Jomox MBASE 11

I needed an analog kick drum for my live PA techno setup. My choices were to go modular, or to find a clone of a 909 to use. After much searching I landed on the Jomox MBase 11. There weren't many demos of the unit online that demonstrated it's full capabilities so I bought it largely on a gamble. It turns out that the machine sounds great. I would give it a solid 8.5 in terms of sound and versatility.

What's interesting is that the module does have a character sound to it which is somewhere between a 909 and an 808. It doesn't have the attack "blip" of an 808, it's a little more on the subdued or overdriven side so more like a 909. The "MetNze" parameter combined with the attack and a few other gives you the ability to change this to varying degrees.

The body is full, round, and warm, again not quite an 808 in my opinion, but in between and great nonetheless.

The user interface is a bit strange, but easy to navigate once you read the short manual. The best part is that you can change presets via MIDI. You have 10 user presets a and bunch of factory presets to use. I found for my music about 4 factory presets I liked. It does state in the manual that you can write over the factory presets, but the memory only has a limited number of "writes" to it. Personally, I would only write to the factory presets one or two times. The user bank does offer nearly unlimited rewrites and 10 is plenty to work with.

The build quality is up to par of anything out there and the small size of the module makes it convenient to place in a setup. The 2 knob interface is a little clunky, but given its size works well. I would recommend that a perspective buyer listen to all of the sound demos they can and see if they like the sound as that thread of similarity runs through everything it does. If you like it, then you can coax numerous sounds out of it. If you don't like it, then you would need to continue searching because you will still hear that character sound with additional external effects. It's hard to describe, but the Jomox sound is unique and welcomed.

Overall, I recommend it to any kick arsenal and I currently use it as my main kick module for my techno performances.

I loved this machine and though I sold it to fund my move to the modular world, I still keep quite close to it's design by my choice of modular modules (though I still want to get me the eurorack version one day!).

I owned both the mbase01 and mbase11 and it was a total joy to use them. Not only by controlling the parameters by midi, but even immediate patch-switching at high rates is easily done by this little monster without a wink a drop op sound or a click.

The extra features of the mbase11 were a warm welcome to the punchyness of this basskick. Each track has a different spectrum by choice of different instruments and effects which can muffle away the noise-part of a basskick when it only has a fixed shaped noise, but the mbase11 allows you to dial in exactly that part that is needed to punch through the mix.

To fatten this all up, think about a compressor, transient designer and a big fat muff :)

Easy to use, With some tweaking this sounds deep, phat and punchy, the plus side is saving your own presets, which can be triggered by audio or midi, What I personally like, instead of searching through sample libraries for a perfect kick drum, program the kick you need, I find it faster and better.

If there was any compliant, i would of preferred a few extra knobs for tune,decay and attack, but has no effect on use.