Great review Sir , i have the LD3, it is indeed a very powerful machine, I enjoy it every day. I should have bought it with the analog filter board installed. So i plan to upgrade it.
This is very cool. As much as I would like one, it is probably too small for me. A 19" version in a physical format like Cirklon (16 knobs over 16 step buttons) would be amazing. I understand this is a one man operation so I am in awe. :)
Oh yes, that would be fantastic for the studio indeed. I chose the LD3 as a portable groovebox and think the interface is well done for that, but of course when you reduce the size of things, there are usually some trade-offs to be made.
@@tuesdaynightmachines thinking of ordering one This week Like the digital manipulation but not sure on the analog filters May I ask what the point in the analog board is? I ask as I need a couple extra outputs But not certain I need the analog filters as I prefer digital crunchiness
Hi :) if you don’t need analog filter sounds in your LD3 then you don’t have to order the filters. It’s just an option and the LD3 is also cool without them. If you change your mind, you can still install filters later on :)
Based on a recommendation from you, I bought a Gotharman’s SpazeDrum. I LOVE IT. The problem I have is, it’s like handing a Stratavarius to a first year music student. I’m having fun playing with it. The problem I have is, sound engineering isn’t easy (I know, hard to believe). I would benefit from someone working with me to build a Kick Drum, an Open and Closed Hi-Hat, a snare, a Tom, and a few other percussion sounds…. that all sound good together. Since I have a lot to learn regarding this, would you benefit by creating an educational series where you show how you teach someone to engineer some persuasion instruments? I’m “volunteering” to be the unskilled person that you’d work with to showcase the power of the SpazeDrum, your skill educating, and your ability to put up with Americans (I hope you laughed at that)… Anyway, I would benefit immensely, I don’t know if you would benefit enough by making these videos… We could do it over Zoom, Skype, FaceTime… Thanks again for recommending the SpazeDrum.
Hey, thanks! While I wouldn’t consider myself a skilled or experienced sound designer, doing a collaboration like this would certainty be fun! I’m currently away from my gear until July, but let’s do something then if you like. Could you send me a quick email to tuesdaynightmachines@gmail.com?
Thank you! Yes, the Serge is gone. It wasn‘t an easy decision, but I have something else coming that will fit nicely into the space there and I also needed so money to make this happen. I loved my time with the CGS synths and I might get some 4U banana modulars in the future again =)
Yes, you can use one or more of the 16 tracks to program clock patterns (resolution, skips, random stuff) and output them from the CV outputs. The LD3 will also listen to analog clock and even convert it to MIDI clock.
Amazing video, i m wandering to buy it for more than one year but it may say that i have to sell a lot of hardware. I gonna watch every videos of yours about it. Just a simple question, right that we can only play 8 tracks together?
Hey, thanks :) The LD3 is eight voice polyphonic, so it can play eight stereo sounds at the same time. That has nothing to do with the 16 note tracks and 32 controller tracks, which can all run at the same time.
It’s very unique. Pretty smooth without resonance. Increasing resonance makes the sound thinner and can be used for vocal effects. The four filters can be connected in various modes, offering plenty of possibilities. G-Ray feedback makes it crunchy. I see it more as an effect filter than a traditional filter. I have a MiniProphet filter as well, which is quite “normal”, so it’s great to have the Dual Band SSI as well, for analog “Gotharman” weirdness ;-)
@@tuesdaynightmachines Thanks for the info! So this filter is not that great to be used as a general purpose filter too ? I mean if the HPF set to 0 and just using the first filter block (hpf -> lpf)can it behave like a normal 24 lpf ?
You can certainly use it as a normal LPF, BPF or HPF, but the resonance reduces the low frequencies a lot and there are many options to use it NOT like a normal filter :D If you prefer a traditional filter, then there might be better options, which focus more on that application.
One more question, the machine you own is the basic machine with options: extra memory,Option7 and 2 Filterboards (which ones?) .did i forget anything?
