Patchblock??? Any good??

[Re8et]

I found a Patchblock tiny module second hand for 30 euro, I have read that the developers have closed down, and their last post in fb is from 2016, the site won't let you download anything, but the editor which has an emulator and some ready made presets-blocks, it seems based on pure data and looks fun to edit around, but the lack of information on the most basic parts, like firmware update, or reset in case of some crashes... makes me hesitant on the buy...
Anyone can share some info on this little magic box???

There are only two tutorial on their youtube channel, both looks like pre-beta, then nothing else from 2013

[jam-s]

Looks pretty much like pure data (https://puredata.info/). As you already pointed out... I'd rather use this directly instead of some abandoned hardware.

[Re8et]

So I got it, it arrived yesterday, the guy wanted to sell two to me for 40 quids but I got one only...

I don't know if this may be of interest but here's my basic one-day review:

The software for writing patches works only on windows.
The software share many aspects with pure data, but it is not compatible. All modules have been rewritten into xml containers, there is one git-hub-er who shares some source code for writing this xml's, but as the editor got new updates with time, it has broken retrocompatibility with many olderr modules, thus, the latest and only available version for the
editor is broken into pieces. Some modules works in the editor, and not when uploaded.
To make things worst, there is no indication whatsoever that you are reaching the limit for the available memory
of your patch, when you will flash it to the module firmware. There's a console for debugging messages but no indication wether it come from

A nightmare.

But I got some working patches overnight. I have plugged-unplugged the mudule hundreds of times, because I had no other clue if the patch would have crippled the module or not.

To the end I'm happy with my working patch, it sounds nice and fatty.
I wanted to make it a multi fx for my portable setup, but just adding two delays in a single patch, will break the thing.

One complex patch in the preset, the techno preset works, so something tells me there's more avilable memory to play with, but it's like navigai'n a swamp in thick fog with an Irish wolfhound barking in the distance... not good...

I'm going to disassemble the thing.

sChhez.

Ah somewhere there is still a forum, but better not, it's a lost race.

[Zac]

I've got one coming this week from ebay. Just tried out the windows software and it works fine demoing sounds without the actual block.

Bit disappointed there's only 5 effects patches as that is what I want it for but happy to make my own.

[Re8et]

Looks pretty much like pure data (https://puredata.info/). As you already pointed out... I'd rather use this directly instead of some abandoned hardware.

Patchblock is pretty dead, the Editor is also completely broken unless you have an old windows version...
but the editor looked like a custom pure data, too bad it never got opensourced, and the HW is now completely
useless...

It's time to move on to Daisy Seed for these kind of projects, plugdata is the new pure data, it has some Hvcc restrictions... that means you can't turn your Daisy seed into a Vst3 or Au.... but it's pretty nice...

[Re8et]

I've got one coming this week from ebay. Just tried out the windows software and it works fine demoing sounds without the actual block.

Bit disappointed there's only 5 effects patches as that is what I want it for but happy to make my own.

I wish I was able to debug the thing somehow and make it work with Pure data Vanilla or the new Plug Data...
I have no idea which kind of libraries they have used for the editor-uploader but yeah, for about the same price
we can get a Daisy Seed now and have the full Plug Data Else library at our disposal, if you haven't yet tried, do it immediately, it's got all those nice Abstractions objects of Patchblock and more! Crazy good stuff!