First sounds out in the wild

The first prototype didn’t even have time to cool down after bench testing, we handed it straight to a friend to play with. Then it moved on to the next one before we could blink. Both guys are musicians and designers, so they approach synths like an instrument and an object. They explore how it sounds, but also how it looks, feels and works: the way the controls are laid out, the feel of the switches and pots, the usability and balance of the panel. Seeing that kind of interaction is exactly why we built this thing. Thanks a lot Bálint & Laci.

Moduleur on the bass

Right in between two testing sessions we jumped straight into deep waters last Saturday: in the morning we played an electro set at Norma Grand, a bakery in Budapest. They make ridiculous májkrémes (liver spread) sandwiches with fermented red onions (aah duude, they are really good), and it turned into a morning full of coffee, synths and curious looks, plus a few approving nods from people trying to brunch in peace.

The Moduleur carried a steady bassline all morning without skipping a beat. The diode ladder filter brought deep, punchy plucks, and we've got some footage that captures that mix of caffeine and control voltages.

From the bench

The PCB's of the last missing piece — the only digital module called Brain — of the system finally arrived from China. It booted up flawlessly which means we're pretty much done with the design phase of the Hog Moduleur. Yesss.

We already turned Brain it into a simple MIDI-to-CV converter. That’s a small but meaningful step which opens the door to controlling the Moduleur from any keyboard, sequencer, or DAW. In other words, this thing’s starting to talk with the outside world.

Next up

We’re building prototype no. 2, fine-tuning details for the next round of testing and starting to think about how the to bring out the Moduleur to the public.

Until next week,
Zimo & Flame

BTW we go way back in music: Flame was the singer and I (Zimo) am the drummer in our funk band Dokkerman and the Turkeying Fellaz. Flame wrote the vocals and lyrics for our biggest hit, Mango Season and we both played on our LP. There's even proof that we were both, in fact, "artists".