How can you best describe Mystic Circuits? We’re not totally sure, but all of their hardware has two constants: exciting modular concepts and … purple. The trend continues with their newest feature-packed module: the 3DVCA.
Quad VCA, meet three dimensions.
There is just so much to cover here. You might think, “Ok, it’s just a quad VCA, there’s plenty of those around.” But then oh how ridiculous would you look after watching Eli’s hour-long video manual spanning 20 patch examples. From crossfading to chained stereo mixes, this amount of utility fit within 6HP is kind of ridiculous.
Mystic Circuits 3DVCA Features
Let’s quickly check in with MC:
Four VCAs share the three macro controls: X, Y, and Z. As a group, they shape incoming and outgoing signals and emulate the coordinates of a point in 3-dimensional space. This allows the VCAs to work together in a mono, stereo, or quad configuration and accomplish a variety of mixing, crossfading, and panning functions.
It takes a second to wrap your head around the concept, but once you grok the three macro controls of pan / crossfade / level and how those map to coordinates on an XY grid – which is easy to visualize thanks to the handy LED compass – the patching possibilities start flowing.
Here are some of Mystic’s example uses:
- Quad monophonic crossfader
- Dual stereo crossfader
- Stereo balancer
- Stereo VCA
- Mono-to-stereo panner
- Unity mixer with up to eight inputs
- Quadraphonic panner
Crazy right? The clever normalization and external Sum inputs add a whole new mixing dimension (see what we did there) that you can’t find on standard quad VCAs. If you want to deep dive, here’s 60 minutes of features and patches.
3DVCA is up for pre-order on the Mystic Circuits website right now for $225, availability should be June-ish. This would be a perfect addition to a compact case, or to someone who might want to explore quadraphonic down the road.
Links down below, so minty fresh there isn’t even a Modular Grid entry yet!
