When it comes to Eurorack, 2023 has been a year of convergence. It feels like more and more developers are looking to both coasts to cherry-pick elements that can play nicely.
Traditional East Coast synth voices now often have wavefolding, or features that add more harmonic content, rather than the simpler subtractive methods of conventional tone-shaping. This can only be a good thing, as it opens creative avenues that may not have been explored otherwise.
2023 has been a good year, overall, for Eurorack users – despite the absence of a headline-grabbing, stand-out hit product – in terms of the shift to bring new tools and ways of thinking into the modular gestalt.
While the loss of WMD and Mutable Instruments is still being felt, the rapid rise of Knobula and the consistent releases by stalwarts like Erica Synths, means the options available are steadily increasing and diversifying. 2024 looks like it could be a bumper year, with rumours of some really rather interesting releases.
1. Knobula Chord Pilot
Chord Pilot started strongly on release, with a feature set that made it truly useful for a range of musical needs. Having a polyphonic chord generator, that can sequence and arpeggiate is a big deal, so having such an intuitive device, that also remains compact enough to not become a rig hog, makes it rather special.
Chord Pilot plays perfectly with Knobula’s previous hit, Poly Cinematic, but is equally fitting paired with any polyphonic synth voice. The user interface is a joy to use and its ability to store and save chords is a revelation and the strum control feels like some kind of performance magic.
2. Erica Synths Hexinverter Mindphaser
While we’ve seen a few companies fall foul of global economics this year, others have been able to withstand these rigours to bring the community some exciting new modules. The likes of Erica Synths and Noise Engineering have gone from strength to strength, releasing a number of new tools for the musically minded.
Erica Synth’s Hexinverter Mindphaser is a thing of sonic beauty. Complex oscillators aren’t new but the Mindphaser showcases how modulation of one wave shape by another can yield wonderful results, from the delicate and pretty, right through to the gnarly and aggressive. This harks back to the previous point where a more typically west coast waveshaping tool can be integrated into a patch.
3. ALM/Busy Circuits Pamela's PRO Workout
Modules like OCHD or Metropolix had a huge impact and became almost legendary overnight. While the Mindphaser and our star, Chord Pilot, are excellent modules, 2023 didn’t deliver a truly magical module.
What has happened is that some modules, including some heavy hitters, have seen updated versions being released. Pamela’s PRO Workout for example. While it is a new and improved, massively capable module, some might say it doesn't have the impact of the original. What we are missing is something that ignites the passions of musicians, becomes a mainstay of patchers and remains synonymous with modular, in the way that Marbles or Maths has.
4. Qu-bit Nautilus
Qu-bit upped the delay game this year with the massively fun and novel-sounding Nautilus, which delivers some fantastic tools for creating a wide variety of delays, with a user experience that really encourages exploration.
5. Noise Engineering Quantus Trajecta
Noise Engineering’s Quantus Trajecta should have been a fairly utilitarian module but the reality far surpassed expectation, with results that are musical and exciting.
6. Noise Engineering Tymp Legio
The onomatopoeically labelled Tymp Legio, also from Noise Engineering, shows again how a simple module can be made more versatile, more musical and, importantly, more fun. Let’s face it, if a module doesn’t inspire you to include it in a patch, it doesn’t matter how good it sounds.
