MOTU Volta

[Joey]

Possibly the greatest thing I've ever seen.

http://bleep.fdiskc.com/2009/01/15/motu ... n-plug-in/

MOTU was showing off something that absolutely blew my mind this morning: Volta.

It’s a plug-in intended for use with any of their DC-capable audio interfaces (Like, say, a Traveller or 828), it allows multi-channel PitchCV/Gate/ControlCV out to your modular system. Its interface is like a grid for your IO, each output is a box in the grid. Into the grid, you place (drag and drop-style) the voltage source for that output. You may choose from items as mundane as the channel’s midi input (for things like note data), or as crazy as step/trigger sequencers, LFOs, clock sources, etc.

This all sounds pretty neat, right? But wait, it gets better…

There’s a built-in calibration and scaling tool, so that it can automatically determine the proper CV scale to generate musical pitches from your possibly-less-than-perfect analog oscillators.

Now how much would you pay?

They couldn’t quote an exact price, but they said to expect in the $250 range. Of course there is the cost of a MOTU audio interface if you don’t already have one. That said, killer product for analog geeks like me, way to go MOTU, I know this must have been a hard one to pitch to management.

just wow.

[synthmax]

Now that's innovation!

[xpander]

just saw that on matrixsynth... purely awesome. good thing i already have a couple 828s, that's going to be a huge benefit to my studio.

[Suburban Bather]

No innovation at all. See this thread circa Oct. 2008- http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1992

It would only take Motu a moment to catch on this and whip up the software.

[synthmax]

Microsoft approach to innovation then?

[Joey]

I don't care how they got the idea, I just care that I can use it.

[widdly]

The automatic calibration sounds great. Hook up the Oscillator to the input and output and let it work it all out. Sounds ideal for my dodgy home made modular.

[xpander]

No innovation at all. See this thread circa Oct. 2008- http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1992

It would only take Motu a moment to catch on this and whip up the software.

great catch, max/msp control sounds equally nice. i dig the muff wiggler board.

[pflosi]

i accidentaly posted this too...

yeah this thing really looks like hella lota fun!

[Alex Hamilton]

Looks cool, I'll have a proper snoop later. Hope it's Windows XP-compatible (I haven't had a proper check yet).

[divineaudio]

it would be sweet if companies like arturia could update their programs to work with that - like say patching the arp2600v through volta to an arp axxe.

[Suburban Bather]

I don't care how they got the idea, I just care that I can use it.

I'm with ya on that Joe! I was just pointing out that this is already possible with Max/MSP. You can also use Pure Data as well. As long as your soundcard is not DC blocked you're good to go.

If I already had a MOTU soundcard, I'd be all jazzed about this as well. I'm using a MH 2882 though, so it would be much cheaper for me to just go with a student discounted copy of Max/MSP and build my sequencers. I'm currently checking the tutorials out now with the demo version

[23]

Awesome

[kuroichi]

Ive been waiting for them to implement this for a while.....

[RobotHeroes]

Hope it's Windows XP-compatible (I haven't had a proper check yet).

Nope. Says it's for Mac. Guess the rest of us will have to make it ourselves or check the Max/MSP forums.

Hopefully they make one for Windows and hopefully it works with Echo audio interfaces. Come on Motu this is too awesome to not make it available for Win.

inb4 Macfanboy's say get a Mac and start kissing each other.