great - thanks for the suggestions, guys!!!

@Lugia - HAHAHA Funny title!!! I'm going to take a copy - remove all the modules you added - and put my modules back in!!!

the Portland has a mixer already - but it's mono - and normally goes to through one of the lollipops before hitting the mixer - if I need panning of the individual drum sounds I can record them separately and do that in the DAW - output is effectively mono at the moment anyway - my studio monitors are in a different country - long story!!!

for more panning and mixing I'd be most likely just to add more channels of the tex-mix - they are inexpensive and have panning - I though about auto panning - but I can patch it if I want it!

as for the doepfer modules - they get video signals sent through constantly -

I don't think I need another scaler - adding the 1st 5:1 will take me up to 14 scalers - I think that's enough (at least for the foreseeable future) and there are quite a few attenuators through out the system (one of the switched is actually a bank of attenuators (pusherman is not up to date on modulargrid)

mults are a good idea - although I do have quite a few stackcables - but I'd always go for 2hp DIY ones - such as the frequency central mumu - they are inexpensive and can be built in 10-15 minutes or so

the 2 right hand side cases are looking very good though - as little movement as possible will happen there - going to swap the joystick to the far right though, as I'm right handed!

as I said I'll take a copy of Lugia's (excellent) attempt and try to cram the modules I actually own back in - will re-post in this thread once it's done! fingers crossed the power & screws (and also some of the new modules and components for the diy builds) for the last case get here before next weekend, so I can build it and then I can actually start moving modules about

once again thanks very much for your input!!! greatly appreciated!!

"some of the best base-level info to remember can be found in Jim's sigfile" @Lugia

Utility modules are the dull polish that makes the shiny modules actually shine!!!

sound sources < sound modifiers < modulation sources < utilities