Moog Triumvirate Arbhar Dinsting EX 9U 84HP

First attempt at building my three Moogs in a portable rack format for live use and touring.

The Arbhar would be on the aux send from the mixer, which should make it easy to route anything to the Arbhar at any given moment. The two Disting EX's offer a lot of flexibility and open up many options for the Moogs, Arbhar and mixer.

Still some room left with blanks. Do you think this will be a practical setup for using live with the mixer, Arbhar and Distings above eachother? Thanks for having a look.

Technically, yes, it'll work. Expense-wise, not so much. The minute you take the Moogs out of their powered skiffs and put them in a Eurorack case, you're paying to house and power those Moogs twice.

Instead of making an expensive mistake in the pursuit of portability, see here: https://www.moogmusic.com/products/mother-semi-modular-multi-tier-rack-stand Now, right there on that page, you can see the REAL solution: a four-tier rack ($100) and an empty Moog skiff ($89) which deals with housing the Eurorack additions. As for portability and casing, there's loads of potential solutions for that...such as getting the right foam to put this into a large ammo transport case that's essentially the same as most instrument cases these days...hell, SKB even makes their own line of firearms cases!

Now...TWO Disting EXs? No. The menu diving will drive pretty much anyone insane, and frankly, it negates the immediacy of working with a modular synthesizer. Plus, one is JUST FINE given what just one can do! And the Pitt Lifeforms System Interface has a lot of compromises to it that I feel limits its usability. A better choice (in the same space) would be Catoff's MIX4 set...which is only $50 more, gives you full controls on ALL channels (not just three only), has TWO AUX send/returns, balanced 1/4" outs, metering, headphone preamp...and if four channels isn't enough, just buy a few more of the XIN expansion channel modules.

However, I would stress that, in the space we're talking about here, you need to be looking at SMALLER modules for your primary Eurorack functions. True, the Arbhar IS NICE...but it's large, and this build can't support having these huge things. Given what the Arbhar IS, wouldn't it make more sense to use the pretty-much-the-same-thing Clouds in its various shrunk-down 3rd party builds? It would definitely be CHEAPER. And for that matter, if you can do without the AUX setup, you could jam a 4ms Listen Four 1/4 into half the space of either the Catoff OR Pitt.

Mind you, I do think this idea has merit...I've even messed with a four-tier 60 hp build on here with a DFAM and my Subby as two tiers and two open skiffs for Eurorack, and may well do this at some point in the next year-ish. But there's also pitfalls here, too...so be careful, otherwise this can and WILL get needlessly pricey.

Hi Lugia, thank you for your answer! I'm aware of the four-tier rack (I own a two tier) but IMO that's not portable and/or secure for touring: it's simply huge, because of the form factor when having the 3 Moogs in a tier rack with an extra skiff on top. That's the main reason I'm looking for a case: to put them flat with a lid (with the added possibility to keep 'm patched in the case).
I'll have a look into Clouds and other options, but I think the Arbhar is just the next step in granular processing. I don't really mind having bigger modules, but I get your point...
The Catoff looks perfect for my needs, with built in balanced line outs and expandability. It's also great to have two aux sends (for extra delay etc). Thanks for your advice.

Hi Lugia, thank you for your answer! I'm aware of the four-tier rack (I own a two tier) but IMO that's not portable and/or secure for touring: it's simply huge, because of the form factor when having the 3 Moogs in a tier rack with an extra skiff on top. That's the main reason I'm looking for a case: to put them flat with a lid (with the added possibility to keep 'm patched in the case).
-- 3SGCC

I think you might want to poke around this website for a while before dismissing the quad-tier idea: https://www.plattcases.com/ Platt almost certainly has a case available in their many lines that will make a quad-tier VERY portable. And, depending on the line you choose, pretty damn close to smashproof. Or, you could just go 100% bespoke here and put some rails, distros, and a suitable P/S in one of their off-the-shelf cases.

I gig out as well, sometimes. But this has less to do with that and much more with the idea that you can't 100% rely on music retailers for music solutions. Remember: they sell the majority of their gear to the usual MI crowd...which we pretty much AREN'T part of. And that determines what's available in their inventories. So, the sooner you get used to working outside of that set of constraints, the better, because your available options to solve technical issues go WAY up once you're able to do that effectively. Honestly, the amount of "sweat equity" one outputs in music these days NEEDS to include time/effort spent in researching potential options; with electronic music, good technical research goes hand in hand with the usual musical points of practice, performance, and study.

I'm looking at building a case, going the Peli cases (or alternatives) route, buying a case (Doepfer, MDLR...). I agree on spending time on research before spending a lot of money, but I gig on a regular basis and won't my gear to be protected in a roadworhty case. Anyhow: thanks for your advice and inspiration!