My actual rack in use, 8+6 HP freed up, looking to add some new things.

  • Quadnic used for drone type backgrounds.
  • Doepfer A-110 +A-115 + A-120 used to run sequencial patterns (using two external sequencers).
  • MI Marbles + Plaits + Rings + uBurst used for atmospheric / ambient sounds.
  • Make Noise function and A-140 adsr used for envelopes, shapes, modulation.
  • Ochd LFO's for modulation of everything
  • MI Links to combine and distribute gate CV and triggers from external sequencers and Marbles.
  • 2x Doepfer mixer for CV and audio of both oscillators, Ochd, Function, filter and adsr.
  • 2x Intellijel Mixup and multiples to mix into uBurst and to mix to outboard 16 channel mixer/recorder.
  • Drone mono, arp/sequence both seperate mono out to external 16 channel mixer/recorder.
  • Plaits dry sound (both Out and Aux) seperate to external mixer/recorder.
  • uBurst (with combined Plaits and stereo Rings) stereo out to external mixer/recorder.

Got rid off some stuff and have 8+6 hp free to add some new stuff. No idea yet what it should be.


Since you're in a module-dumping mood, I decided to push that a bit further...
ModularGrid Rack
A lot of the original is still in there, but I altered the layout for a bit of coherence and ease of use. The Quadnic now has its own summing mixer, as does the Plaits, A-110 and A-115. Then, a new thing from Alright, their Zzzorb state-variable and VCA combo is before the Rings. Then a proper pannable stereo mixer ends that row.

The bottom row has the modulation components. I started with a Kinks, so as to add some basic logic for timing to mess with, a bit of a rectifier/waveshaper, and a sample and hold with a white noise source. Marbles, then Ochd, then a Triatt for summing some of the Ochd outputs, or mixing those with the Maths (got rid of the Contour...why have one when two is better?). A pair of ADSRs for more straightforward envelope use, then the new Veils which brings the VCA total in here to five. The uBursts is next...and then there's the OUT. That last thing is super useful because not only does it give you isolated stereo outs, it has a second stereo IN with a ganged level control, which would be perfect for mixing the stereo out from the uBursts "voice" into the general mix. And you get a headphone preamp, too. And metering.

I did kick out the passive mults (use inlines instead...makes more sense with this small a build) and all of the Intellijel audio mixers because they just didn't seem to be a good fit here. Instead, the Triatt allows polarization of mod signals in addition to mixing, and the ability to invert mod signals was pretty lacking here in the first place. And the HN PanMix jr. DOES allow stereo panning whereas the Intellijels didn't. By and large, though, this retains much of your needed signal paths while adding some extra functionality to push the build even further. In cases such as the Doepfer mixers, I simply shrunk them. Plus, the Zzzorb will give you way more timbral flexibility than the A-120 ever could.

So, yeah...if you go further here on dropping modules out, this might be a good direction. Denser functionality, for one thing, will push the build way past what it was capable of previously. As for other changes, the Plaits/A-110/115 combo still kinda bugs me (the A-110 is pretty deep by present-day standards, and there's smaller octave dividers out there) and that would be what I would look at next, perhaps by going with smaller Plaits clones (2 > 1, after all), a different VCO (double?), and a proper waveshaper + divider combo with Tiptop's Fold Processor or some such. Although, the rectifier and logic sections of the Kinks can also serve as very useful waveform manglers in their own right, so maybe just a divider would work there.


A few small changes to make the rack ready to go again. Took a Dreadbox mix/vca that was still laying on the shelf and added a Shades clone (Shades serves to attenuate 3 individual hpt audio signals from Quadnix and A-110 that go to the outboard mixer and multi track recorder. Moved the Intellijel mixups to upper row for better acces to the knobs as they are no longer shaded by wires. Workflow upper row is Marbles to Plaits and Rings, Plaits split for direct out to outboard mixer. Plaits and Rings (both odd and even) Intellijel Mixup and Mixup stereo out to uBurst in L + R. Stereo from uBurst to 2nd Mixup that functions as simple stereo out to multitrack recorder.