Endorphin.es pedals!

My guess is you can replace the cap with an artisan keycap:

But if you want to get rid of everything:

Then it would look like something you’ve built yourself, though without the added benefit that it always feels good to have made something :wink:

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Here’s a demo of the Golden Master connected to a Roland SH-4d, showing different electronic music styles:

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Yeah i agree. If you are in any way DIY inclined, this would be a nice little project. Especially for a soldering beginner. I wrote a little instruction on how I would do it, for anyone interested.

DIY Desktop Sustain and Expression Control

Materials

  • 1 x Panel mount Linear Slide Potentiometer 10kOhm

  • Fader handle (can be home-made or bought)

  • Fader panel mounting screws. Usually 2x M2 bolts

  • 1 x TRS 1/4" panel mount socket

  • 1 x TS 1/4" panel mount socket

  • 1 x Panel mount DPDT switch (allows TRS/RTS switching capability, for compatibility with different synths)

  • 1 x Panel mount DPST switch (to latch Sustain on and reverse the Sustain button’s function)

  • 1 x Momentary NO/NC Push Button (for Sustain)

  • A metal or plastic project box

  • Any kind of old cable bits can be used to connect the components

Tools required

  • Soldering Iron

  • A dremel or grinder to cut the slit for the fader

  • A drill to create the holes for the buttons and 1/4" connectors, etc

  • Also useful: A multimeter to debug the signal flow.

Cables required for usage

These cables are identical to Mono and Stereo audio cables, and chances are you have them already.

  • TRS cable for Expression

  • TS cable for Sustain

Wiring

The wiring is extremely simple. Just make sure to first prepare the box with a fader slit, holes. Also mount the button and switches before cables are soldered on.

Sustain

The TS socket has 2 poles. GND and TIP. When both are connected, sustain is activated.

  1. Solder the GND to the common port of the SPDT switch.

  2. Solder the Tip to the common port of the momentary button.

  3. Solder the NC (normally closed) side of the button to any one end of the SPDT switch, and the NO (normally open) side to the other side of the switch.

Result: In one switch position Sustain is always on and the button turns it off. In the other position Sustain is off and the button turns it on.

Expression

The TRS socket has 3 poles. GND, Ring and Tip. Connect those to the slider and then changing the slider position will alter the resistance and therefore the expression.

  1. Connect the TRS socket’s Ring and Tip to the DPDT switch to use it as a polarity switch, like here: https://www.instructables.com/HOW-TO:-Wire-a-DPDT-rocker-switch-for-reversing-po/

  2. Connect the TRS socket GND to the slide potentiometer GND

  3. Connect the polarity switch to the remaining two connections on each end of the slider.

Substitution ideas to save money

  • Instead of a fader, you can also use a rotary linear potentiometer knob with 10kOhm. It works exactly the same and is easier to install in a box.

  • Any kind of panel-thickness box can be used as an enclosure. Can be something creative!

  • If you don’t mind dangling cables, you could cut a TRS cable in half and let the ends hang out of the box, which would save the panel mount 1/4" sockets. Make sure to connect Ring to GND on the Sustain side to effectively turn it into a TS cable.

  • Buy a pair of DPDT switches, if that is cheaper. They can be used as DPST switches as well, by just ignoring the second set of connections.

Enhancement ideas?!

  • Add a second momentary button and replace all TS with TRS components, to give the box 2-button footswitch capabilities as well, for example for using with guitar amps, not just for sustain with synths.

Verdict

As you can see by the materials list, this can be build very cheaply. Depending on where you source your parts. Functionality would be identical to the Endorphin.es device.

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Wow. I never heard of the chase bliss exp before. This must be the most overpriced fancy potentiometer I have ever seen :laughing:

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Now also available in “black

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I have a Plus 3 on the way. Worth noting that Perfect Circuit has the black and silver models on the same product page, but the black has some new features, shown in the video above.

I have gain issues this the ghost, maybe since my ZED14 has balanced output so I tried the Alt (unbalanced) output to TS and even after careful staging my output from GM to ADC is quite low even cranking the GM. I’m pretty new to all this stuff so maybe I need just a +4 output not fully balanced as that’s way too hot. Still confused about its output gain though.

I’m so curious about the Evit Pet, did anyone try this ?

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Ghost was recently reduced in price on their website. I am considering giving it a try. 90% on guitar. Very intrigued by the cab sim also. Any guitar players here that tried it?

