I’d probably swap the Character section for another Texture section.
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After a few weeks with the Chroma Console I can say I’m quite pleased with it…still don’t fully understand it, but I like the way it sounds
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Just received mine (they are fully stocked now so no wait). I buy a lot of used gear but it is nice every once in a while to get something brand new that’s packaged really well and checks the aesthetic boxes on all levels (custom packaging, printed manual, etc).
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I am tempted by this.
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Same… although I keep going from thinking, yep, love it getting one… then I hear other videos and I think it sounds pretty meh… then when I do want one, once you add shipping and tax… I’ve just been like nah not worth it… can’t quite get there with this… yet…
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I’ve been running my guitar through the Chroma Console and into my DT to sample loops, then use DT for reverb and delay. It sounds absolutely dreamy.
My next goal is to try the cassette on the master out, so I need to look back up how to switch the input setting (line/instrument). I need that sweet lofi goodness in my life
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Yeah, the recent videos definitely sound better to me than the initial videos. I’m warming up to it more than before. If they got released in Japan at a decent price or if one pops up in Japan used at a decent price, I could see grabbing one to use standalone for my synths. I’m more of a guitar player and sampler person than a synth guy, so my pedal board is mainly dialed in for that. This seems like a nice compact all-in-one solution for stereo synths, and I have an extra stereo reverb pedal I could pair with it.
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Even if it’s not the bestest sounding multi FX ever, its killer feature for me is:
if you are sequentially multi tracking an idea on say guitar, it is so easy to dial around a broad range of FX treatments as a secondary thought whilst focusing much more on the musical idea.
I always get lost in parameters when presented with more complex FX guis.
And I’m growing more impressed with the FX the more I do this. The Chroma sort of guides you not to end up in Van Halen territory and instead keeps you in check for useful vibes instead.
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I’ve just had it on my board for a few days and at the moment what I’m really enjoying is deep diving and creating presets and then moving on to making another one. When I come back to play for fun, I just start paging through them and keep getting suprised by how fun they are to use. I think if I think of it as a “replaces all of your pedals” sort of pedal, I’m disappointed. If I think of it as “turn this on and it’ll make a very unique, useful sound” I’m very pleased with it. It’s not the best anything pedal…but it’s very cool when you just whip up cool presets and see how they lead you, creatively.
For me, I think perspective will be everything with this particular pedal.
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Great approach, inspiring. I’ve used the Chroma Console a lot since receiving it - including for a live show last night for the first time - and haven’t yet saved a single preset. Thinking it could be good to just dedicate some time to making a bunch of presets one after the other until I hit 10 or 20, to see what it stirs up creatively, there’s definitely something special that can happen by doing things that way.
When I was considering selling the Digitone, I set myself the challenge first: create and sample 50 preset sounds, and if I still want to let it go after that, then that means it’s a good decision. I made the 50 presets and it has become my favourite (non-Nord Drum) synth.
Live rig from the show (Push doing the heavy lifting):
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Here’s a really good video on this. These recent videos make me change my first impression that the effects sounded too bland/generic. Maybe the first round of demo people didn’t have enough time to play around with it before they made their videos. Still not available in Japan though, so I won’t be getting one anytime soon.
https://www.youtube.com/live/yagz1ikJf8g?si=xh4TZ5Z6q0Bn35pf
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Damn some of those jams were so fricking good.
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How are folks getting along with this one? I keep going back and forth on whether I’m interested or not. It might be a fun thing to have in my patch bay.
I really like it, especially on guitar. None of the FX are super unique or special on their own (still very solid), but do add up to more than the sum of their parts. The UI is great, I don’t even save patches most of the time, as it’s really quick to just dial in what I want on the spot. Maybe also because switching presets isn’t very immediate. If I’d ever sell all my FX pedals, this would probably be the last one to go, just because it can cover so much ground. The pitch FX sounds kinda bad though (imho) and delays the sound, but that’s the only one I never use.
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I think that’s kind of typical of Hologram stuff - I have the Microcosm and there’s some aspects that just don’t work with certain material, but shine brightly on the right stuff. I kept coming at it with the idea to really mangle some drum sounds and coming back disappointed, but then the same settings with a piano was pure magic.
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I get what you mean. I had the microcosm as well, but sold it, as it was either hit or miss, depending on what kind of sounds I put in. It was really hard to finely tune things to where I wanted them to be, but the chroma console is much better suited for that, imho. They are very different FX pedals, though. There’s not too much overlap, aside from the collage FX block on the chroma console. I do miss some of the glitch and stutter modes from the microcosm, those were pretty cool on drums.
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I agree with the overall sentiment. Get it if you’re looking for an allrounder pedal with a lot of basic but well executed effects and a few a bit less basic effects. They really nailed the UI as well.
Don’t get it if you expect crazy effects chains or weird algorithms or want to have fine control over individual effects. You can get interesting effects chains, but it will never be a Microcosm and doesn’t want to be that. Also don’t buy it if you already have lots of pedals that have these effects and are just curious about Chroma, chances are high it won’t add anything.
Look up what types of FX can and cannot be combined and see if that’s a dealbreaker. For example, you can’t get delay and reverb at the same time.
Some other dealbreakers, since these are easy to list. Don’t buy it if you always want to use the section that has drive in it but want your sound to be unaltered if the control amount of that effect is set to zero. As soon as you select drive, fuzz etc., EQ settings are always applied. Also don’t buy it for the lo gi effects like cassette expecting them to replace Gen Loss or something like that. They’re pretty basic and aggressive at almost all settings imo. Nice flavors when dialed in just a bit.
A lot is subjective, so listen to demos I’d say. I love the pitch effect that @Python doesn’t like btw. It has a great lo fi sound with lots of artefacts that I really like, I sometimes dial pitch to 100% amount so that the dry sound is gone and get some kind of weird lo fi sound out of it.
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Thanks folks, great insight. Really appreciate the feedback! Ordered it 
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