Announcement: Percussa XMX

Percussa will be at Superbooth , Stand W230 - where you can see the XMX in action




note: I’ve posted this, as Bert is travelling from US → EU for Superbooth in Berlin.

Bert is going to be manning the Superbooth stand alone this year (I couldn’t go unfortunately), so is going to be snowed under…
but Im happy to answer questions here, as Ive had the XMX for a while now.


anyway, it’s so great for this to be unveiled, its something that Ive been collaborating on for quite a while now…

you can see what Ive been up to in particular… and the XMX in action, in my new video

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I think this is brilliant! I was hoping some good news was coming to the ssp! I will donate you a coffee :coffee:! Enjoy

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Your patching system feels like it will be so much faster and less confusing. Looking forward to it coming to SSP. Well done!

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thanks @I-AM-SAM and @marcusfischer

thanks, I want the Trax interface to be as effortless as possible, whilst also being focused on hands-on performance… so its incorporating ideas Ive had for a while for a ā€˜host’.

that said, doing this ā€˜behind closed doors’ its not gone thru the important ā€˜feedback’ stage.
so, Im quite looking forward to getting this out in some form… for the community to have a play with, and see which areas work well, and areas that don’t.

generally, developing a UI for a small form factor is a challenge, and is full of compromises… thats where priorities become important, and so users/devs can have different opinions … even within myself as both developer and musician, we have conflicts :slight_smile:

as for patching in synthor, an interesting tidbit,
the approach to patching modules in Synthor on XMX has been altered/simplified. you now just select input and output, there is no enabling of inputs.

ofc, at the moment, the focus has been getting (an updated) synthor working on xmx.
idk, if or when these changes may come to SSP - that’s up to Bert.
(though personally, I think synergy in the code base tends to make support easier)

oh, and I should also say… Synthor on the XMX, is much improved since the clip I included in my video… things are moving fast !

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I really do hope an updated patching system becomes part of the SSP (or just a full on Trax alt firmware)

Focusing on performance is great. I mostly use modular as a performance instrument and less so for composition. Your midi mapping workflow is really well done and will be super helpful.

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This is great news! I’m excited to learn more. And +1 to bringing updated patching to SSP.

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what’s in the name?
for what stands XMX ?

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honestly, no idea…
it might not mean anything, or might mean anything you want it too :laughing:

(there were a few names being thrown around, I cannot remember when this one emerged first)

Do plugins made by the MAX RNBO template work on XMX also?

that could be more difficult than it seems as SSP runs 32bit Linux and XMX runs 64bit Linux

yup, Ive update the generator to now be able to create compatible plugins.

in fact… when you generate the plugin, the same plugin will be compatible with both SSP and XMX ā€˜out of the box’ :slight_smile:

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not sure I

not sure I understand?

it doesn’t really make a alot of difference, you just use a different compiler.
the only exception is if you include code that explicitly used 32bit fpu instructions (neon).
many dsp libraries (etc) will include implementations for 32bit (neon) and 64 bit(vfpv4) , so not an issue.

bare in mind, 64 bit arm, is used widely on desktops, and aarch64 is the same target as you used for apple silicon… which is how I build my plugins anyway.

ofc, there are exceptions too this… the notable one is mutable instruments code.
this was developed for a microcontroller like the STM32F4, so is optimised for neon.
however, it does have a ā€˜less optimised mode’ which is used by desktops (e.g. vcvrack) etc, which we have to resort to for the xmx, whereas the SSP can used the optimised form.

… so highly depends, but generally, the 32 vs 64bit is nothing more than compiling differently.

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Awesome!!
I had been hooked with roland mc-707 recently but it will make me pull back to explore of SSP and XMX!

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cool…
I really hope the the XMX will help invigorate the whole percussa family.

it’s smaller form factor, and being 1/4 the price of the SSP , means I think it’ll have more widespread appeal.

but its also quite a different beast to the SSP,
for sure, the SSP remains the ā€˜powerhouse’ (cpu, io, display etc) ,
but the essence is very much present in the XMX… and is really nice when you need a smaller form factor.
(I love the XMX in a small case, using it to mix, using it with headphones :))
and if we keep compatibility between the two, that opens up many options.

also, now Im working a bit ā€˜lower level’, Ive really started to appreciate both the SSP and XMX as a development platform i.e. beyond just adding plugins to synthor.

on both the hardware is really nice, and theres a lot of care and attention to detail that Bert has taken which is behind the scenes, so we don’t usually see.
e.g. the move to buildroot for the SSP was a really important step that as users we dont care about. - but, Im starting now to ā€˜feel’ the benefits of that unseen work.

anyway, I hope that the community expands, this would certainly help sustain development etc.

Does the headphone output duplicate the main output pair or is it separately addressable, so you can basically have 4 output channels?

It’s a duplicate of the main output.
So, it’s limited to the 2 channels out.

There is an expansion header, so I guess if the module proved popular, it’d be possible to create expansion modules including more io.
( though ofc, that’s not just hardware , it’d need firmware updates to support)

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it’s now on MG - Percussa XMX - Eurorack Module on ModularGrid

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Wow! This looks really good - I too would love to see Trax come to the SSP as alternative firmware. It’s clearly set up for performance and that’s a very good thing.

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