I have the LD3 in an mkI case with extra memory, the CV option, 4 audio inputs/outputs option and two MiniProphet filters (which are discontinued). The new mkII cases are designed a bit differently now, but the internals have stayed the same as far as I know.
Sorry, I had to correct my earlier post. Misunderstood something and didn‘t check before posting :D Yeah, the LD3 is quite packed. I bought it used though. If I didn’t have that deal available, I would have ordered a new one without the extra audio inputs and none, or maybe only one, filterboard I think.
Good question ... I'm actually not sure what the difference really is. Aren't granular synths just sound generators with granular effects? Honestly curious here ... hmm ... "officially" the granular stuff sits in the LD3's effects section. However there are granular effects linked to sequencer tracks and you can modulate the effects, resample the audio and of course also modulate the start, length and pitch of audio samples.
@@tuesdaynightmachines i think in theory it can sound the same (granular synthesis and FX), but not with the same timing, because with the synth you can pick the slices direct, and with the fx you play the soundpatch into the buffer and the fx could pick the same slices as the synth. but if you use a 20 sec sample you have a 20sec delay after triggering the sound. and you loose 1 fx per patch. i am still searching for the best granular machine for me, but they all loose against my software. but i want to have a live setup without a computer .
Thank you! That makes sense. I’ll make a video about the LD3’s granular possibilities, but I’m sure software will always offer more scalability and flexibility.
Turns out this thing can do about everything I can think of including polyphonic granular sample treatment. The problem however is that my trust in this sort of small brands took a nosedive when I tried out the Tasty Chips GR1 a few years ago. On paper and in video's it was the perfect tool for me but when I bought one it turned out to be a bugridden sack of bones. It couldn't even save the simplest preset tweaks! I wa sonly able to get my money back via voicing soem quite extreme threats, which is not my natural style at all. Since then my rule has again become: Try before you buy. But where to try this one out without travelling to Denmark and insisting on a no cost personal feature proving session!
Insisting on a no cost personal session seems a bit excessive :D Even big companies sell bugged products and have bad costomer support. I’ve not heard such bad things from the GR-1, but I’ve never owned one myself. Gotharman has made and sold numerous instruments for over 10 years (well before the whole fast-fashion-like synth craze), so there’s a lot of experience behind making the devices and making them durable with high-quality parts. They are quirky of course and not for a mass market and due to the heavy software development, there can be a bug occasionally, but Flemming from Gotharman is really open with his communication in my experience and if there’s a bug, it’s usually getting fixed quickly. The upside of this is that instruments get new features all the time and are supported well over the years. And of course you don’t have to update your instruments. I’ve had a wonderful time with them and got quite addicted to Gotharman and the small community around it, as you can see on my RUclips channel ;-) Let me know if you have specific questions.
@@tuesdaynightmachines Well, if you insist. Here is my main question. What I am looking for is a polyphonic hardware granular sampler in which poly aftertouch can be used to scrub to the sample start points for every key(stroke) individually in real time. You can then for instance use the aftertouch to scrub from a part in the sound with a low brightness to one with a high brightness. If well implemented the harmonic content of the sample itself then starts to act as a filter (equivalent) wjhich is very finelly tuned to the harmonic content of the sample itself. I expect a behaviour that is comparable to that of a sample specific resonator. Again: The GR seemed to tick all the boxes except the poly AT aspect but I could have lived with that if at least the rest worked. In the mean time I have switched to building instruments in Bitwig studio's The Grid modualr synth but I find the integration of the granular sampling parameters rather cumbersome and unintuitive. I am still more of a hardware guy anyway. Using a DAW is a bit like joining the Dark Side Of The Force. :-)
Wow, that's very specific indeed :D I love it! I have a feeling that this (or something close to it) could be possible. Not sure if the LD3 supports poly-AT though. I'll check and report back :)
Alright, so no poly AT on the LD3 either. What you described does work with channel AT, but of course then each keystroke will scrub to the same position in the sample, which is not really that interesting. There might be a workaround like copying the same settings to several parts/voices, with each voice listening to its own MIDI channel and then using an MPE controller that sends one-note-per-channel. I need to try that with my Linnstrument, but it is quite the workaround :D I assume that poly AT is a lot harder to implement than channel AT, which is why not many synths support it, even though nowadays I’d think that this software solution shouldn’t be a problem … but what do I know :D
Thanks for this nice overview. This device sounded great until you said the parameter knobs are NOT encoders. That's broken, because it means you cannot simply change patches and have the controllers fall into line with the current value. Instead they will either jump or not react until they hit the current value. Either behaviour is annoying in practice.
