I asked Hainbach if he planned to post whatever patches he comes up with, and he said he would. Heâs a fascinating character.
Oooh, was just Googling to see if this is possible.
So copying pages between patches is in the dev pipeline?
(Love the responsiveness to and engagement with users from Empress, btw!)
Yes.
Whos got a petite travel case recommendation for this beaut?
This is implemented now - I did this an hour ago.
[edit - to be clear - you can copy pages within a patch - on rereading I think you mean copying pages from one patch to another - that I have not done, and it may not be implemented].
First of all I must say, that I am not against Zoia, BUt, I have two main questions:
- As a synth, can it make bread and butter sounds that sound really good, like great bass, leads and so on? I mean if it canât whatâs the point? I didnât see any demos until now to impress me soundwise. I mean interface is not really great, so at least the effort to be paid in great sounds.
- Can it act as multi effects box? I mean with multi delays and multi reverbs? And if yes, do they sound as great as other empress effects? If not, again, whatâs the point.
Thanks a lot!
When you take the processing power of a Zoia into account (which shows also in its price) you will never be able to accomplish the same as with dedicated units.
So donât forget about the thought of âmulti-delays + multi reverbs + what-notâ in best empress quality all at the same time.
Functionwise the Zoia is a modular system in a foot pedal housing. And as each modular system its most important strength is flexibility. The basic parts may be simple, but when you wire them up into a complex setup it may deliver âwondersâ (depending on your imagination and capabilities to make it work).
Itâs âsynthâ capabilities are nowhere near a dedicated synth. Think of them as oscillators in a modular system which can be modulated by the incoming audio or augment the incoming audio. I guess thatâs a much better view of them. And like the oscillators in a modular system they will sound âmehâ (up to okay) by their own. You need to build something with them and the other modules to get it to an âinterestingâ level.
The Zoia wants you to tinker around and invent new kinds of effects or effect variations. Ever wanted to customize a shimmer effect in much more detail than the pedal you had allows? Here we go. Thatâs where the Zoia flourishes.
I get what u say, but I just still have to hear those capabilities flourish.
Like I said, I still didnât get impressed by any video up until now.
On paper is great, just wanna hear examples of that greatness.
Also, in a great monosynth, just a fat oscillator and a filter plus envelope, u get a good soundâŠ
I think youâre completely missing the point with both of those questions.
100% this. Its power is only limited by your creativity; be unique and make things that matter to you.
Are you familiar with the Disting module? Think of it like that but as opposed to only one module at a time you have access to as many as the CPU allows.
On the Zoia you can add before a Ghost-lite emulation a heavily modulated granular sampler being fed into a plethora of distortions modulated by the original signals dynamics (envelope follower). Or something.
You canât do that on their Reverb unit (or any multi fx unit) and that is the point of the Zoia. If they put in a single algorithm from their Reverb unit you could only do just that and thatâs not the point.
Very well put, @tnussb.
Patching is actually a good part of the game with the ZOIA, UX has been really well thought IMO. âModularâ is the word that defines best this stompbox, for sure.
The sound is digital obviously, but I guess it would be feasible to come up with some fat multi-oscillator drone with different distortion options on a few filter layersâŠ
No, but the UI really, really is great. I donât think thatâs easy to appreciate without getting your hands on it and taking a little bit of time to use it, but patching the ZOIA is incredibly fast, flexible, and most importantly open. Undoing patches and reordering (which is easy to overlook) is also incredibly fast; faster than any VST I can think of, and definitely faster than pulling patch cables on a hardware modular.
Here are some demos: https://soundcloud.com/chmjacques/ All of these are demos for patches made with ZOIA and which feature zero additional processing (and a general ineptitude at playing music that the red recording dot seems to produce in me). It includes synths, samplers, loopers, effects I canât achieve by any other means, effects I donât have to buy, effects I have bought and can now sell, several things I didnât even realize were possible until I started messing around with the environment. All in one box.
P.S.
If so, you might reconsider how you phrase your questions, especially in a forum filled with ZOIA users? Because your tone could fool me pretty easily into believing otherwise.
If you keep comparing Zoia to other products (distortion pedals, synths, etc), the Zoia is not for you.
If you ask âCan Zoia replace XXXâ itâs not for you. Asking it once is ok. Asking the same question and just switching out nouns like âdual delayâ, âmonosynthâ, etc. repeatedly over the course of several weeks means it is really, really, not fo you.
I didnât get mine to replace anything. I got mine because it can do things my other pedals and synths canât. More importantly, I got it because I know I can use it in my art.
To paraphrase another forum member, âIf you donât know why you need one, you donât need itâ
Actually, quite a few forward-thinking guitar guys HAVE bought them to replace multiple pedals, some reporting that it replaces half of their old pedalboard setups. How many end up keeping them on there remains to be seen.
Iâm cool with that. They have replaced something they already own and are presumably familiar with.
So hereâs my opinion: I got this thing 1 week ago and was a bit disappointed at first. Because none of the effects blew me away. But then I got into patching myself and downloading user generated patches⊠then it clicked. Itâs like a little Lego playground that you can explore pretty much without any limitations. Just trying stuff out is very fun and intuitive.
Iâm not sure if the Zoia fits the need of a musician who needs a good sounding pedal for a particular purpose right out of the box. But with a little patience and creativity there should be more space on the pedal board after buying it 
Zoia is also a pretty new device, so there will be much further updates in the future that will keep this thing constantly changing.
Iâm quite sure it will not, because even with pre-made patches the controls are not made to dial in some changes quickly.
You need to become creative also in how you want to control a patch. When simple switches are okay, then it can be done with the Zoia itself, but for everything else youâll need to integrate some external controls like expression pedals are midi controllers.
Youâll need to customize it (in almost all cases) do your needs and thatâs something completely different to having a few knobs with fixed functions and which are clearly labelled.
IMHO with pre-made custom patches you also need to âinventâ your own control scheme (colors, layout and positioning of the main modules etc.pp.) and adapt them to it (read: put some time and effort in). Otherwise it may become quite irritating when each and every patch needs to be controlled differently.
Yeah, if somebody want as a dual delay, Iâd tell them to just get the dual delay. If he want a fuzz, just get a fuzz and so on. I once bought a Nord Micromodular thinking it could be an âeverything boxâ too and it just ended up sitting around until it was lost/stole, while my delay pedals and other single use pedals got much more usage.
Brought my Zoia to band rehearsal for the first time. We identified some patches that weâd like to use for certain songs - so big ups to the patch designers for their hard work - eg. Chris M. Jacques (of course!), WZ, and maybe others.
Control scheme is a legitimate concern. I spent some time before rehearsal day practicing the use of certain patches but because Iâd only put in a few days of practice, I blanked out on what button switches are for what for a certain patch in the rehearsal space. Canât be helped though, as each patch creator has their own idea of how a patch might be controlled, and weâre all kind of learning together.
I mostly play violin with this band, so I donât want to have to memorize a complicated control scheme. The analysis modules are thus of interest to me, as these are the ones that can be used to affect the behavior of a patch based on oneâs playing. Thereâs only 3 of them listed right now but Iâm sure this group of modules will mature over time.
It will take some time to work out the right balance of simple control scheme and having options for doing interesting things with a patch on the fly. That would include studying existing patches and customizing them to personal needs, learning how to patch on this thing in general, and eventually creating patches from scratch using concepts gleaned from other patches and related discussions. Iâm totally ok with that.