Monday 26 November 2012

Cwejman MMF-2 Demo

Impressions of the Cwejman MMF-2 stereo multi-mode filter.



The MMF-2 came out this summer and quickly sold out. Having spent some time with one, it's easy to understand why. It offers a wealth of possibilities and sounds great. Have a listen:


Buy the album to access the full recordings (10 tracks, 55 mins).

The MMF-2 can be used to process mono or stereo signals. The filters can be run in parallel, or if patched, in series. It features two types of saturation and a dry/ wet mix. For a full description, see the MMF-2 product page linked above.

The MMF-2 shares much in common with the MMF-6. It's confident, bold and, to my taste, more musical than its single-sibling. It FMs beautifully and, when oscillating with some saturation, can be used for plucked/ percussive sounds or aggressive basslines. It can also be self-patched to make crazy, chaotic noise. It really comes alive when using the mix feature.

Here are some thoughts that cropped up in use: the initial frequencies of the left and right channels need to be manually balanced in stereo patches. You can't sweep the entire frequency range with the master as the L&R cutoff pots are offsets. Inter-channel CV normalization and attenu-verters would be useful e.g. in a LP/ HP configuration. The filter slopes might be too steep for some external audio processing tasks. Saturation is either on or off, but the amount is determined by the input level. I would have liked an input VCA but, as Wowa told me, the MMF-2 is already 'a beast', both in terms of size and stereo circuitry.

The MMF-2 can be clean or brutal, used to transform mono or stereo signals or even as a dual voice module. Look out for the next run.

Thanks to Wowa for answering my questions and to Schneidersbuero for the loan.

4 comments:

acid2 said...

In the track '1. Cwejman MMF-2 Demo' is that a single MMF-2 running, or were multiple used (or were multiple recordings layered)? It sounds fantastic!

Thanks.

cillianjohn said...

Hi Navs, great demo as always. I downloaded the whole set too. I'd really love to know how each track is patched. It'd be cool if you could (in future maybe?) include some extra patch info in the download pack. Just a small suggestion, though. Many thanks, Cillian

Navs said...

Thanks, acid2 & Cillian!

The demo is made up of edits from the full recordings, so yes, it's layered.

I normally include patch notes, but thought the titles would be enough this time. The mono files are one signal input, one filter output; the stereo files are either one input (VCO etc.) or two (triggers for the pings/ drums) and two filters in parallel (sometimes self-oscillating), panned left and right. The one exception is the serial LP/ HP example.

Hope this helps!

cv slime 800 said...

whoa! :o Incredible sounding demo Navs!