Looks like I need to get another MIDI interface for my iPad - not Zoia’s fault btw.
It would be handy to have this basic setup:
Keyboard -> iPad -> Zoia
Then I can use the iPad to record MIDI input from the keyboard while writing parts for a Zoia polysynth. But my current iPad MIDI interface lacks the MIDI Thru jack. I didn’t plan for this scenario because it didn’t occur to me that peeps have been making polysynth patches for Zoia.
I hope I’m not asking something that’s already been covered a lot here, but I have a couple ZOIA questions.
For example, if I wanted to replace a combo of Polymoon / Mercury 7 with just a ZOIA (thinking minimalist), would I be able to put together a good string of delay and reverb with just the ZOIA? I know this isn’t taking full advantage of ZOIA’s capabilities, but I would plan on expanding the usage as I get familiar with it. Which leads to my next question:
How big of a black hole is ZOIA? i.e. if I get one, will I get stuck spending a lot of time learning how to use, building patch after patch, tweaking, etc. when I should be spending my limited time making music? I’m already learning Octatrack/Digitone/OP-Z, I don’t know if I want to commit to another device with a learning curve (despite how interesting that device is).
Cheers
my half educated 2 cents:
i doubt you’ll reach the sonic qualities of a Meris product (let alone 2 combined). polymoon has many many cascading delays and the mercury is as top shelf as they come. you will be able to re-create a delay/ reverb combo with the zoia though. reverbs are maxing the CPU quickly and the interface after you’re done with your patch wont be as intuitive as dedicated solutions.
i had the same concern and it is surprisingly intuitive. in fact, the ui is rather genius and there’s something about this that makes it very focused and contained. you’ll have functional patches in no time. like anything, to unlock it’s real power you need to invest time to even grasp what can be done.
I use it as looper, midi processor and experimental sequencer for now and am absolutely in love with it. II always shied away from buying a dedicated tremolo for example and for little things like this it is invaluable . lots of little helper things in there too (my yamaha digi piano doesn’t output full midi velocity for example and I use the zoia to remap it)
hope this helps
So, the ZOIA can do a lot of things, but it can’t do them all at once. Putting together a good string of delay and reverb is absolutely possible. Replacing all of the extended functionality of the Polymoon and the Mercury 7 (multi-tap delay, pitch-shifting reverb and delay, delay diffusion, phasers, flangers, vibrato, volume swells, all in stereo) in one patch is well beyond the ZOIA’s limits. Doing specific aspects of those sounds in one patch is certainly achievable. My own Polymoon isn’t going anywhere; its strengths complement the ZOIA’s, for me.
Which I think leads to my response for the second part: despite its format, ZOIA is a platform not a pedal, an environment (whereas a specific pedal, such as the Polymoon, is designed with a specific task, allowing its functionality to be catered to that end). It can be an enormous time suck, although I think the learning curve depends a lot on your familiarity with synthesis in general but modularity more specifically; your understanding of how signal paths work in other effects, sound design, synthesizers, etc.; and your willingness to spend the time learning its UI and modules. I will say that unlike the OT (I am not familiar with the other devices), you can learn while doing in ZOIA. Try stuff, create weird sounds, follow the signal paths back to figure out what made the weird sound weird, etc. whereas with OT, at some level, you need to follow some specific procedures in specific order.
I’ve… committed to the time suck, which means I can go from point A to point Q pretty quickly at this point (provided I have a point Q in mind), but that definitely came at a price (in time and attention). That price, however, I think depends a lot on those factors I listed, and what you want to get out of ZOIA.
Agreeing with the above, and also offering the following - I bought it knowing it would be a time suck, looking forward to that (I geek out on modular stuff, I guess), and hoping it would be a very rewarding time suck at least. My ideal situation was that it would replace or improve upon all the other major time sucks that I could potentially devote my time and attention to instead: off the top of my head, that would be Organelle, Norns, Axoloti, Nord Modular G1/G2, Octatrack, Nebulae v2, ER-301, and Rebel Technology Owl/Wizard/Magus. Not to mention a large number of single-purpose effects pedals and eurorack modules. And in software, VCV Rack, Reaktor, and Audulus. It actually does handily replace or improve upon all of those things for me, with the exception of VCV Rack which is free and seemingly always going to have some cool stuff I can’t live without. (I’ve owned Organelle, Norns, and Nord Modular G1, so I’m not saying this stuff lightly!)
Having one piece of gear that I can focus on and say “this will be the ONE longterm project and experimentation device that I can dive deep into and always make interesting stuff with” instead of a multiplicity of boxes that I only end up using in shallow ways feels very satisfying to me. My gear acquisition is fading and I know I want to spend many years with the Zoia, which allows me to focus and want to learn and be okay with that taking time. But, as I said, I’m already deep into modular addiction, and my main problem is limited free time and attention, not willingness. Your mileage may vary for any number of reasons. 
The key thing I want to emphasize is that you can make music and record very satisfying stuff with it as you learn, and that knowledge will just keep growing your toolbox of techniques. There’s no reason you can’t make music on Day 1 with it, after going through one of the tutorial videos online.
CooL! Thanks!
I had the empress echo station for a while. Amazing tape echo among others. Zoia will surely have some of those algorithms available
Thanks for the thoughtful responses. I appreciate it.
