Mistral Large 4 vs Ember-1
Mistral Large 4 took 51 min 22 s and $0.61 at list price, Ember-1 took 25 min 56 s and $1.78 at list price. Mistral Large 4 took 2.0× as long, and Ember-1 cost 2.9× as much.
Mistral Large 4
Mistral · $2.10/M out · 4,689 HN pts
Ember-1
Fireworks · $15.00/M out · 589 HN pts
Pelican
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Watch
Draw a mechanical wristwatch that shows the current local time, with a sweeping seconds hand and a date window. Make it look expensive.
Landing
Build the landing page for Lumen Cycles, a Copenhagen workshop that builds custom cargo bikes to order. Make it look like a real brand you would trust with 4,000 euros.
Breakout
Make a Breakout game I can play right now with the keyboard or the mouse. Give it several levels, a score and some juice.
Logo
Design a logo for Night Heron, an independent bookshop that only opens after dark.
About
Write the opening of the About us page for Patchbay, a three-person studio in Rotterdam that repairs vintage synthesizers. About 150 words.
Patchbay sits in a former warehouse on Rotterdam's northern edge, where the Maas meets the industrial harbour. Three of us work here—no more, no less—surrounded by oscilloscopes, desoldering stations, and the persistent hum of transformers. We repair vintage synthesizers. That is the whole business.
We are not a museum, and we are not a factory. Every Minimoog, ARP 2600, or Juno that crosses our bench receives the same stubborn attention: traced schematics, replaced capacitors, calibrated voltages, hours spent listening for the note that was never quite right. The machines arrive broken, silent, forgotten. They leave singing.
Rotterdam built its reputation on moving heavy things and keeping them moving. We apply the same pragmatism to circuits that predate us by forty years. If it made sound once, it can make sound again. That is the promise we keep, solder joint by solder joint.
Patchbay is a three-person workshop in Rotterdam dedicated to keeping vintage synthesizers alive. We work on the machines that shaped electronic music — analog polysynths, temperamental drum machines, early digital oddities — replacing tired capacitors, rebuilding keybeds, and coaxing silent oscillators back into tune.
Between us we bring decades of experience in electronics, instrument design, and music-making, but what unites us is simpler: we believe these machines were built to be played, not displayed. Every repair happens by hand at our benches, with period-correct components wherever possible and thoughtful modern solutions where reliability demands it. We test everything the only way that matters — by listening.
Whether your Juno has lost a voice, your 808 has lost its kick, or a flea-market find needs a full restoration, we treat each instrument as if it were heading back to a studio, a stage, and a long life of making noise. Because it is.
Specs and numbers
| Mistral Large 4 | Ember-1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral | Fireworks |
| Made in | France | US |
| Released | 6 Oct 2026 | 24 Sep 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $0.70 | $3.00 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $2.10 | $15.00 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | open | closed |
| Hacker News points | 4,689 | 589 |
| Time for the six prompts | 51 min 22 s | 25 min 56 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.61 | $1.78 |
Mistral Large 4 was cheaper: $1.17 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. Ember-1 was faster: 25 min 26 s less in total, and faster on 3 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Mistral Large 4's rebuild matched the screenshot at 46%, Ember-1's 67%. Tea Garden experiment: Mistral Large 4's game passed 2 of 5 checks, Ember-1's 5 of 5.