Loading Lich/OWL patches on the Witch?

OWL Witch
#1

Hi Everyone,

I am hoping to dive back into my Witch after an extended delay. I know on the main website it says " the Witch is fully compatible with the OWL Library of more than 300 patches." Most of these patches, however, seem to be written for the Lich, not the Witch. Is there a standard way that a patch for the Lich would run on the Witch? In other words, are the CV inputs and outputs, and knob assignments, generally the same on both devices? Is it really a matter of just loading up the Lich patch on the Witch without any further changes necessary?

Thanks in advance!

#2

Library patches will run on either device. The OWL firmware internally has 20 parameters and up to 8 triggers that can be either inputs or outputs and may be connected to physical controls or available through MIDI only. IIRC Witch contains everything as Lich and a few extra inputs.

There is an important point that Witch was intended to be used as a standalone synthesizer/effect processor in first place. So its audio inputs are AC coupled, which means that they’ll filter out DC offset signal with a low frequency HP filter. You won’t be able to use it with patches that work as eurorack VCO controlled by V/Oct signal sent to a calibrated audio input because of this.

#3

Documentation says up to 24 parameters btw.

#4

And both number are wrong, apparently there are 40:

I was thinking about 20 channels on Magus and haven’t realized that this is still just a half of reserved parameters.

1 Like
#5

Thank you both for this information. A couple of follow-up questions:

  1. Are the 40 parameters and 8 triggers generally assigned to specific inputs and outputs on the Witch and the Lich, or does it vary patch to patch? In other words, if I load a patch originally designed for the Lich onto the Witch, is there an easy way to determine which inputs and outputs will be used on the Witch?

  2. @antisvin , you note that the audio inputs on the Witch are AC coupled, and thus I cannot use it with patches that are controlled by a V/Oct signal sent to an audio input. I am assuming, though, that you are not referring to the inputs labeled A, B, C and D, which are indicated to be CV inputs in the instructions and which are receiving note information from a Korg SQ-1 in the demo video. Is that correct? Are you specifically referring to the stereo input on the upper left corner of the device?

Thanks again!

#6

One other question, actually. I read on another forum that the Lich can be used as a DC coupled CV interface to the computer, transmitting both modular CV inputs to the computer and CV outputs from the computer to a modular system. Can the Witch operate in the same way? If so, is there a particular patch that I would need to load on to the Witch? For transmitting CV from the computer, would the Witch appear as an audio interface (I only currently see it as a USB input source)?

Thanks again!

#7

You only get audio channels in USB audio, so I think you should realize why you can’t use Witch for DC coupled signals (CV and such)

Parameters and triggers are marked on Witch front panel, it sounds like you haven’t got your hands on one yet. In such case, I suggest asking once you’re familiar with the device. But also, I’m not a tech support here, just trying to keep OWL alive for a little longer.

And yes, when I say “audio input” I mean “audio input”, not “parameter/trigger input” since those must be DC coupled by definition. The thing is, OWL is capable to be calibrated for audio inputs, but there’s no calibration procedure for parameter inputs. So it can take CV signal, but you can’t make it automatically apply correct DC offset and scaling for your device. So the error would be higher due to variation in analog parts and there’s less precision in its ADC compared to audio codec.

#8

Thank you for your response. I have the Witch, and have compared it to the panel of the Lich (which I don’t have, but see online), and there are some differences in the knobs and I/O. For example:

  • Control Knob E on the Witch - which knob on the Lich would this correspond to?

  • The Witch has 4 CV inputs (labeled A-D) and 4 trigger inputs (labeled 1-4), whereas the Lich has 4 CV inputs and 2 gate inputs. Would the gate inputs in a Lich patch automatically be assigned to trigger inputs 1 and 2 when the patch is loaded on the Witch?

  • In addition to the CV attenuator knobs, the Lich has four knobs labeled A-D. These knobs are not present on the Witch. How would parameters assigned to these four knobs in a Lich patch translate to the Witch? Or, would I need to go into the patch itself and re-assign these parameters to the Witch hardware control knobs A-D (which would then presumably force me to not use these knobs for CV attenuation, which could be fine, of course, depending on the circumstances).

Is there a PD (or other) template for a basic Lich patch, as well as one for a basic Witch patch that I could use to compare?

I appreciate your help in answering these questions, especially knowing that you are not tech support for the product. I am just trying to understand how to use this device better, as the online documentation is fairly sparse for someone just getting started in this environment and with these devices. I, like you, would love to see OWL stay alive and grow.

#9

There isn’t input E on Lich, this actually corresponds to earlier hardware (OWL pedal) where it was an expression input and also a separate input on OWL modular.

Trigger and gate inputs are different names for the same thing.

The attenuators on Lich are a part of analog circuitry, from patch perspective there’s just a single parameter. But I think I remember that Witch had a way to configure “virtual attenuators” (i.e. there was some way to set amount of applied CV from its CV inputs).

BTW, I don’t even have a Witch (was supposed to get one as a demo unit before it was released and it never happened, but whatever). I think there was some PD template for one or both of them, try searching patch library or forum for that. I’m only writing in C++ or FAUST and am less familiar with other integrations, sorry.

#10

Thanks - this gets me a little closer. I will start experimenting with some existing Lich patches to see what I can learn in terms of how easily they translate to the Witch.

#11

If you are using PD then please try the latest plugdata nightly, it includes direct programming for OWL boards.

A basic template patch for witch that I found is: https://www.rebeltech.org/patch-library/patch/Witch_Template

#12

Thanks! When you say “direct programming for OWL boards,” do you mean that it has built-in input and output objects for the Witch (as well as Lich, for example)?

#13

No, I mean you can program your device straight from the editor.