It’s a solid box overall. If you’ve seen the microgranny small knobs it’s the same thing but with caps on top to be easier to grab. You can feel a bit of wobble but nothing out of the ordinary - it’s the caps wobbling, not the knobs themselves. I bought mine second hand and I like it overall, however, there are few quirks that were present on my microgranny before so I would call them the Bastl disease. Pasting below an email exchange with the support. (FYI, I did the firmware update and it didin’t help)
my letter:
- I get some noise when turning the input gain knob, is that normal? I remember having that since day one on my Microgranny back in the day before I sold it.
- There is a slight high pitched background noise when the unit is on, definitely not a ground loop, more like a bleed. Not noticeable in the mix, but annoying if I want to resample the output through my elektron gear or amplify with the Analog Heat…
The unit is advertised as hi-fi (with tape speed to normal) but this noise is definitely stopping me using it to its purpose. I would really appreciate if you could point me into possible reasons for this behaviour or let me know if that is to be expected.
to which they answered:
-regarding the input gain we are currently in search for a potentiometer
replacement that would improve this but it might end up with completely
redesigning the amplifier section. We recognise that all units show this
behaviour to some extent and we want to improve this preferably without
redesigning the pcb.
-this was adressed in last firmware update and should be improved if you
update. Do you use original powersupply tho?
-Our team is working on improving the thyme as we collect customer
feedback. It was released after testing and multiple runs through our
beta testers but still when hundreds of people use it there are points
that our few testers missed. We are doing our best to adress it as
effectively as we possibly can.
Overall, I’m happy with the unit but I wouldn’t be if I had to pay the asking price for a new one (I got mine mint second hand for 300eur)
In terms of sound and capability it’s really cool, a lot to discover, but nothing to replace Analog Heat. Actually I got it exactly to stick it between my DT and Heat, get the bit reduction and more digital sound and run it through some distortion and filtering on the way out.
The whole sequencer aspect of it is too complex for me and I don’t bother, have it mapped on my DT and I p-lock the hell out of it which is really cool. All in all, there is nothing like it on the market and it gives you a particular sound which is cool to have.
I’m pasting a quick noodle below, there are few more recent videos on my channel if you want to check. Hope I’m in help here.
