What is it?
The Endorphin.es Cockpit 2 is a compact, 4 channel mono or stereo Eurorack mixer module. At just 6HP they could not have made it any smaller and its special feature is the inclusion of a sidechain ducking effect. Whats more there is also a channel mutes feature. So this 6HP, 4 channels, stereo, mutes and sidechaining, this sounds on paper like it should be perfect for the end-of-chain for a small eurorack rig either for live performance, or easy stereo output capture.
As an affiliate, I may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page. This comes at no extra cost to you and helps support the content on this site
Audio Control
So there are 4 channels running top to bottom, and all the channels can be stereo or mono. To change them between the modes, you have to move a jumper on the back of the unit, but hey this is eurorack, we are used to stuff like that,. so at the moment, I just leave the top 2 as mono, for my main voices and bottom 2 as stereo, for my Elements and Clouds clones, and then I wish I had a few more inputs, ah but of course we must remember the idiom, that the limitations will assist the creativity!
So we can twiddle the channel controls to set the volume and tap them to mute a channel which helpfully turns the LED from red to blue. Its a nice feature but still a bit fiddly to activate a mute in a performance, compared to having a dedicated module such as DivKid Mutes. Still they do work and they mute without making any audible clunks like some mixers.
Duck Off
So lets get to the main course, Duck. The sidechain ducking as 3 modes; CV Mode using an external envelope, Audo Mode, where it uses a sound source like a kick, and Trigger Mode where it will generate ducking envelope from a simple trigger. To move between these modes you have to press all 4 buttons at once and count the LED flashes, awkward, but not something you will do very often.
I played around with Modes 1 and then 2, attempting to feed copy of the kick output from my drum module but it seemed to be too impactful. If you turned up the ducking control, to see a blue light, then there was way to much ducking impact on the target channel. Also in this mode you cannot set the per channel ducking amount. To make it work you might need to attenuate the audio signal down., but I did not get satisfactory results. In the end I have moved on to mode 3 and take a trigger from Steppy, and have remained there ever since. Its simpler to patch and it seems to work much better for me than the other modes and has the benefit of altering the amount of sidechain effect per channel. This is done by holding down the channel and turning it ,which again is awkward in a performance environment, but does have a colour changing LED to show the amount, and once you have setup the amount of duckiness on each of the 4 channels, then there is the separate master sidechain control which you could use for performance.
Zig-a-zag-ah
So at 6HP the cockpit 2 is very crammed in and the zig-zag layout looks cool, but turns out to be a bit impractical since the cables will always be over the top of the controls, unless you careful position it in the middle of your rack. If they ever make a version 3, I would hope they put all the inputs and outputs down the bottom or along one side.
Summary
Well it does what it says on the tin, its just a bit fiddly to use, so if that matters to you, consider getting separate mixer and compression modules instead of an all-in-one. For now its staying in the corner of my rack, while I continue to eye up the alternatives!
You might also be interested in
MOOG Mavis – Standalone Semi-Modular Analog Synthesizer Kit on Amazon
Arturia RackBrute 6U Eurorack on Amazon
as an amazon associate I may get commission from affiliate links at no extra cost to you
Endorphin.es Cockpit 2 Resources
Endorphin.es Cockpit 2 homepage
Synthmodes Cockpit2 Cheatsheet