Hi Garfield,
Well I never expected cool sway like the cute wooden toys with Mutable Instruments purchases so that is nice touch. They do look good on my case but a cat would be better hehe. Yeah, IME modules are super hard to come buy here in the USA and I am in California so not really that far from Portland and Seattle where IME/Harvestman makes the gear. Friends of mine have older versions of their stuff and I was impressed by the sounds and design and happy with them so far. Expensive modules but do quite a bit. The Kermit can be a quad LFO, quad EG, dual VCOs and S&H noise generator- plus presets and create and save custom wave forms of your own. WOW! I don't know many modules that can do that in one device except maybe some of the Rossum or 4ms stuff. Plus they are very gritty industrial hardcore nasty tones perfect for my work as well as bell tones. I was able to get an angry growling dog tone out of mine last night which was cool. Plus Scott Jaeger of IME/Harvestman is a genius. He keeps adding features and making his stuff better with each version.
Regarding Noise Engineering- they make really good techno industrial modules. I love my BIA and Cursus Iteritas. Easy to use many wave shaper options and less expensive than IME/Harvestman and way less complex to learn as well. Pair them with an LFO or two to trigger multiple tones out of each module works wonders. I can get a bass lead and kick drum out of BIA and similar results with Cursus. Their panels are very simple but effective and easy to use controls. Complete opposite of IME/Harvestman modules which seem to require lots of patiences, reading manuals, watching videos and time to learn to program their computer like interfaces.
I love Make Noise! My 0-coast was my first step into modular patching world. Just got the 0-ctrl which is a very fun touchpad sequencer controller. I am saving for a Make Noise Shared System since it would work better for me than to create a set of the same modules in another case. But I wanted variety hence why I did not buy Maths or Rene yet and just save for that complete system to pair with my 2 racks :-)
Erica Synths is great- the black polivoks filter is fun to use. Would love to try out the techno system one day after Covid ends.
Heard the drum sequencer is not that great however. I may get the sample drum or pico drums at some point and the smaller LPG they make.
I like Doepfer- dead simple and basic. Perfect for using with crazy modules as a baseline and scratchpad. Easy to learn. Functional and affordable. It lets me concentrate on learning the more difficult and esoteric modules like Kermit so I can just plug in the Doepfer basic VCO module to it and test and not get distracted with a crazy whizbang VCO. The Doepfer VCS A171-2 is great module and lots of sound shaping options on par with half of a Kermit or half a Maths.
Xaoc Devices is superb. I love my Batumi Quad LFO quite powerful and easy to use. Want a Belgrad and Odessa but every synth shop is out of these two modules so will wait until future when I have bigger 12u case to get them. The Zadar looks amazing as well. On par with IME/Harvestman for power packed features.
Modular is the most fun I have had with music since I started learning guitar a few years ago. I still love my hardware synths but the patch madness is therapeutic and ultimate freedom in creativity. Expensive as you want it to be like anything in life but less than a house, exotic car or 100 year bottle of scotch at least.