Help! Idk what I'm doing

Hi,
I'm working on a system to complement my Digitakt. I want to make dance music and explore ambient as much as I can. The Digitakt will be my primary sequencer, but I'd like to be able to do some generative melodies in euro as well. Sounds created in the modular system will be sampled and incorporated into my dance music set.

I've built a two-row 84hp case, and have a few of these modules already. I plan on the lower half of the case housing the Digitakt, a Digitech Polara Reverb Pedal, as well as some custom eletronics I'm working on. I plan on the upper half holding the modular gear. The custom electronics include a second MIDI-euro interface with clock output, and a clock divider. I'm also planning on adding some passive attenuators and arcade buttons.

Looking for any feedback on the rack! I'm pretty new to this and I'm worried that I'm missing something on the utility side of things. I'm really shooting in the dark here but I'm excited to get something put together.

Edit: The rack below doesn't reflect the rack I built. I removed the middle row, which I was using as a placeholder for the electronics I'm planning on building.

EDITED Jan 16th 2018, 15:17

Actually, the results look more like you know what you're doing.

The Mother32 can do a lot of the basic nuts-n-bolts work, and all of the additions to it seem relatively well-chosen. For what you intend, I'm not seeing anything really problematic here. However, you might want to think twice about removing your 1U row. Tiles are a great, cost-effective and space-saving way to increase basic functionalities, and I'm pleased that some case builders are making room for them now; whenever I can put something of the sort into any of my build sketches, I definitely do when the case design allows for it. For example, one thing I note that's a bit absent here is some effect processing (assuming you don't use the Disting for it). With tiles, though, you can add a spring reverb easily enough via PulpLogic's tile for the interface + an internal tank. Extra LFOs, clock tinkering, basic logic, etc...all cheap and easy with tiles. Just keep in mind that Intellijel's tile format ISN'T the same as everyone else's and mixing theirs in with PulpLogic, Synisi, et al is something of a no-no.

Thanks for your response! I was picturing that I would build my own clock manipulation modules and hold them in the lower part of the case. But that is a good point about LFOs, and effects processing. I'm a bit worried about lack of delay/reverb on my independent voices, as well.

What is different about the Intellijel tile units? Are they still 1U?
Are there 1U pingable LFOs you can recommend?

I'm building my case by hand, and can accommodate whatever layout.

The thing about Intellijel's 1U is that it's not exactly the same dimension as everyone else's. They determined their tile measurement purely in the Eurorack domain, but everyone else went with the rack definition of what 1U was and put the rail spacing as something that fits in that span. As a result, everything can theoretically fit in a 'normal' 1U tile spacing, but you'd have to possibly 'nibble' the Intellijel mounting holes, whereas if you use the Intellijel spacing (smaller) you simply can't mount the 'normal' tiles in that space. Ultimately, the best thing to do is to keep them separate as differing standards until/unless someone comes out with an Intellijel adapter for the 'normal' tile spacing, if that's even possible.

As far as pingable LFO/envelope type things in tile format, PulpLogic's Cyclic Skew sort of fits that bill. You can't determine envelope lengths by pings (like the 4ms PEG), but you can either set the Cyclic Skew to trigger as a one-shot function generator or you can flip a switch and the attack/release becomes your waveshaping and timing when using the tile as an LFO. Potentially, adding some of Synisi's CVable clock modulation tiles with a few of these would allow some pretty complex function generation if you tandemmed the whole mess with a DC-coupled mixer like the Mix-B. Brings up a point, too: don't just look at basic modules as a 'it does this and nothing else' proposition; quite often I look at basic modules such as tiles as also being able to configure a 'meta-module' in a given space to either do something that might take up more space (or $$$) or just simply doesn't exist in that form. Clocking modules are always this sort of proposition for me...they're usually fairly basic in what each one does, but if I treat several of them as a more complex subsystem in tandem with (in this case) something else like logic and/or comparators, then I know I can head for some very weird rhythmic possibilties by treating the entire grouping as a 'thing' and not separate modules.

Do you really need the FX loop on the Rosie? I would normally say an output module isn't necessary in a rack this size. Just my opinion, you can have lots of fun with this as it is though.

I do use the Rosie's fx loop for some DSP stuff on the Disting. There's a ping pong delay on there I really like, as well as a reverb that can be useful. I use the headphone cue when I'm playing live to get things adjusted before I bring them in, but this doesn't work super well all the time.

And I'll second the endorsement on a headphone cue send! If you're doing a lot of live work where there's constant minute twiddling going on, having that as a safety to make sure you haven't screwed up whatever tunings your VCOs have, or whether the filters are responding properly, etc etc etc is worth the price of gold. Often I'll just jack into a parallel output with the phones, using a 3.5mm mono-to-stereo adapter, but sometimes even that isn't as helpful as I might like.