First impressions

Really enjoying the DMNO so far - it’s so tweakable. The quality of the build is fabulous and I really appreciated a proper printed manual. So much to dig into I feel I’ve barely scratched the surface which is great of course.

I am so happy to see that people are enjoying the DMNO. Obviously, George Hern and company put a lot of love into this build. I am very much looking forward to receiving my DMNO when it arrives in the U.S..

Starsky Carr has shared a nice compilation of jams here:

UDO DMNO Playing Some Presets // Sounds Only - YouTube

+ Hazel Mills Preset Showcase:

Announcement + UDO DMNO Demo - YouTube

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Question for owners please!

When using the filter modulation knob / switch:

can you setup simultaneously mod amounts for Env1 and LFO and OSC1, or can they only be one at a time. Ie does the switch only allow one mod routing, or does it allow you to edit all 3 and they are all active.

I know you can use the mod-matrix for other simultaneous routings.

You can use all three at once. You use the modulation dial beneath the cutoff and select which source using the three way switch beneath. The screen shows the modulation amounts for all 3 sources at once when adjusting the modulation dial which is nice.

Defo a lot of fun mixing multiple sources to the filter.

Same applies to all the controls in the mod section below the Oscs

Meant to post this one, much more in depth early review from Starsky Carr. TLDR he likes it :slight_smile:

And now Loopop.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBZ0jnibwUE

Has anyone tried the freeze delay with a foot switch? I’m finding it a little tricky to get my head around. Presuming the foot pedal I’m using is supported - Roland EV5.

I seem to have solved my own query - use a sustain pedal as a foot switch not an expression pedal :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Does midi clock (receiving external) work fine with this new DMNO? I hope so, so they could push the recipe to SG S8 S6

Got mine today, my first UDO synth. Absolutely incredible build quality, beautifully constructed. The thing just begs to be tweaked with and played. Most expensive synth I’ve ever bought, so far feels like it’s worth every penny and then some. Really looking forward to properly diving in.

Congratulations! I’m sure you will thoroughly enjoy it. I’ve been playing mine for most of today and it’s been so much fun.

Hi rjamesjers,
I can confirm this bug. Hoping they sort this out as the sound is now cut very abrupt like you say.

I think the most fun and “DMNO-like” implementation for decay time modulation would be to sample and hold the modulation setting when pressing the note. That way you could use the expression pedal / lfo to start a note with a long decay, and it would continue to ring out while playing shorter notes.

So I’ve had a few days to play with the DMNO now, and while it’s overall been a joy, I’m running into some frustrating limitations which are putting a bit of a damper on things. It’s possible they are implemented in some way and I’ve just not figured them out yet, but:

  • There doesn’t seem to be a way to mitigate phasing issues when detuning two oscillators against each-other. With your average VCOs this isn’t an issue as they free-run the whole time, and most virtual analogues have an option to either simulate free-run, or randomise the start-point each time a voice is triggered. Here the only option seems to be to put OSC1 into superwave mode, but that’s a very different sound from what I’m after.
  • There doesn’t seem to be a way to modulate the cross-mod amount without also modulating the pitch, which feels like it really hamstrings cross-mod’s usefulness. I’d really like cross-mod to be exposed as a destination in the mod-matrix rather than just being tied to LFO1 / pitch-mod.
  • Further to the above point, cross-mod does not work as the manual describes - oscillator 1 and oscillator 2 do not appear to cross-modulate each-other, and do not cross-modulate recursively in the ‘both’ configuration. Instead each oscillator only appears to be modulated by itself, and is not affected by the other oscillator’s signal at all. I’m genuinely unsure if this is a design fault, or the manual has got it wrong, but this is frankly kind of egregious.
  • In general the number of valid destinations in the mod matrix seems very limited currently. Things like arpeggiator time, FX send amount, pan control etc would be really welcome.
  • Obviously missing step-seq and MPE functionality has been well covered already, no point in re-litigating further, but I do hope both are added back in in later firmware updates.

Please do not take this as me bashing on the synth, I’m still having a lot of fun with it, and if I have missed any of the things I am talking about, please do let me know. That said if they are valid I think it’s worthwhile that potential buyers are aware of them.

Can someone please help me? With some presets, the tuning is different, e.g. with Bank 2 Presets 3 and 8. The C is not a C but more like an F#. I can’t find which parameters are causing this.

If you’re referring to ‘Their Law’ (bank b1, perf 03), the detuning is in OSC1’s pitch mod parameter. Dialling that back will bring it back to a pure C, but does affect the character of the patch a little.

For ‘Lark Pad’ (bank b1, perf 08), the two oscillators are detuned against each-other to create a chord, so you’ll want to set the coarse tuning for each oscillator to 0. The waveform it uses also seems to have some odd overtones, so setting it to a saw or a square-wave instead will net you something much closer to what you’re looking for.

Hope that helps :slight_smile:

Thanks, that helped me a lot, that in combination with the FM. My God this is a complex synth, but what a sound!

Further to the above point, cross-mod does not work as the manual describes - oscillator 1 and oscillator 2 do not appear to cross-modulate each-other, and do not cross-modulate recursively in the ‘both’ configuration. Instead each oscillator only appears to be modulated by itself, and is not affected by the other oscillator’s signal at all. I’m genuinely unsure if this is a design fault, or the manual has got it wrong, but this is frankly kind of egregious.

Going to have to eat some humble pie re this - it does work, it just works very differently than expected. Had some help from the ever-gracious Alex Ball, I’ll add my comment from his video below:

Thanks so much for the pointers. I’m going to score out my gripe about this - it does indeed work on my unit, it’s just very different from how I was expecting.
My understanding of cross-mod was that it would use osc2 as an FM source and modulate osc1, but this isn’t the case - it actually appears to be taking a _copy of osc1 that is synced to osc2’s pitch and modulating itself_. So modulating the pitch of osc2 changes the timbre as you’d expect, but changing osc2’s waveshape doesn’t have any effect!
So yeah, that’s kind of wild - I do still wish you could FM osc2 to 1 directly, but there’s still more than enough clangy, overtone-heavy weirdness to be getting on with regardless. Cheers!

Alex’s video on the DMNO is as always very worth a watch:

First impression was “is lfo1 in the menu now?”. Memory reflexes from the Super made me blind. I definitely need to familiarize me with the layout and work though the manual.