Hermetic Modular Capicola: real-time time stretching in 12HP

Time stretching usually lives in a plugin or a sampler, so a Eurorack module that does it live on stereo audio caught my eye. Hermetic Modular's Capicola is a 12HP module built around what the maker calls Extrema Sampling: instead of working on plain samples, it turns 48kHz audio into a non-uniform stream of keyframes that mark local peaks and valleys of the waveform.

That keyframe representation is then used for stretching, pitch-shifting, slicing and nonlinear distortion. Pitch and time are controlled independently, so you can freeze a sound in place with the Stretch control or move it up and down by as much as twelve semitones without changing its length. A grain size control and a quality control (which sets how dense the keyframes are) let you trade cleanliness for grit.

What I like on paper is how patchable it is. There are two envelope followers, two trigger outputs that fire when transients are detected, external plus-minus 5V CV with attenuverters, and a feedback loop with saturation and filtering. Feed its own followers back into its modulation and you get self-modulating patches. Every knob has a parameter lock and there are 16 preset slots, which is welcome in a module this small.

Capicola is available now for $389.99, and it is also published as an open source project, so curious builders can read how it works. I haven't heard it myself, but a skiff-friendly 12HP time-stretcher with transient slicing sounds like a fun tool for rhythmic and ambient patches alike.

Source: Synthtopia