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**Berlin school oriented rack. **

The idea is to make a square rack of practical dimensions, 60 by 66 approx. Cable distances are then manageable. Below each row there will be approx 2 cm space for horizontal cable guides not to have too much wiring in front of knobs.
In the middle of the rack on row 2 and 3, there is space left for vertical cable guides as well as multiples.
At the back of the rack will be 4 MIDI I/O: 2 for the Disting EX, 2 for the NTS-1. The power supplies will be on the back.

Row 1: 2 old school sequencers.
Row 2 : EDU synth from Erica Synths, with a 3rd simple sequencer. O&C for the sequencer quantizing
Row 3 : Sound path 2nd synth: oscillators going into mixer, filters, VCA
Row 4: Modulators for gate and CV at the left, including matrix mixer. Filter bank + built in NTS-1 at the right

Apart from the 2 main sequencers and the maxtrix mixer the rest is already in house.
The NTS-1 can serve as a 3rd synth (the Disting even as a 4th) , but is rather meant as FX box.
I do have a Minibrute 2S, a B2600, Model D and a Kobol apart from this, so I'm not running out of oscillators.

I'll need to built the rack myself (especially as I want cable guides both horizontal and vertical).
What may I be missing?

EDITED Apr 5th, 16:46

If I add 4HP in width, I may add a matrix mixer:

definitely appears to be missing quanyizers... more mixers would also be good... probably at least one cascading vca - as it looks like you are low ion vcas compared to envelope generators - maybe a matrix mixer - and fill the left over space with other utilities...

-- JimHowell1970

Thanks, indeed low on quantizers. I've added an Ornament & Crime, should provide at least 2 quantizers. The disting EX can serve as 2 more if needed.

As for VCA's there are already 8 on board (1 Dual in row 2, and a Quad VCA + Dual VCA in row 3), apart from 4 EG's (knowing a slew limiter can be used as a simple EG, I might have 5). Shouldn't that be enough VCA's ?
As for mixers there is a 3-in-1, a 4-in-2, and 2 more 3-in-1 unity mixers. I may be using my external mixing panels .

What is a cascading VCA?

**Berlin school oriented rack. **

The idea is to make a square rack of practical dimensions, that will be 60 by 60 approx. Cable distances are then manageable. Below each row there will be approx 2 cm space for horizontal cable guides not to have too much wiring in front of knobs.
In the middle of the rack on row 2 and 3, there is space left for vertical cable guides as well as multiples.
At the back of the rack will be 4 MIDI I/O: 2 for the Disting, 2 for the NTS1. I will be moving the power supplies to the back as well, to gain 8 useful 8HP in the front.

• Top row: 2 old school sequencers.
• Row 2 : EDU synth from Erica Synths, with a thrird simple sequencer.
• Row 3 : Sound path 2nd synth: oscillators going into mixer, filters, VCA
• Row 4: Modulators for gate and CV at the left, and filter bank + built in NTS-1 at the right

Apart from the 2 main sequencers the rest is already in house.
The NTS-1 can serve as a third synth (the disting even as a 4th) , but has rather meant as FX box.
I do have a Minibrute 2S, a B2600, Model D and a Kobol apart from this, so I'm not running out of sound generation yet.

Things I might be missing are CV quantizers or mixers. I'll need to built the rack myself (especially as I want cable guides), and then discover what I still may be missing.

Some words on the module arrangements.

• Upper part is mainly audio path, lower part mainly modulation and gate processing
• Attention has gone into getting the best reach to all buttons and switches, by doing the following:

1. Observe the upper part modules have been selected as much as possible to have the buttons above (jacks below), so no wires get in front of them
2. Small modules have small knobs, which make them difficult to handle. So those small modules are positioned at the full left or full right side
3. Jacks are as much as possible concentrated together, to provide more space around knobs.
4. At three places additional 2hp plates are installed, each with 6 additional switches or jacks to expand the possibilities of their adjacent modules. They were originally blind plates or passive multiples, and now enable the following
   • Gemini 2412: filters can go into resonance or not
   • A-135-2 : additional normalling paths added
   • A-141-2 and Ladik C-211 : additional options added
   • Disting EX: additional Midi In/Out via 2 mini-jacks
   • Clock Divider and Batumi: additional options added

EDITED May 17th 2021, 12:03

I started off making a traditional subtractive modular synth, only to realize I was remaining on known territory.

So I changed the challenge, and this is what I went for:
- no standard analog (emulation) oscillators! Therefor the choice for the Mutable Instruments based Plaits, nRings and Monsoon
- the minibrute has standard analog oscillators and a Steiner-Paker filter so these are already covered
- make us of the Minibrute 2S sequencer outputs and its noise generator in combination with the rack to create percussion
- have a stereo audio path from start to finish (stereo oscillators, mixer, filter, VCA)
- at least one advanced envelope (Doepfer A141-2)
- at least one delayable signal (found in the Ladik C-211 envelope generator)
- SEM-filter (Gemini 2412) (ladder filters are abundant)
- have the Wasp as additional filter, a sound different from all others (Doepfer A-124)
- lots of LFO's (Xaoc Batumi)
- at least two V/Oct precision adders (Doepfer and LPZW) for duophonic use
- midi interface (2HP)
- gate processing (Seq. Switch, Clock Divider, Logic module)
- CV processors (VCA's, attenuators, scaler, TM, slew limiters)
- top it off with a double 'Swiss Knife' as the Disting EX.

This rack does stuff I can't do with any of my other 20 synths, so it has its place!

When performing with a eurorack, combined with traditional synths, the distance towards all buttons on the rack is a bit of a disadvantage. So I decided to create a rack in addition to the regular eurorack sound rack, purely for remote control of parameters. The blind panels serve to add trigger or gate buttons in DIY MODE. By means of standard patch cables I can interchange up to 14 signal. Because no sound is passed on, no risk on crosstalk either.