Darkglass Anagram Multi FX Announced

[Spblat]

I mean it’s not my most complicated board build …

Powered by Cioks DC7 from a homemade cable drawing from three 12V 500mA ports. It was easy enough to figure out how to do stuff, and I have a patch that I can’t wait to hear next time I’m out playing. There’s room to improve and evolve the software and I’m compiling feedback hoping I can join the beta program but it’s good right this minute and these are good bones!

 

[Barghest]

Has anyone verified the power requirements for the Anagram yet? Planning a board rearrange to swap a Stomp XL for the Anagram, but I'm not sure if my current power supply will be able to feed it while also managing the rest of the board.

 

[BrianVengeance]

Has anyone verified the power requirements for the Anagram yet? Planning a board rearrange to swap a Stomp XL for the Anagram, but I'm not sure if my current power supply will be able to feed it while also managing the rest of the board.

Anagram Manual – Darkglass Electronics - Overview and Connections > Rear Connections > 9. 9V DC: Power Input 9V DC, 2 A.

 

[Barghest]

Anagram Manual – Darkglass Electronics - Overview and Connections > Rear Connections > 9. 9V DC: Power Input 9V DC, 2 A.

Looking for the real world number, not the manufacturer listed number.

 

[Esquillama]

I mean it’s not my most complicated board build …View attachment 7255581
Powered by Cioks DC7 from a homemade cable drawing from three 12V 500mA ports. It was easy enough to figure out how to do stuff, and I have a patch that I can’t wait to hear next time I’m out playing. There’s room to improve and evolve the software and I’m compiling feedback hoping I can join the beta program but it’s good right this minute and these are good bones!

Is that a Pedaltrain Nano? I’m still waiting for my Anagram from Sweetwater, but I’m planning on putting it on a Nano with a Shure GLXD16+. That set up of yours looks very similar, I’m fairly certain they’ll fit on there very nicely together.

 

[IvanBassist]

Is that a Pedaltrain Nano? I’m still waiting for my Anagram from Sweetwater, but I’m planning on putting it on a Nano with a Shure GLXD16+. That set up of yours looks very similar, I’m fairly certain they’ll fit on there very nicely together.

It will fit on a nano board. I can put mine alongside two Origin Effects pedals on a Nano board

 

[Spblat]

Looking for the real world number, not the manufacturer listed number.

DISCLAIMER: I’m just a guy with a meter. I know nothing. I rigged up a pass-through cable so I could measure DC current. What I observed confirms what is in general true about guitar pedals: the device doesn’t draw as much as the manufacturer claims. I have little doubt this is because they want to leave headroom for algorithms or firmware that are more taxing and could draw more power. What I observed is that at 9V current draw stays under 700mA, peaking during boot. This photo shows around 520 mA at 12V which makes sense, Ohm’s Law. I didn’t see any difference when I was playing through it or when it was silent. I didn’t see more current draw during looper mode or tuner mode. I made a test patch and filled it up with a bunch of random blocks, including several NAM blocks. Didn’t see a difference.

What I take from this is what we already assumed and what was previously claimed: 660mA * 3 from a Cioks 7 comes to 1980 mA which is more than close enough to the manufacturer recommendation. I believe it’s better to go with 500mA*3 at 12V because the supply wires are thin and maybe there’s a small efficiency benefit.

BUT PLEASE DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR ANY OF THIS. If you spec 800mA for your Anagram and a firmware update or a complex patch makes your device reboot randomly, you’ll wish you gave it more juice. The other thing that makes me expect more current draw in the future is the existence of the vents. It’s not running hot in my short experience so far, but I’m betting they anticipated shoveling more power into the cores and needed to be sure of a way to get that excess heat out.

Edited to add: I have a USB C power supply that reports current draw. It says Anagram is pulling <500mA at 9.1V. Disclaimers above still apply

Is that a Pedaltrain Nano?

