The MetaModule from 4ms Company

You might remember the MetaModule from this previous post.

Press release follows:

The MetaModule puts real knobs and jacks on virtual software modules. It lets you step back from the computer and make music with hardware, while keeping all the benefits and flexibility of software plugins.

Ships with 165 Modules
The MetaModule is a eurorack module with over 160 built-in modules from 4ms Company, Befaco, HetrickCV, Nonlinearcircuits, and Eightfold, plus clones of popular classics such as the Mutable Instruments modules, fun physical modeling algorithms, and lots of handy utilities.
All of the included modules are also available on the computer using the free program VCV Rack. Whether you make patches on VCV Rack and transfer them to the MetaModule, or if you just create patches directly on the MetaModule, there are plenty of creative modules to inspire new ways to make music.

MetaModule Plugins
If the built-in module aren’t enough, you can load more modules as plugins. Already there are over 200 modules in third-party plugins from Bogaudio, Valley, ChowDSP, NANO Modular, and the list is growing.
We have an SDK available to make it easy for VCV Rack plugin developers to convert their plugin to a MetaModule plugin. Our licensing terms are non-restrictive: developers are welcome to distribute their plugin in any way they wish, commercially or not.

Mapping Knobs and Jacks
The MetaModule has 12 knobs that can be mapped to virtual knobs. Each knob can be mapped to up eight virtual knobs, and each mapping can have a different range and offset. You also can save a group of mappings as a Knob Set and switch between Knob Sets with the encoder. You also can map the 8 inputs and 8 outputs to virtual module jacks.
Also, the MetaModule is a USB MIDI host, so you also can map MIDI CC, note, gate, and other parameters to knobs and jacks.

Expanders
There are lots of ways to customize your MetaModule. A Wifi expander allows you to wirelessly transfer patches from your computer. Add eight more knobs with the Knob expander, or buttons with the Button expander. A CV/Audio expander adds more high-resolution inputs and outputs, and the Gate In/Out expander adds not only gate jacks but also TRS MIDI and I2C.

Under the Hood
There are six CV/Audio inputs, two gate inputs, and six CV/Audio outputs. The CV/Audio jacks are all 24-bit, 48kHz DC-coupled, -10V to +10V. A USB-C jack accepts MIDI devices and thumb drives. Patches and plugins can be loaded via a USB drive or SD Card, and internal flash memory lets you save patches you always want to come back to.

The processor is more advanced than anything 4ms has used yet, and is among the most powerful processors found in Eurorack. It uses a dual-core Cortex-A7 running at 800Mhz, with a Cortex-M4 co-processor. There is 512MB of fast DDR3 RAM. It runs bare-metal without an OS, so startup time and latency are blazingly fast.

Retail availability: August 27, 2024
Price: $649 (USD)