Just saw these. Uhm...yeah. Now, let me get this straight...

The 'low end' version is over US$500. When eBay shows the real thing hovering in the US$300-ish range. Sure, it's umpty-gazillion dollars over in the EU...but that was also where the concept of the $2000 TB-303 came from, and while I thought (and still think) that was insane, anyone paying more than about $350 for a minty-fresh NOS Minipops of any series needs to be fitted for a straight-jacket. Just because Aphex used one on "Syro" (somewhere) doesn't mean that possessing one makes you Aphex. And yes, this does take clock in/out...but Tubbutech has a MIDI mod that gives you MIDI control for EUR 140-ish of the actual thing.

But then, the 'high end' MP7 comes with a lot of silliness...mainly, the whole triggering scheme. In order to work with the triggering, you will need adapters to go to TRS 3.5mm plugs, because while the input triggering is between tip and sleeve, Nabla opted to put the trigger-out from the MP7's wired-pattern sequencer between the ring and sleeve. Why is this important? OK, follow me for a sec...

Let's say you're triggering the MP7's internal voices via the tip-sleeve connection. Which, of course, means that the entire patch-plane is the 'ground' and the actual trigger pulses are on the tip, and the outputs from the MP7's triggers (on the ring) are cold. What's wrong here? OK...if you are using (like everyone else in Eurorack) a TS 3.5mm patchcord, then there is a bit of a risk of sending backwards voltage into the MP7's sequencer, but that's only if things are a bit miswired coming from the external sequencer sending the pulses. No...the REAL, dead-on-certs danger is what can happen should you accidentally start the MP7's own sequencer and send ITS triggers back down your connection. Miswiring here now has the ability to reverse-voltage the external sequencer! And by 'miswiring', I mean something akin to pulling a patchcord while the MP7's sequencer is on, allowing the Ring terminal in the jack to momentarily contact the Tip of the cord's plug. Expensive external trigger sequencer module go BOOM if it doesn't have diode protection on its outputs!!! This is, in fact, the PRECISE reason why we don't use 3-conductor jacks/plugs in patchng architecture, Nabla!

While I can appreciate the effort from a startup company, guys, PLEASE try and understand why things work the way they do in the Eurorack standard! No one, for one thing, is going to be jazzed about the prewired patterns; they're going to want to do their own sequencing, otherwise they would've already gotten (such as I have) rhythm boxes for that sort of purpose. Secondly, if the sounds are the important thing, then why not just make a soundbank module such as so many other companies do? No sequencer, no reverse voltage hazard (other than the usual ones), just sounds. You could even stereo-bus this, add some pan-pots on bus side of the voice circuits, with the additional solo-out defeats. And THAT actually would be a welcome addition to the drum-module constellation. Not this...since it has "potential damage liability" wired into its design. C'mon...do this right, not like this.