Yep, I should have mentioned that

 

[Barghest]

DISCLAIMER: I’m just a guy with a meter. I know nothing. I rigged up a pass-through cable so I could measure DC current. What I observed confirms what is in general true about guitar pedals: the device doesn’t draw as much as the manufacturer claims. I have little doubt this is because they want to leave headroom for algorithms or firmware that are more taxing and could draw more power. What I observed is that at 9V current draw stays under 700mA, peaking during boot. This photo shows around 520 mA at 12V which makes sense, Ohm’s Law. I didn’t see any difference when I was playing through it or when it was silent. I didn’t see more current draw during looper mode or tuner mode. I made a test patch and filled it up with a bunch of random blocks, including several NAM blocks. Didn’t see a difference.

What I take from this is what we already assumed and what was previously claimed: 660mA * 3 from a Cioks 7 comes to 1980 mA which is more than close enough to the manufacturer recommendation. I believe it’s better to go with 500mA*3 at 12V because the supply wires are thin and maybe there’s a small efficiency benefit.

BUT PLEASE DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR ANY OF THIS. If you spec 800mA for your Anagram and a firmware update or a complex patch makes your device reboot randomly, you’ll wish you gave it more juice. The other thing that makes me expect more current draw in the future is the existence of the vents. It’s not running hot in my short experience so far, but I’m betting they anticipated shoveling more power into the cores and needed to be sure of a way to get that excess heat out.

Edited to add: I have a USB C power supply that reports current draw. It says Anagram is pulling <500mA at 9.1V. Disclaimers above still apply

View attachment 7255961


Yep, I should have mentioned that

Fantastic mate, cheers for that. With my current supply, I can easily do 1A at 9V, so that should be plenty as it is, and if needed, I'll make up a current tripler in future.

 

[trigger_happy]

Late night fiddling while my 1 year old is sleeping. Finally, some bass time!

I love the VMT going into the Noble

 

[silky smoove]

Tonight I sat down with Anagram and had one goal: Make the envelope filters sound good. I’m happy to report that I was able to make it happen.

The trick, for every bass I own, was to stick a gain block in front of either filter option and crank the gain. Adding 20db of signal to the front of the filters makes them respond more like every analog envelope filter I’ve ever owned. This then requires compensating for the gain increase somewhere downstream, which is a pain. To me this is indicative of the input sensitivity on the filters not being tuned very well by default and is something I’d like to see Darkglass modify in the future.

Maybe this is just a me thing, but using everything from a Jazz with flats to a Dingwall to an MTD, and all of them were able to achieve decent results by boosting 20db ahead of a filter block. These basses all have a reasonable range of output. None are massively hot or quiet. The one exception is my Dingwall Super J with the pickups in the all-on position (bridge and middle in parallel with each other and then both in series with the neck) which admittedly is a pretty high output, as is that bass with bridge and middle in series, but these days I don’t use those settings very often. I tried them, and even there a 20db boost was the lifeline the filters needed to sound good, though this those settings I could get by with 10-12db.

 

[TaySte_2000]

I haven’t posted for a while, but recent gigs and flights and yadda yadda…… I really want one of these

 

[viobass]

Tonight I sat down with Anagram and had one goal: Make the envelope filters sound good. I’m happy to report that I was able to make it happen.

The trick, for every bass I own, was to stick a gain block in front of either filter option and crank the gain. Adding 20db of signal to the front of the filters makes them respond more like every analog envelope filter I’ve ever owned. This then requires compensating for the gain increase somewhere downstream, which is a pain. To me this is indicative of the input sensitivity on the filters not being tuned very well by default and is something I’d like to see Darkglass modify in the future.

Maybe this is just a me thing, but using everything from a Jazz with flats to a Dingwall to an MTD, and all of them were able to achieve decent results by boosting 20db ahead of a filter block. These basses all have a reasonable range of output. None are massively hot or quiet. The one exception is my Dingwall Super J with the pickups in the all-on position (bridge and middle in parallel with each other and then both in series with the neck) which admittedly is a pretty high output, as is that bass with bridge and middle in series, but these days I don’t use those settings very often. I tried them, and even there a 20db boost was the lifeline the filters needed to sound good, though this those settings I could get by with 10-12db.

Did you sign up to be a beta tester? I don't see you on Slack although I don't know your name.

 

[Diegombass]

Tonight I sat down with Anagram and had one goal: Make the envelope filters sound good. I’m happy to report that I was able to make it happen.

