could be close to a do it all box.
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I seems to me an incredibly clever device. I had always been interested in modular as fx processor - but exhausted by the idea of eurorack - so this might be a good compromise.
I’ll wait to see it in the wild. But for me it’ll come down to a. quality of fx (but it’s empress we’re talking about) and b. health of the ecosystem visavis users and/or updates. @thetechnobear I appreciate your post on this matter. I would presume that if they don’t make it opensource, the updates would then all depend on Empress? While I could have faith someone like NI would continue to offer modules, I’m not sure about Empress.
Any good resource(s) for looking into the units you mentioned?
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Sonic State has a very similar video, but theirs includes a section on connectivity - there are audio stereo I/O jacks, and a “control port” that can be configured for MIDI, external tap tempo, or CV. I tried to cue it up to where they start talking about the connectivity.
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the list i gave above came from empress’s Instagram page.
from the videos etc, id say it seems unlikely its going to be user extendable (they talk about users sharing ‘presets’) , but if they build out the library that’s still cool. (its not that big at the moment)
anyway, looks fun for building simple effects… quick and easy, and hands on.
it’ll all come down to how it sounds, how good are there filters etc.
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Awesome. Thanks for that! I wasn’t sure if the second output jack had a different function as it is a different color from the other silver ones. Probably just a little prototype quirk or something.
What a wonderful and innovative idea. I just might have to sell my Timeline to find this thing 
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It feels like we’re entering an era of more programmable devices, I like this evolution 
I guess it’s the appropriate answer to the modular paradigm in a way…
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Right! I really like the notion of the Zoia- it’s seems like a step towards a hardware/twiddly version of those patching programs.
I’m hoping someone will make something like this, with a better display, and a USB port for potential computer editing to get really precise(and maybe to stream audio through)
THAT would be really cool to me- but this this is just brilliant
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I would assume they will have a way to edit on a computer then save to an sd card…no? If not…
I mean even the person in the above video said “I have bad eyes.”
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