For the record, I should have clarified that I wasn’t intending on directly replacing what the polymoon/mercury7 combo can do, more wondering if ZOIA could act as a suitable delay / reverb chain (among other things). One of the reasons why I’m enjoying the meris pedals is that you can pretty quickly dial in your settings with the knobs and get to work. ZOIA only has the one knob, but I suppose with patch storage, you could save a few “presets” and recall various setups as required.
Overall, I think I have my answer for now - basically enjoy the setup you have and if time/money frees up later on, give ZOIA a try. It’s more of an addition, than a replacement.
Yeah, 100% agree you can start using it on day 1 to do cool, useable things if you watch one of the tutorials and follow along.
But you have to jump in–the people I see struggle the most seem to be the ones who want to know exactly what will happen when module A connects to module B. Just connect them and find out! It goes much, much faster to learn by doing within ZOIA.
Like you said, vaporlanes, you’re just building your toolbox every time you do.
Yeah, absolutely. With all things modular, I find it very beneficial to be “comfortable with chaos” and have a certain anarchistic strain to your patching philosophy. There might be a temptation to thoroughly learn exactly what patching X into Y will do before you actually patch X into Y, but where’s the fun in that? Instead just try it and see what happens. On some level, it’s great fun simply to see how much of a “spaghetti tangle of virtual wires” you can get going to make the craziest, gnarliest stuff possible. You can always try to figure things out later when you’re sober. Patch audio where CV should go, patch CV where audio should go. Use modules in completely unintended ways. Throw a bunch of logic and math at a patch haphazardly. Just go for it, you can’t break anything.
I think I found my first patching mission on the Zoia.
Learn how to adjust the sensitivity of the excellent LoopDelayErVerb patch so that it interacts more with my electric violin.
There’s a control for the gate, second row, first value module (this controls the sensitivity of the patch–and I set it on the high side in the default patch) on the front panel. Or are you looking for something else?
I believe that is the parameter I tried to tweak, but I’ll have to try again when I get back home from work. Quite possible I was tapping on the wrong square (module).
I had my Boss Katana amp set to one of my guitar presets rather than one of my violin ones, so I’ll also make sure the amp is on a violin preset. My violin presets have different gain settings due to the violin’s different dynamic range compared to electric guitar.
I have the Zoia in the effects loop of the Katana so the signal should be preamped either way.
I have no idea how to start doing the more advanced stuff in the Zoia, tbh. Am looking forward to someone making a series of detailed tutorials about the possible concepts.
What I am doing, though, is setting up each patch to handle both vocals and guitar in a consistent way.
For vocals, I have an XLR to 1/4 cable going into the Zoia’s left input, and I up the gain to the max +12db before then controlling it via a VCA module. From there I have an FX chain for each patch, eventually leading to the Zoia’s left output.
For guitar, I have a compressor and Earthquaker Palisades leading into the Zoia’s right input. I then set up an FX chain that leads to the Zoia’s right output.
The plan is to have a default patch that will apply to most songs, and then bespoke patches for songs where I require something different from the norm.
My key aim is to keep everything consistent in terms of programming, so that when I’m performing live there will be as little possible for confusion or mistakes as possible. So left is always vocals, right is always guitar. Page 1 of a patch is always the vocal signal path, page 2 is always the guitar signal path. Stomp switches are configured in the same way for every patch, so for example a stomp on/off for vocal FX will always be set to the middle switch. To simulate keeping FX tails intact, I use a slew limiter to make the stomp off reduce the FX gradually, (otherwise a reverb trail, for example, will immediately be cut off).
Even at this basic level, I’m having a lot of fun programming the Zoia for my needs. I’ll be using it in my band’s next gig on Saturday week.
At some point, I’m going to dive into the sequencer, looping and granular aspects properly!
After some more playing, I think it’s a user error, not an issue of the gate sensitivity.
i think the patch was designed to wait until the player shuts up before playing loops. I noticed the same thing on guitar - it looped whenever I stopped playing, but if I noodled continuously it wouldn’t make a sound.
I think it’s a cool design!
Yeah, the whole premise is that it records until it hears silence (or enough silence to drop below the gate’s threshold). One of the tricky things with loopers, recording automatically, is getting them to capture a note or a phrase, without cutting things off abruptly or beginning to record in the middle of a phrase, so the design is focused around approaching that. Which also means as long as you keep playing, it won’t produce sound. (Although, once it does start producing sound, it has three looper tracks that run in sequence so that it ideally continues to play sound until you’re ready to record over the first track.)
If you want a looper patch to just keep playing over (of mine–although there are many), I’m rather fond of my “Falling Forward” design.
Had a great experience with Perfect Circuit! Bought the Zoia on the 2nd and received it on the 3rd. You were right, it went on sale for their 4th of July promotion for $424.99. I sent an email to see if they would match the price, and they did! They offered me a refund or store credit so I took the store credit and got a couple covers for my DT & DN.
TLDR Didn’t deserve a refund, got one anyway. Awesome buying experience. 
This thread is horrible.
Always thought Zoia was a fun concept but not for me and I would rather get a specialized pedal that does a perfect job.
Then I watched one of the videos posted here. Now I need to spend $500. This thing seems truly innovative. It also seems fairly simple to start with and hard to master which I like. This is perfect as I’m planning to get away from my computer for sometime and focus on the hardware that I have.
I think these may be the best digital distortions I have ever heard. Like having Tim Hecker in a box.
And envelope followers are my new favorite thing. I like dynamic field recordings and using followers with them is gooooood fun.
I got one and it has replaced my pedal board. Took them FOREVER to finish beta testing though.