Ghost is Endorphin.es’ filtering, distorting, (sidechain) compressing, reverbing, do-everything multi-effect for Eurorack. And it keeps getting better – now with the free V3 update, it adds additional effects features and tweaks.
Endorphin.es has a good track record of delivering firmware improvements and responding to user requests. The Ghost, their collab with musician Andrew Huang, has gotten a particularly broad range of new features and improvements.
The biggest enhancements here: you now get a bit crusher and sample rate reducer on top of all the other goodies and “hidden” extras / alternate modes. And you get some tweaks to make the filter and control behaviors respond in a more consistent way, plus higher-quality input and output for the audio engine.
I’ll be honest; I didn’t necessarily mind some of the more idiosyncratic behaviors of this module – it’s a device you intentionally push to its limits, digital and analog, to begin with. But the filter behavior is really a major one; it addresses one of the few downsides of this device (and I just revised what I say in my review).
– Audio codec mode changed from 16 to 24 bit input and output with same 32-bit internal processing
– LP/HP filter curves rewritten from scratch – now properly stretched over the whole knobs range
– VCF CV jack input no more has quantization jumps heard at slow LFOs
– New effect: bit crusher stands after the VCF in the routing adjusted by ROUTING+DISTORTION knob
– New effect: sample rate reducer stands after the VCF in the routing adjusted by ROUTING+RESONANCE knob
– Effect’s dry signal is fully muted during REVERB’s or DELAY’s FREEZE
– Hybrid pots snap: when editing secondary parameters (with ROUTING pressed) or returning to primary (when ROUTING released), previously set knob’s value has to be çaught to not accidentally have unexpected jumps in values. However, the distance to which the knob has to cross to catch the value is halved approximately to catch it faster.
How lovely is it to have these effects? Well, it absolutely lets you be Trentemøller.
Wait, I normally despise “sound like artist” videos but – “Miss You” and “Moan”? I’ll make an exception! Like, hell yeah.
In case you missed it, the V2 firmware also offered a ton of stuff – in particular adjusting the reverb’s tone and smoothing out distortion and filter behaviors:
bipolar LP/HP filter closes smoothly in silence, both LP/HP & BPF curves spread more equally for all the knob range (thanks Bryan Noll aka Lighbath) and Cinematic Laboratory for the tests
comb filter equaled in volume with the other filters
when DELAY knob is fully wet (CW), no dry signal passes anymore
Hall reverb: small shimmer added with REVERB Dry/Wet control for more lush
added extra TONE control for the Reverb similar as in the Delay: via Routing+REVERB Dry/Wet for both Hall and Reverse reverb tanks cutting the boomy low-end or damping the high frequencies (thanks Loopop for the input)
external delay clock adjustment: when stopped for more than 2.5 seconds and started again with the same frequency is readjusting without doppler effect artefacts
distortion knob volume compensation adjusted to smoother curve without volume drops (thanks Andrew for the input)
parallel processing via global dry/wet: Routing+VOLUME knob sets the mix between the input signal after the IN GAIN (pre-VCA) at full CCW and the final audio chain output before the Volume knob (before post-VCA) at full CW
After the module’s reset: Delay’s and Reverb’s /TONE* controls are in the middle (no tone filtering applied); Reverse reverb pre-delay set to max, Hall reverb pre-delay set to min, MIX control set to FULL WET (100%, CW value).
All information and downloads:
https://www.endorphin.es/modules/p/ghost
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