Would You Be Interested In An Audulus-Based Programmable Effects Pedal? (Built On The OWL)

owl-audulus-pedal

Recenty, Taylor Holliday – creator of Audulus for iPad and Mac – said that he was considering porting the Audulus audio engine to the OWL, a £165 open-source, open-hardware programmable effects pedal.

The basic idea behind the OWL is that it’s a powerful audio computer built into a stompbox pedal. It’s being funded as a Kickstarter project and is already fully funded. And, since it’s based on open source software and open hardware designs, any developer can create software to run on it.

That’s where Audulus comes in.

audulus+audiobusHolliday is considering porting the audio engine behind Audulus to the OWL.

“So, you’d patch on the Mac (or maybe iPad), assign the pedal’s knobs, and download the patch to the pedal,” he explains.

Instead of needing to know how to program in C++, you could create patches visually in the Audulus modular audio environment on your Mac or iPad. And you could use these patches in your DAW or on your iPad.

But for performing live, you could download your patch to an OWL pedal and turn your custom effect into a custom stompbox. And, because OWL is an open-hardware platform, it’s easy to imagine Euro or 5U synth modules based on the platform.

What do you think of the idea of creating modular synth patches and running them in your DAW, on an iPad or as a hardware module? Is this something you’d like to see Holliday research further?

Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

24 thoughts on “Would You Be Interested In An Audulus-Based Programmable Effects Pedal? (Built On The OWL)

  1. Sounds great. As long as its not a convoluted process and expensive. I’m currently influx about the future and don’t have resources to fund new gear outside a tiny “no” budget. Looking forward to this none the less. Make it cool.

  2. If the hardware isn’t you expensive and downloading the patch to the pedal is dead easy then it sounds great. You could really easily create a very custom set of sounds/effects.

    I wish all synth ‘librarian/editors” looked so easy to use, I’d be making custom presets on all my gear at the drop of a hat!

    This is a big part of why knobs on synths are so important. I could REALLY get into my little phatty if it were adulus compatible!

    1. Why use a MIDI controller and cables and an expensive computer to do something you can do with a pedal you can throw on the floor?

  3. As I’d also want stereo in/out , it would probably price the unit so near to an ipad mini that I’d get the ipad mini ! …. to run Audulus as an effect , as well as be able to run other music apps and use it generally for lots of other ipadish tasks .
    Also , am I right in thinking OWL = 385 Mhz , Ipad mini = dual x 1Ghz ?

  4. Why not port PureData and be done with it for the first cut? As I understand it the OWL at this point is more a proof of concept than a full-fledged product, so people might expect more than it will be able to offer eventually. Anyway, great to hear that the funding campaign was successful. Now I’m looking forward to someone starting a project to replace the Nord Modular G1/G2. A digital modular synth in a box with enough memory and processing power to implement nice effects including quaility reverbs and long delays, an open firmware, an open host communication protocol, an open editor that’s truely cross platform. Sorry for hijacking this discussion, but a man can dream, can he not?

    1. TT, that’s a good point. My ideal workflow would be to have Audulus always updating the patch running on the Owl. It might be hard to accomplish when I get into the details, but that’s what I’m aiming for 🙂

      cheers
      – Taylor (Audulus Developer)

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