I am looking for a pedal effect to increase the Digitakt potential.
I have seen a lot of videos about the Microcosm from Hologram however given the very agressive Marketing that they have been doing lately I am wondering if there isn’t an overhype or if I can find better for the same price or cheaper.
I stumbled upon the Boss DD-500 , a delay pedal, and this seems interesting enough as you can configure many parameters and there is also a computer software that allows you to adjust and create effects. There is also a USB Midi (like the Microcosm) so some of the parameters can be controlled by the Digitakt.
I had a Microcosm for a bit, and ended up selling it (for the price I bought it for, which was nice). I really liked what I got out of it, but was not skilled enough to get different things out of it. It was super fun and very nicely made though!
It was released Feb 2021, so I guess it wasn’t intersting enough to keep for more than a year… at least it gets to keep its value for now as they are still in a pre-order mode.
I haven’t tried the microcosm before, but I feel like one would use it as a preset bank of effects rather than a pedal that one really gets to know and learns how to control. If I had to pick of the two I’d choose the Boss- it’s available, it seems easy to understand. If I wanted to complicate things I’d also check out the Red Panda Particle 2, which I think could be a midpoint between plain delay and totally random.
I have a Particle 2 which is great, but not my go to for your bread 'n butter delays which the Boss excels at. I’d also consider a DD-200 which is half the size of the 500 but still packs a lot of punch and compliments something like a Particle very well
Depends on whether you want an effect that is more a compositional creative aid of algorithms, albeit with dial-in abstract effects limited within certain parameters but perhaps a good sweetspot range than total chaos - or the workhorse high quality delay centric Boss.
Personally after years of effects twiddling, I enjoy the microcosm approach - enough latitude to make it very much your own and expand on ideas, but not to get lost in menu diving and configuring.
Both great buys.
Long term, delay pedals have maybe plateaued in terms of what they do, with so many amazing delays, so resale in 2 - 3 yrs time will not slide too far for a near top of the list like the Boss (vs say a strymon or one of the others)
Microcosm, as the newer cool kid on the block is vulnerable to the next ‘amazing’ abstract in a box pedal that does even more - it’s in a faster flowing river so % decline in 2 - 3 years might be more acute.
Pure speculation of course. It will still be an amazing tool regardless, with near knob per function and huge scope for a musician dabbling rather than a technologist who wants to precisely program every parameter.
I’d go for the microcosm for insta-experi-exploration over the Boss, being ‘just’ a very nice delay.
The microcosm is a very cool accompaniment and can be performed with.
The looper is useful for transitions. Some settings are good for giving variation to drum beats. Some settings are very unique, textured reverbs.
If you aren’t getting good results, try putting less through it.
It shines when you let it fill in the blanks. So give it blanks spots to fill in.
I’ve tried running the headphone out into the input of the microcosm and then routing it back into the digitakt, no feedback, wet control worked well for fading the effect in and out.
Update on the question, I did go with the BOSS pedal mainly because I found a good deal (and I didn’t want to buy the hardware that was being advertised on all youtube creators channels) but it was kind of non intuitive to program, so my creativity flow was at a stop all the time, but also because the delay options that you have in a DAW are more interesting.
So I returned the pedal and I am now looking for a Microcosm pedal.
