Desmodus Conservation
We’ve known for a long time that we wanted to do a reverb, and it seemed like a pretty
obvious opportunity for us to revisit our core values and support another conservation
charity. With a reverb module, bats seemed like a pretty obvious connection: many bat
species use echolocation, where they send out an ultrasonic signal, and then listen for
subtle shifts in the returned echo. Those shifts can tell them incredible details about
their environment, including the location of prey -- even while they are both moving!
Bats are the most species-diverse group of mammals, and critically important to
ecosystems. Insect-eating bats eat literally tons of insects annually, including those that
damage crops. One estimate says bats are worth more than US$3.7 BILLION /year in
reduced crop damage and pesticide use! They also pollinate a variety of crops and
disperse seeds for a lot of plants, including plants that we humans are fond of. In
addition, bats are in trouble. Habitat loss and other human-made causes are among the
biggest threats. And in North America, a new fungal pathogen called White-nose
Syndrome is killing bat colonies as they hibernate (in some places, leading to complete
devastation of colonies).
We’ve partnered with Bat Conservation International (
), the global
leader in bat conservation. We’ve committed to donate a portion of the proceeds from
every DV sold to bat conservation. That means you can pat yourself on the back for
buying a Desmodus Versio, knowing you’re doing some good in the world! Want to
know more about bats? Learn how to build a bat house? Find out what you can do?
Design Notes
We have wanted to make a reverb for a long, long time. Our biggest block was always
having a suitable computational platform. The platform we use for our oscillators is
phenomenal for oscillators but does not have enough storage for most audio effects.
In mid-2019, Electrosmith sent us a platform that they were developing for the DIY
market to test and give feedback on. This platform would become the core to the Daisy
line that they now sell. The first nontrivial test we did with Daisy was to port some of the
reverb work that Stephen had been developing on and off for years. Stephen performed
at MOTS LA in the summer of 2019 with the Daisy prototype running this reverb literally
taped to the side of his case.
At that time, we were in the midst of designing our own platform similar to Daisy (code
named George) though after one iteration we decided that where Electrosmith had
decided to go with the Daisy Seed was going to be a suitable platform for us so adopted
the Seed for our hardware backend. The stars aligned and we were pretty confident we
were close to release by the end of that year.
We announced Desmodus Versio at NAMM 2020. A few weeks later, we got the first
inkling that something was amiss when the factories in China (where we get PCBs and
parts) didn’t really return from the Lunar New Year holiday. It seems like no time after
that when the COVID-19 pandemic became official and 2020 became a year entirely out
of our control. Releasing a new module no matter how much anticipated became
6