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Nice, they also had used the TB-03 in the video of the v3 firmware (further down on the same Synth Anatomy page), and at least to me it sounded mostly flat and lifeless.

That sound has improved a lot in v4. I also like they demo the firmware not only with the TB-03, but also with a TB-303, TB-3 and TT-303.

Personally, I’d wish for different types of distortion, I have a couple of pedals for my 303 clones that give me quite different sounds. I guess it’s also a bummer for those people who liked the V3 distortion sound, because that is apparently gone now.

The decision to change the delay divisions to something different to what is written on the device is bold, but probably a good idea (7/4 → 1/16d, 5/4 → 1/4t).

It’s a pity they still haven’t yet implemented a catch function for the knobs with shared functions.

But the best part of the update is IMHO is the special sale with 30% off, it’s currently available €350.

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Hey there! I’m about to buy an end-of-chain device. My choices are falling between
-Endorphins golden master
-Heat FX
-Polyend Press

Does the new firmware (mid april '26) addresses all the issues?
How does it sound compared to the aforementioned two competitors?

Thanks guys! :smile:

I find it interesting that your shortlist contains three fundamentally different devices

  • a fully digital multiband mastering device
  • a full-featured fx box with digital compression and analog drive (analog compression is possible, but without dedicated metering and labelled controls)
  • a simple analog stereo compressor

The only overlap I see is compression with some side-chaining.

I’m curious, what is it you expect from your end-of-chain device that made you rule out the obvious choice: Oto Boum?

They all sound rather different. What sounds best boils down to personal taste, the kind of music you make, your workflow and your use case (e.g. home jams, music production, or playing live sets).

The Heat FX colors the sound as much as you want to, it can sound transparent, or completely alter the sonic texture.

I have no hands-on experience with the Press, but from what I read it does not color the sound much, while the Golden Master does, and it appears to be a matter of taste whether your like that kind of 90ies sound, or not.

One thing to note: on the Golden Master volume and mix share the same analog knob, so it’s next to impossible to set it up in a way that the volume does not change when bypassed. That makes comparing the processed sound to the clean sound rather difficult, because your ears will always prefer the louder variant. That is an issue that cannot be addressed by firmware. You can see that in action in the video with the Sh4d that was posted above.

If money is not an issue, and you’re not hooked on multi-band processing, I recommend testing the AH FX first. You can get one for €800-850, and it will give you all the metering, processing and control you need. If money is an issue, and you already have a modular system, the Golden Master module is cheapest to try, you can get them for €120 used.

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Thanks for the reply!

Yeah, they’re three radically different devices. I need it for live sets with my Rytm and Tonverk. My goal is to achieve high enough loudness to be almost on par with people playing off CDJs. The genre is between House and Dub Techno.

I’ve ruled out the OTO Boum because it lacks an internal sidechain filter, so it gets triggered way too easily by the kick and sub.

The fact that the Golden Master imparts a 90s sound isn’t exactly my thing. In the demos, you can definitely hear that it adds a specific color to any audio source.

Space is my main concern rather than budget. I’m using a 12U rack case; the Golden Master would fit perfectly hidden under the Tonverk (‘set and forget’), whereas the Heat would definitely need to be mounted externally

I would look at an AH mk1, which I got for ~$250-300. can’t imagine anything better really, in any price range. hpf with a little res is too good for techno/house sets. i have some strymon boxes on sends, so I don’t need the +fx in my case. also, i dont have a ton of trust in endorphines digital stuff, or the polyend stuff. happy i got AH over boum, as the range of 2-bus processing without full distortion seems more limited on the boum. my 2¢

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If you want sent and forget, and need filtering in the sidechain, there may be more options:

Source Audio Atlas has HPF and LPF in the side chain, and you can customize the effect pretty much as you need it through the app. People only say good things about it, so for the quality and flexibility this is really a steal. But it is digital.

Cosmotronic Messor is analog and a bit more expensive. It also features parallel compression and filter for side chain. But no idea if it is any good.

And since you use a rack case anyway, how about a FMR RNC? If you can solder, you can tame the frequency response of the side chain through a simple plug with HPF tuned to your needs
Here’s a post that shows a simple switchable HPF design:

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Thanks a lot!!! I had no idea these alternatives even existed. I think the Messor is the winner here (avoiding extra latency for digital processing, since Tonverk have 12ms on its own)

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Here’s a thread about the Messor, you’ll find some Elektronauts who can tell you more about it:

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