Hey :) I totally understand that point of view. I’m on the potentiometer front and was excited that the LD3 did not use encoders, because I don’t like it when there are no defined start/middle/end points. Wouldn’t it be cool to have encoders where you could enable stops via a hardware locking mechanism somehow? :D Best of both worlds then.
Yes, that would be some magic! But I think the best compromise is to have a clear display of the values altered by an encoder -- which the Deformer already has. Sure, it means you might be scrolling the knob past zero if you are not looking at the screen. But this is much less of a downside than the alternative, because it doesn't screw up the sound in any way. Knob versus encoder is rarely mentioned in product reviews, but in practice is the single most important distinction for anyone who likes to move between presets in performance. For people who treat a device as a "set and forget" black box, it's not an issue, admittedly.
There is also the situation where you don’t see the values on screen. You can easily reassign those knobs to on the LD3 and even have them affect more than one parameter. So in a performance I always know what the values are, as they correspond to the knob position. When switching presets the knobs will only change the values when touched or once they pass the initial value, so there’s really nothing bar that can happen :) For me it’s actually not such a big issue. I can work with encoders too, but do prefer pots in this case, because I’m not reliant on a screen.
Bastl got something like this with Thyme. The knobs are pots that each have an indicator LED, when loading a new preset the indicator LED lights up to indicate the current parameter position. When you move the knob slowly, it will wait until the physical position of the knob catches up to where the parameter is. If you move the knob quickly it will jump to the current physical position. Works really well to solve this kind of desire!
As an Elektron and Waldorf machines user im glad that the knobs are not encoders. I had problems with the encoders from my Octatrack, analog 4 and analog Rytm and Waldorf Q. Skipping values, erratic behavior etc after some time. I agree encoders in principle are better with this kind of GUI but they are fragiles. Exception , the encoders from my Nord Modular G2 are still working perfectly after more than 10 years !!!
Such a smart, intuitive UI. What a cool little box 👍🏻😎
Yeah, it's very well done for the amount of possibilities the Little deFormer 3 offers :)
Great explanation and walk through of this box! Thanks very much! 😀 👊
Thank you! :)
Very nice and comprehensive video, thx!
Thanks! Happy that you liked it :) Let me know if you have any questions.
Great review Sir , i have the LD3, it is indeed a very powerful machine, I enjoy it every day. I should have bought it with the analog filter board installed. So i plan to upgrade it.
Thank you! I like that the filters are user-upgradable. I might also replace one of my MiniProphet filters with another one at some point.
This is very cool. As much as I would like one, it is probably too small for me.
A 19" version in a physical format like Cirklon (16 knobs over 16 step buttons) would be amazing.
I understand this is a one man operation so I am in awe. :)
Oh yes, that would be fantastic for the studio indeed. I chose the LD3 as a portable groovebox and think the interface is well done for that, but of course when you reduce the size of things, there are usually some trade-offs to be made.
@@tuesdaynightmachines thinking of ordering one This week
Like the digital manipulation but not sure on the analog filters
May I ask what the point in the analog board is? I ask as I need a couple extra outputs
But not certain I need the analog filters as I prefer digital crunchiness
Hi :) if you don’t need analog filter sounds in your LD3 then you don’t have to order the filters. It’s just an option and the LD3 is also cool without them. If you change your mind, you can still install filters later on :)
Cool, thanks! I guess I am "deformed" now :)
That was the plan :D :D :D
Neat little box.