The trick, for every bass I own, was to stick a gain block in front of either filter option and crank the gain. Adding 20db of signal to the front of the filters makes them respond more like every analog envelope filter I’ve ever owned. This then requires compensating for the gain increase somewhere downstream, which is a pain. To me this is indicative of the input sensitivity on the filters not being tuned very well by default and is something I’d like to see Darkglass modify in the future.

Maybe this is just a me thing, but using everything from a Jazz with flats to a Dingwall to an MTD, and all of them were able to achieve decent results by boosting 20db ahead of a filter block. These basses all have a reasonable range of output. None are massively hot or quiet. The one exception is my Dingwall Super J with the pickups in the all-on position (bridge and middle in parallel with each other and then both in series with the neck) which admittedly is a pretty high output, as is that bass with bridge and middle in series, but these days I don’t use those settings very often. I tried them, and even there a 20db boost was the lifeline the filters needed to sound good, though this those settings I could get by with 10-12db.

And what about the thickness of those filters, are they like analog? And resonance?
Thnx

 

[Sachelis]

Tonight I sat down with Anagram and had one goal: Make the envelope filters sound good. I’m happy to report that I was able to make it happen.
<snip>

Care to show your entire chain?

 

[Barticus]

Care to show your entire chain?

Yes, I’d love to learn from this.

 

[Acebassmusic]

Care to show your entire chain?

Might be worth adding it to the Public Presets hub on the Darkglass Suite so we can download it and leaving us its name on here?

 

[Synh]

After 2 months of use. I just sold it. What a relief!!
Between the bugs with the updates via the darkglass suite. Concert yesterday, it rebooted on its own... And it happened to me once, 2 weeks ago.

I don't find it stable enough yet.
Even the "test a preset" part screws up a bit.
Too many possibilities, kill my playing time. NAM files are a mess.

User presets are chained, With only a logic of date... I had an hx stomp for 3 years, which I loved but I didn't touch my presets anymore and I think it wears out mentally. Back to a sansamp, a rat, a real compressor, and a lowrider EQ pultec style... I live again.

 

[silky smoove]

Did you sign up to be a beta tester? I don't see you on Slack although I don't know your name.

I did and was accepted, but never received an invitation to Slack. I just checked my spam folder and it went there. I’ll connect on Slack today.

And what about the thickness of those filters, are they like analog? And resonance?
Thnx

The Mutron isn’t as thick as my Proton but it’s serviceable. I’ve never owned a Moog MF, so I can’t compare the two. I like this filter less for general filter sounds but more for building synth tones.

Care to show your entire chain?

This was just a test piece. It was literally a gain block followed by one of the filters. I have other presets for each of my bands, but as I’ve only had one gig with Anagram I’m not quite ready to share anything yet.

 

[Acebassmusic]

When I run the Darkglass Suite, the "preset dashboard" only displays four factory presets (two on bank 2, one on bank 3, and one on bank 4), yet my device shows five full banks (well, the last bank only has two presets), so 14 presets. Shouldn't all of the presets on the device appear in the Suite? The Anagram is connected to the Suite (I can see the Anagram's version number on the Settings page).

I have just updated both Darkglass Suite to 5.7.1 and my Anagram to OS version v1.2.0.361. I have 23 presets on the Anagram and none of them are now visible in the Presets Dashboard. They did before the update.

I have searched for an official Darkglass "bug reporting" forum / email etc but cant find one. Anyone have any ideas? As this is a new product where there will be "glitches in the matrix" I think its imperative to be able to roll back the OS to the last stable version used. Especially if you make your living with this unit and are not confident that the newest update wont cause you problems.

 

[geowis]

I have just updated both Darkglass Suite to 5.7.1 and my Anagram to OS version v1.2.0.361. I have 23 presets on the Anagram and none of them are now visible in the Presets Dashboard. They did before the update.

I have searched for an official Darkglass "bug reporting" forum / email etc but cant find one. Anyone have any ideas? As this is a new product where there will be "glitches in the matrix" I think its imperative to be able to roll back the OS to the last stable version used. Especially if you make your living with this unit and are not confident that the newest update wont cause you problems.

I’ve had the same issue, though all of my presets are still on the Anagram. I used it this morning at church and it worked fine. I’m hoping we will see another update within the next few days to fix the problem.