Here’s what’s new in MIDICake ARP 4:
Always nice to hear.
At the end of this video, with the few bug fixes included they report – There are no known bugs at the moment.
And also they have another update release due in September with two new features.
Could it possibly be divisions of the beat other than powers of 2 and one 3?
Maybe.
Them leaving it wide open certainly fires the speculation neurons.
New batch shipped out this week. Anyone else getting theirs delivered today?
Edit yeah this thing rocks
Had mine waiting for me after returning from holiday today. Ordered July 25th, delivered (from UK to EU) on the 26th! Hooked it up and like it so far!
I got a hold of one to test out:
It’s a really cool device, with lots of features. The modulation lanes help keep things interesting, and when you throw in follow mode, it really comes to life. I’ve had a few different arpeggiators in my time (Flame etc), and this is the easiest/most intuitive to use.
Midicake ARP Black. Available to pre-order now and shipping 2nd October 23.
Check out https://midicake.com for more details.
Absolutely perfect thumbnail. My kind of clickbait ^^
sexy first post, welcome, and want
Anyone bought the Midicake and live in Canada? How much did you pay after conversion and duties? Thank you.
Thumbnails are the bane of my life :’(
sexy black one. it’s not reasonnable to buy another one. It is ?
Same here. I love my white one but it is quite the contrast next to Elektron gear. This must be the worst type of GAS: not because of features, but because its color better matches your other gear.
That said, I understand why @midicake (a heartfelt welcome, by the way!) waited with his first post on this forum until he had the Arp to match Elektron’s style.
can it only be bought from the midicake site? no thomann or something alike?
Yes, at least for now.
I’m afraid we do not use resellers and only sell directly from our website. I appreciate that Import Taxes and fees will apply. However, we are proud to be an independent and innovative maker and simply cannot afford the 30% markup that resellers expect.
We have sought various solutions for supply to countries outside the UK, but these all work out more expensive to our customers. We currently cannot make a reseller solution work and stay viable as a business.
Purchasing ARP in the UK requires us to add VAT at 20% (on top of the £320 price).
To the EU, Import Taxes are applied at 20% and then customs fees of around 2 to 4%, depending on your local rules. So you are looking at an import bill of between 22% and 24%, based on our experience.
To the USA, Import tax is currently 0%, so only the customs fee is demanded.
To other countries, the tax varies quite a bit.
A reseller would add both VAT and their 30% markup as well as cover their import fees. So, in order for them to be competitive with our direct sales, Midicake must lose over 50% of our income and it would be at least the same price to you, if not more expensive. We would have to increase our prices to survive and I don’t want to do that.
We support customers in the same way as any reseller and are committed to our 12-month warranty. As detailed in our terms and conditions document. https://www.midicake.com/terms
We ship using DHL Worldwide, who have proven to be outstanding, both in delivery times and efficient handling of customs fees. Our 3rd party payment systems (Paypal and Stripe) are safe and reliable.
I hope that you understand the reasons for our policy. We believe that the overall cost (with import fees) still represents very good value, given Midicake ARP’s capability, features and ability to inspire musical creativity.
We are passionate about ARP and are committed to supplying a high-quality and innovative product that we’ll continue to develop and support for many years.
thanks for the reply @midicake
I am definitely interested in buying one.
However, i’m just a bit hesitant since I also own a NDLR from conductive labs,
and I see many similarities/overlap between both devices.
Can someone enlighten me what the midicake arp brings to the table that the NDLR can’t?
(and vice versa perhaps)? Or maybe they can even be used in a synergistic way together perhaps?
Can someone enlighten me what the midicake arp brings to the table that the NDLR can’t?
Though close to each other, relative to all other music hardware, ARP and NDLR are quite different devices. They are each deep and create complex and evolving patterns, yet have a very different approach.
NDLR is a great device, I have one and have explored it a lot. So here’s my view…
Unlike NDLRs 7 chord interval approach, ARP doesn’t try to help you when it comes to chord selection, a downside maybe but your freedom to explore chords and scales is pretty much unlimited (within Western music scales at least).
The biggest difference though is that ARP will track your incoming MIDI notes and create sequences that follow along, in harmony. NDLR on the other hand will transpose incoming notes, to its internally selected scale. ARP will do that if you are not using an external device.
I initially started work on ARP to meet a specific need… playing many synths together and all in harmony.
For an excellent demonstration of this, take a look at Jay Hosking’s latest jam: - https://youtu.be/d5xK471xlJ8?si=S88VP5frgYJaN0dE
When NDLR was launched I bought one but found it didn’t fulfil that original need I had, so I continued ARPs development.
I explain that need in the “Shocking Revelations” video, SirAdrianFish posted
I wanted the melodies created to be based on my rules and not pre-programmed sequences. That’s why it uses a parametric approach to sequence generation.
ARP has Pattern and Groove editing, multiple modulations, chord chain sequencing and is very intuitive as a performance device. It’s also very deep and the parameter matrix gives almost unlimited freedom for exploration.
It’s also deterministic, so even with its ability to play Poly Rhythms and even modulate time signatures and groove/swing, you’ll never get out of sync and when you press Stop, then Play. There’s no danger of losing the lovely sequence you just created.
Or maybe they can even be used in a synergistic way together perhaps?
I’ve been meaning to publish a video on using NDLR and ARP together. One great way is to use NDLR’s Pad channel as the note sync source for ARP and let ARP track NDLR.
Another is to create long-evolving patterns with ARP and get NDLR to transpose them.
Quite different results but a lot of fun.
I hope that helps.
P.S. I am of course biased towards ARP, but I’ve tried to give you the key differences and I do still love messing with NDLR!