Yes, I‘m quite impressed and happy with it. Lot‘s of things to explore here! :)
Based on a recommendation from you, I bought a Gotharman’s SpazeDrum. I LOVE IT. The problem I have is, it’s like handing a Stratavarius to a first year music student. I’m having fun playing with it. The problem I have is, sound engineering isn’t easy (I know, hard to believe). I would benefit from someone working with me to build a Kick Drum, an Open and Closed Hi-Hat, a snare, a Tom, and a few other percussion sounds…. that all sound good together. Since I have a lot to learn regarding this, would you benefit by creating an educational series where you show how you teach someone to engineer some persuasion instruments? I’m “volunteering” to be the unskilled person that you’d work with to showcase the power of the SpazeDrum, your skill educating, and your ability to put up with Americans (I hope you laughed at that)… Anyway, I would benefit immensely, I don’t know if you would benefit enough by making these videos… We could do it over Zoom, Skype, FaceTime… Thanks again for recommending the SpazeDrum.
Hey, thanks! While I wouldn’t consider myself a skilled or experienced sound designer, doing a collaboration like this would certainty be fun! I’m currently away from my gear until July, but let’s do something then if you like. Could you send me a quick email to tuesdaynightmachines@gmail.com?
why do you only get 1.7k views this is criminal!
Thanks! I guess the Little deFormer isn’t on many people’s radars. Spread the word 😊
it makes me very sad to see the empty rack space where your best of CGS Serge system used to be :'( but glad to keep watching
Thank you! Yes, the Serge is gone. It wasn‘t an easy decision, but I have something else coming that will fit nicely into the space there and I also needed so money to make this happen. I loved my time with the CGS synths and I might get some 4U banana modulars in the future again =)
good stuff!!!
Thank you! :) I‘m very excited about the LD3. It‘s so versatile!
is it possible for one of the cv outs to be set to output analog clock? thanks
Yes, you can use one or more of the 16 tracks to program clock patterns (resolution, skips, random stuff) and output them from the CV outputs.
The LD3 will also listen to analog clock and even convert it to MIDI clock.
Awesome... thank you!
Goo:D review!!!
Amazing video, i m wandering to buy it for more than one year but it may say that i have to sell a lot of hardware. I gonna watch every videos of yours about it. Just a simple question, right that we can only play 8 tracks together?
I mean in the same time , even if there are 16 tracks.
Hey, thanks :) The LD3 is eight voice polyphonic, so it can play eight stereo sounds at the same time. That has nothing to do with the 16 note tracks and 32 controller tracks, which can all run at the same time.
@@tuesdaynightmachines Yes god damned. I wish it was way more.
Hey ! I was wondering what you thought of the dual band SSI ?
It’s very unique. Pretty smooth without resonance. Increasing resonance makes the sound thinner and can be used for vocal effects. The four filters can be connected in various modes, offering plenty of possibilities. G-Ray feedback makes it crunchy. I see it more as an effect filter than a traditional filter. I have a MiniProphet filter as well, which is quite “normal”, so it’s great to have the Dual Band SSI as well, for analog “Gotharman” weirdness ;-)
@@tuesdaynightmachines Thanks for the info! So this filter is not that great to be used as a general purpose filter too ? I mean if the HPF set to 0 and just using the first filter block (hpf -> lpf)can it behave like a normal 24 lpf ?
You can certainly use it as a normal LPF, BPF or HPF, but the resonance reduces the low frequencies a lot and there are many options to use it NOT like a normal filter :D If you prefer a traditional filter, then there might be better options, which focus more on that application.
@@tuesdaynightmachines Again thank you for your reply :) I already have 3 filters for my Anamono x and i was just curious about the other options.
hey felix, schön ein neues video von dir zu sehen, hoffe dir geht es soweit gut.wo ist denn dein serge system?
