Sonic LAB: Hexinverter Mutant Brain MIDI To CV, Gate and Trigger

US Highly configurable Eurorack module 26/10/18

MP4

14:0 mins

Hexinverter Mutant Brain - a MIDI to CV Gate and Trigger module with clock division and other useful features.

The Mutant Brain is a licensed Eurorack adaptation of the popular CV O.C.D. standalone unit. The unit features a number of four CV and 12 Gate outputs that can all be derived from your MIDI signal.

In order to change what the outputs of the Mutant Brain do you will need to do some Mutant Brain Surgery. Conveniently Hex Inverter have provided a web page interface for creating a Sysex file that will change the behaviour of your Mutant Brain. After you have created the Sysex file you will need to use a Sysex manager to re-program your module.

Creating new layouts for your module is very simple and sending them to the unit is simple once you've done it once or twice. I would have liked to have seen would be the ability to send the Sysex file directly to the unit without the need of a Sysex manager, this just adds another step in the process but this is obviously not a deal breaker. Also using the Sysex Manager allows you to have all the different layouts you have created in one place and easily swap between different layouts.

One of my biggest gripes with the Mutant Brain is the limit of only four CV outputs, if you were able to use any of the outputs as either CV or Gate signals then this unit would be a step above the competition. The limit of CV outputs means that you can’t add any CC messages on top of your note CV’s… So I would say that this does put a limit on the creative applications of MIDI to CV…

The Mutant Brain is very well priced at around £149 UK so although it does have some limitations the price more than makes up for the shortcomings. I would definitely recommend this module to anyone that is looking for a flexible MIDI to CV interface for their modular system.

8HP | 38mm depth | +19mA, -4mA

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