One Battle After Another (Week 1)

It's been quite a year for us so far, and it's not even halfway over. We've been keeping our heads down while navigating some very uncertain waters, patching some holes on our life boats, reinforcing the oars, stockpiling supplies... Well, you get the extended metaphor. You may very well feel the same way at the moment.

Last week, we quietly launched the first life boat: The UA License Server. You may have spotted it if you purchased the new Ambient Bundle. It's been an enormous undertaking and one that gives us a new independence. We are now able to release plugins to you directly and provide faster iterations on beta builds for bug fixing.

With this huge project out of the way, we're stepping back, taking a deep breath, and finally giving Battalion the attention it deserves this month. Our favorite drum robot/workstation/flagship/bouillabaisse is getting a month-long celebration with something fun being announced each week. Starting now.

This week, in celebration of synth-nerd heaven Superbooth, we are proud to announce Battalion for VCV Rack. This collection of five modules gives you deep, modular control of every aspect of Battalion. Did you want to change the active Mode on every step? Ever wanted to throw a ring modulator into the feedback path of Shatter Delay? Do you just want the Maximize control everywhere you go? Do you find it hard to sequence drums without a Rungler, a Turing Machine, and a stack of phasor modules made by that Hetrick goofball? Well, this is your week to party.

Battalion for VCV is ready-to-launch. We are waiting to hear a final launch window from VCV, but it will likely be shortly after Superbooth. The complete bundle will be $30 for the launch week. Let's look at some patches.

The first image is a "traditional" Battalion patch that closely mirrors the plugin. This shows off all five modules that are currently in the bundle. Here we have a single Drum Synth running through the Tone module (which combines the filter and distortion section from Battalion). These then run through the effects, which have independent dry/wet controls, and finally through the Output module, which you might just want on your VCV template patch to use everywhere. Hey, what's the yellow cable connected to on the Shatter Delay?

The second image shows the flexibility offered in a modular setup. Instead of using Battalion's synth engines, we're instead using the fun new Drum Romplers from our friends at 4ms. We are giving these a full rinse through the effects. Instead of using only the Battalion effects, the Shatter Delay's feedback path is being warped by the Bit Corrupter mode on ALM's instant-classic MFX processor.

As an enormous modular nerd, this bundle has been a joy to make. VCV Rack has been my main music-making platform for years, and breaking Battalion out of the Host shell has inspired a fun patch every time I open it. I can honestly say that this would have been released sooner if I hadn't been so distracted by making patches with it. If VCV isn't your jam, we have some great news for you next week.

Happy patching,
Michael