Vielen Dank =) Tja ... der Serge ist jetzt in Italien. Er wollte mal reisen ;-) Dafür kommt bald etwas anderes in den Schrank.
@@tuesdaynightmachines wow okay...hmm...vielleicht ist es ein buchla der in den schrank kommt ^^
@@slicknoize haha, nee, leider nicht. Geht eher so in Richtung Bücherregal ;-P
One more question, the machine you own is the basic machine with options: extra memory,Option7 and 2 Filterboards (which ones?) .did i forget anything?
I have the LD3 in an mkI case with extra memory, the CV option, 4 audio inputs/outputs option and two MiniProphet filters (which are discontinued). The new mkII cases are designed a bit differently now, but the internals have stayed the same as far as I know.
P.S. the MiniProhet filters sound quite smooth, as one would expect. The other filters, like the SSI or Tubaz, might be more “interesting”.
@@tuesdaynightmachines i am a DSI/SC lover too!
@@tuesdaynightmachines I see, that is quite some stuff, i think around 3000 EUR.
Sorry, I had to correct my earlier post. Misunderstood something and didn‘t check before posting :D
Yeah, the LD3 is quite packed. I bought it used though. If I didn’t have that deal available, I would have ordered a new one without the extra audio inputs and none, or maybe only one, filterboard I think.
hi what is granular in the machine, only fx or also synthesis?
Good question ... I'm actually not sure what the difference really is. Aren't granular synths just sound generators with granular effects? Honestly curious here ... hmm ... "officially" the granular stuff sits in the LD3's effects section. However there are granular effects linked to sequencer tracks and you can modulate the effects, resample the audio and of course also modulate the start, length and pitch of audio samples.
@@tuesdaynightmachines i think in theory it can sound the same (granular synthesis and FX), but not with the same timing, because with the synth you can pick the slices direct, and with the fx you play the soundpatch into the buffer and the fx could pick the same slices as the synth. but if you use a 20 sec sample you have a 20sec delay after triggering the sound. and you loose 1 fx per patch. i am still searching for the best granular machine for me, but they all loose against my software. but i want to have a live setup without a computer .
Thank you! That makes sense. I’ll make a video about the LD3’s granular possibilities, but I’m sure software will always offer more scalability and flexibility.
@@tuesdaynightmachines Thanks, can't wait!
here you go :) ruclips.net/video/878ARaFo9ds/видео.html
Price? Peace Christo👽🐕🎶☮️
Check out www.Gotharman.dk there are several hardware options. Let me know if you have questions about specific ones.
Ron Jeremy - I do music now!!
🤣
Turns out this thing can do about everything I can think of including polyphonic granular sample treatment. The problem however is that my trust in this sort of small brands took a nosedive when I tried out the Tasty Chips GR1 a few years ago. On paper and in video's it was the perfect tool for me but when I bought one it turned out to be a bugridden sack of bones. It couldn't even save the simplest preset tweaks! I wa sonly able to get my money back via voicing soem quite extreme threats, which is not my natural style at all. Since then my rule has again become: Try before you buy. But where to try this one out without travelling to Denmark and insisting on a no cost personal feature proving session!
Insisting on a no cost personal session seems a bit excessive :D Even big companies sell bugged products and have bad costomer support. I’ve not heard such bad things from the GR-1, but I’ve never owned one myself. Gotharman has made and sold numerous instruments for over 10 years (well before the whole fast-fashion-like synth craze), so there’s a lot of experience behind making the devices and making them durable with high-quality parts. They are quirky of course and not for a mass market and due to the heavy software development, there can be a bug occasionally, but Flemming from Gotharman is really open with his communication in my experience and if there’s a bug, it’s usually getting fixed quickly. The upside of this is that instruments get new features all the time and are supported well over the years. And of course you don’t have to update your instruments. I’ve had a wonderful time with them and got quite addicted to Gotharman and the small community around it, as you can see on my RUclips channel ;-) Let me know if you have specific questions.
