there is a sale on Plaits at a local store. I really enjoy what I've heard from Beads and Plaits in particular.

do not think about this just buy them if you wwant them - they will be gone soon enough and there will be no more (originals) and I've already seen big premiums on used modules... some of the clones seem ok - especially the full size ALA ones - the micro ones do not appeal to me at all so haven't really looked

I have use of my partner's East Beast and was wondering if this mash up of the EB and Mutable Instruments could be a workable starting point.

Possibly...

How are you going to play it? melodic & trigger/gate sequencing - via cv/midi? dedicated sequencer/computer? or a keyboard - again midi or cv? if the eastbeast has a sequencer built in you will probably break normalisation by patching it out - you'll want a buffered mult for pitch and maybe a passive for trigger/gate/envelope

How are you going to mix the outputs & listen to it?

How are you going to modulate it? Plaits has an internal (only) lfo - and I suspect the eastbeast has 1 too... which hopefully can be patched out, but does that cut normalisation - in which case you will want a way multiply the signal (again a passive mult) to send to other modulation inputs and replace the internal (normalised) routing in the eastbeast

for passive mults stack cables or headphone splitters will do - but lots of people like modules for these - all are useful and a lot of people (myself included) have all 3

get a much bigger case than you think you will need - as you will need it... a tiptop mantis is a very good starter case - it's the best bang for buck of size/cost/decent power supply/manufacturer reputation

see my signature for hints on how to expand from here sensibly - the equation scales very well from the 1st few modules all the way up to walls of modules

"some of the best base-level info to remember can be found in Jim's sigfile" @Lugia

Utility modules are the dull polish that makes the shiny modules actually shine!!!

sound sources < sound modifiers < modulation sources < utilities