Radio Music from Music Thing Modular is one of the more popular DIY projects in Eurorack, for it’s fairly simple build and extremely useful functionality. A new update has added some long awaited features including wave file support, a 1 volt per octave tuning option and more…
It’s been a good year for Radio Music owners. A few months ago, the new Chord Organ alternate firmware was announced by Tom Whitwell, developer of this and other modules under the brand Music Thing Modular. Now, a new beta firmware for the Radio Music has been released with a number of new and exciting features that make this device even more of a bargain, perhaps even a force to be reckoned with.
One of the most obvious and outstanding feature upgrades is support for standard wave audio files. Until now, replacing the samples on the module was a cumbersome process, involving persnickety naming conventions and rarely used RAW audio files. This meant loading files into Audacity or a similar sample editor to convert them one at a time, or using a shaky batch conversion process.
Now you have access to virtually any wave file, including all of those sample libraries that have been taking up disk drive space, or those fresh field recordings you made on the way to your modular gig… Or our student created open source sample library, the Voltage Control Lab Sound Study!
Another massive upgrade in this latest firmware version, the Start knob (which has traditionally been used to control the start position of the current sample) can be repurposed to instead control the pitch of the sample. Similar to other sample players in Eurorack, Radio Music can now perform 1 volt per octave pitch tracking on the samples with nearly a 2 octave range above and below the original tuning of the file.
There are even more added features in this beta, including better handling of audio rate triggering (up to a certain rate) among other fixes. Moreover, two very useful websites have been created to help navigate the modes for both Radio Music and Chord Organ. Polyfather.com offers a centralized location to download the most current firmware, as well as edit and then download the critical settings files that the module needs.
What will be the next adventure for Radio Music? If you dream up some wild use, the module is open source so you can re-imagine it yourself!
What modules would you like to see us discuss in the future? Let us know in the comments!