@@tuesdaynightmachines Well, if you insist. Here is my main question. What I am looking for is a polyphonic hardware granular sampler in which poly aftertouch can be used to scrub to the sample start points for every key(stroke) individually in real time. You can then for instance use the aftertouch to scrub from a part in the sound with a low brightness to one with a high brightness. If well implemented the harmonic content of the sample itself then starts to act as a filter (equivalent) wjhich is very finelly tuned to the harmonic content of the sample itself. I expect a behaviour that is comparable to that of a sample specific resonator. Again: The GR seemed to tick all the boxes except the poly AT aspect but I could have lived with that if at least the rest worked. In the mean time I have switched to building instruments in Bitwig studio's The Grid modualr synth but I find the integration of the granular sampling parameters rather cumbersome and unintuitive. I am still more of a hardware guy anyway. Using a DAW is a bit like joining the Dark Side Of The Force. :-)
Wow, that's very specific indeed :D I love it! I have a feeling that this (or something close to it) could be possible. Not sure if the LD3 supports poly-AT though. I'll check and report back :)
@@tuesdaynightmachines Tnaks! I am looking forward to your findings. :-)
Alright, so no poly AT on the LD3 either. What you described does work with channel AT, but of course then each keystroke will scrub to the same position in the sample, which is not really that interesting. There might be a workaround like copying the same settings to several parts/voices, with each voice listening to its own MIDI channel and then using an MPE controller that sends one-note-per-channel. I need to try that with my Linnstrument, but it is quite the workaround :D I assume that poly AT is a lot harder to implement than channel AT, which is why not many synths support it, even though nowadays I’d think that this software solution shouldn’t be a problem … but what do I know :D
Thanks for this nice overview. This device sounded great until you said the parameter knobs are NOT encoders. That's broken, because it means you cannot simply change patches and have the controllers fall into line with the current value. Instead they will either jump or not react until they hit the current value. Either behaviour is annoying in practice.
Hey :) I totally understand that point of view. I’m on the potentiometer front and was excited that the LD3 did not use encoders, because I don’t like it when there are no defined start/middle/end points. Wouldn’t it be cool to have encoders where you could enable stops via a hardware locking mechanism somehow? :D Best of both worlds then.
Yes, that would be some magic! But I think the best compromise is to have a clear display of the values altered by an encoder -- which the Deformer already has. Sure, it means you might be scrolling the knob past zero if you are not looking at the screen. But this is much less of a downside than the alternative, because it doesn't screw up the sound in any way.
Knob versus encoder is rarely mentioned in product reviews, but in practice is the single most important distinction for anyone who likes to move between presets in performance. For people who treat a device as a "set and forget" black box, it's not an issue, admittedly.
There is also the situation where you don’t see the values on screen. You can easily reassign those knobs to on the LD3 and even have them affect more than one parameter. So in a performance I always know what the values are, as they correspond to the knob position. When switching presets the knobs will only change the values when touched or once they pass the initial value, so there’s really nothing bar that can happen :)
For me it’s actually not such a big issue. I can work with encoders too, but do prefer pots in this case, because I’m not reliant on a screen.
Bastl got something like this with Thyme. The knobs are pots that each have an indicator LED, when loading a new preset the indicator LED lights up to indicate the current parameter position. When you move the knob slowly, it will wait until the physical position of the knob catches up to where the parameter is. If you move the knob quickly it will jump to the current physical position. Works really well to solve this kind of desire!
As an Elektron and Waldorf machines user im glad that the knobs are not encoders. I had problems with the encoders from my Octatrack, analog 4 and analog Rytm and Waldorf Q. Skipping values, erratic behavior etc after some time. I agree encoders in principle are better with this kind of GUI but they are fragiles. Exception , the encoders from my Nord Modular G2 are still working perfectly after more than 10 years !!!