Zoia

[Paul_C]

I've now downloaded loads (100+) of the patches and while most of the ones I like seem to be delays, loopers and other glitchy fun and games, I'm pleased to say that if nothing else, there are a lot of them

So now I'm going to try and sort them into a couple of folders. The first will have patches which generally work without needing me to remember which buttons to press and the other for ones which currently don't "appear" to make any noise at all, which I need to go back to the patches site and look up how to get them to work.

There are also one or two that I like but which are too quiet or too loud. I'm fairly sure they should be able to be edited to solve the problem, but I'm sure it'll take me a while to work out how.

I said in the Gasaholics (actually gasalchoholics, but gasaholics makes more sense ) thread that I'd be happy to end up with 20 - 30 patches, but I reckon that if I spend a few days just understanding these patches a bit more then I'll get past 30 easily, well before I get to start making my own.

So I'm going to consider the Zoia as well worth the money spent and little by little, work out how to get the best out of it.

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

Yeah, changing output levels is pretty easy — I had to do that for a few plus I switched some from mono to stereo output. Then I wrote over those changes when I added more patches through the librarian.

I've been taking notes in a little notebook for everything, 'cause yeah, there's no way to remember that much info. If I ever get the chance to take this to a gig, I'll just have to settle one two or three patches in advance and spend time practising with 'em.

[Paul_C]

A couple of hours and a little bit of foul language was all I needed to roughly balance out the volume levels of the patches

I've now got a slightly better idea what I'm doing and 59 patches I like, which I will probably stick with for the next few months.

I may well tinker with making my own eventually, but right now there's plenty to keep me amused, especially once I add them to everything else I've got.

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

When I get back into it (probably once my lap steel arrives at the end of the week) I'll probably do another whirl through the ones I have loaded and a cull and we can compare notes!

[Paul_C]

Cool - my current list (I added some more earlier that I hadn't tried yet) is:

Orbitors
Zoiahuasca
Temporal Anomale
Wolf (all 5 of them, as without touching anything they all seem to make slightly different sounds)
S_lodg3_v
Two Grains
Tether
yaleD
Broken CD
Syntholith
Mr Foxtrot V2
Reverse Thermae
No Memory
Floopers
Halocline
Aliadelaly
Overgrone
Moody Bloopy
Our and Are
Trig Loop
Weathered
Tesla Tower
Tesserae
PLLish 2
Reverseneath
856 Wannabe
Rainbowzzz
Grotto
9n2 Break Enter
Tape_ish
Polyoctavous
Comb Sweep
Lofi Charm
ARF
Grime Space
Pitch Pong
Multi_i_i_i
Memory Boy Tap
Broken Clock
Pensive
Bit Amp
The Houseplant
Shallow Water
Ambient Glitch V2
Lofi Bliss
Parts
Naphtali
Space Frogs
Dual Shift
Rommy
The Monolith
Soft Focus
Candied Pecans
Thru Zero-1
Pretty Years
Melange
Apsidal Looper
Bipedal Delay
Dweller V2

I'm sure one or two will get removed, and they're not in any kind of order at the moment - I'm sure I will end up with a top twenty or so of those I really like but the order doesn't really matter for now at least.

Some I will use just as they are (to begin with at least), but as you know there are a lot which can do so much more than what you first hear once you start pressing buttons etc. and I'm thinking of "learning" them in batches of ten, maybe as far as writing notes for each pedal, so I can get the best out of them.

The more time I've spent with the Zoia the more impressed I am, but I won't deny that it's easier to have a pedal with a few knobs and switches that can be fiddled with and returned to a favourite setting without having to write pages and pages of stuff.

Having said that, £440 for 60 cool pedals is pretty good value for money

[Paul_C]

If you want something cool but a bit silly, check out the recent Saxobone patch - I reckon it's fabulous

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

Found a few patches to run the lap steel through already.

[Paul_C]

Very nice

[Paul_C]

Second Zoia arrived today.

64 patches into another 64 patches makes . . . 4096 combinations, and that's before any of the other 23 pedals currently in my set up

Not only that, but the 64 patches in each can be exchanged for another 64 four times over, and even then that doesn't include the first 64 into the same 64, so the total number is . . . lots!*

I've only had a quick play through so far (not sure why, but I wasn't ready to record anything today) but already I love some of the sounds available.

*I make it 104,200 but I might be wrong, and some of the patches are synths which won't be affected by anything incoming, so the actual figure is going to be less than that but it could still be around 100K, which isn't bad.

The next question is what if I had three

[Paul_C]

Second Zoia arrived today.

The next question is what if I had three

To save you wondering, a third Zoia would give me 32,768,000 combinations . . .

[Paul_C]

I spent 40 mins recording a bit of guitar through the two Zoias earlier and then made this.

https://sonickoalas.bandcamp.com/album/strange-haircuts

[MaxMaps]

your making the pedal sound so good

[Paul_C]

That's very kind of you, thank you

They really are so much fun together and I've only just started, so there's lots more to discover.

[Paul_C]

With another couple of albums uploaded today from a recording of just the two Zoias, I'm fairly sure I could make an awful lot of the stuff I like to make with just the two of them.

I won't of course, but I could

[Paul_C]

While my daughter was busy looking for ways to spend my money in an arts and crafts shop, I bought myself some sparkly white letters and numbers so that I could amuse myself by doing this:



If I used the four letter Os I could add to this, but for now I'm having plenty of fun with these.