Hello all,

I am new to this forum and to modular synthesis in general. I have been generally futzing around with traditional hardware based synths + DAWS for a couple of years, but want something more generative and explorative that gets me away from a mouse and computer keyboard / DAW in favor of realtime expression. Also, I am an enginner and interested in learning more about analog sound design as a theory, the mechanics and science of it all, and how to merge the two systems (analog + digital) in a way that helps me focus on creating music / emotions / soundscapes in the moment.

I've spent the past couple of days researching modules and flows required to create generative ambient drone style music that I can integrate with my existing studio setup. I'd appreciate any feedback or advice from anyone on my proposed first rack system (see below).

But first, a few comments about myself.

• I am a software engineer and make good money. I have the funds to buy what I want / need, but I still don't want to spend money unnecesarily.

• I have an quasi- moderate level understanding around sound design / synthesis and connecting basic hardware / software together, but I am mostly new to modular (aside from playing around w/ VCV Rack 2 in my DAW).

• I have no interest or delusions around "making it"... I am 52 years old with a family... I am just looking for a hobby that allows me to feel the joy of making music in a way that connects my soul to the universe and expresses who I am in the purest form possible, without all the manual tedium of software based configuration.

• I am looking for a community open to all, with a focus on music instead of labels, and where questions are encouraged.

My current setup:
- Fantom 6 EX
- Minilouge XD
- Microfreak
- Arturia Audiofuse 16Rig
- Alesis Drum Pad
- Ableton Live 12
- Serum
- Diva
- Fab Filter
- ... (shit ton of other filters, compressors, f/x, synths, and all the tedious things...)

Proposed 1st Eurorack System

Hoping to make some new friends,

Josh

I have to agree that he has not the best communication. But he sends modules.
When he shipped mine on March 25. he sent me a proof on which several parcels were shown.

-- UnknownDevice

He needs to communicate if he for any reason at all can't ship a module. Most of us are reasonable people overhere (at least that's the impression I have ;-) and there's a multitude of ways things can be solved to everyone's satisfaction.

hi,

Just want to report about @sugarfreedaddy.
I bought a Vhikkx from him a couple of days ago.
He told me he bought a couple of them with some friends who run a modular store in Poland.
He took a couple of days after the payment (which i did thru paypal G&S) to send the module bur he sent it and it was really a brand new one...
The fun fact is that i told him that i almost got scammed by 2 sellers for this module who were asking for Paypal F&F.
Now, i just feel lucky he didn´t scam me...
-- UnknownDevice

Wow, happy for you. And also slightly happy he's still around so who knows. the 13 downvoters might see their modules after all.

-- nodog

I have to agree that he has not the best communication. But he sends modules.
When he shipped mine on March 25. he sent me a proof on which several parcels were shown.
About that Collide 4 "multiple sale", as i could understand he sometimes buys modules with the guys from Soundofyou when they are a bit short money, so perhaps he got more than one Collide 4 that way...

hi,

Just want to report about @sugarfreedaddy.
I bought a Vhikkx from him a couple of days ago.
He told me he bought a couple of them with some friends who run a modular store in Poland.
He took a couple of days after the payment (which i did thru paypal G&S) to send the module bur he sent it and it was really a brand new one...
The fun fact is that i told him that i almost got scammed by 2 sellers for this module who were asking for Paypal F&F.
Now, i just feel lucky he didn´t scam me...
-- UnknownDevice

Wow, happy for you. And also slightly happy he's still around so who knows. the 13 downvoters might see their modules after all.

hi,

Just want to report about @sugarfreedaddy.
I bought a Vhikkx from him a couple of days ago.
He told me he bought a couple of them with some friends who run a modular store in Poland.
He took a couple of days after the payment (which i did thru paypal G&S) to send the module bur he sent it and it was really a brand new one...
The fun fact is that i told him that i almost got scammed by 2 sellers for this module who were asking for Paypal F&F.
Now, i just feel lucky he didn´t scam me...

hi, i have a tesseract tex mix with stereo and mono modules. i want to add an extra mono module but the cable only has 3 connectors. Searched everywhere online. Anyone know where i can find one with 4 or 5 connectors?

thats it exactly! thank hou so much. ill give that a go. and hopefully ill not fry anything :D

thanks a lot for your detailed answer 

Also scammed for a Collide4 (paid on 31/3). I've reported the crime to my country's police (I don't think it'll do much but might add up in some way) and just pm'd ratman77531.

Now thats a blast from the past **"All your module are belong to us" ** on he rotating quote thing, back in the day when I had all of the Music/Audio software internet backed up on CD-R

EDITED Saturday April 11, 07:41

Adding my experience with @sugarfreedaddy.

Purchased a Verbos Harmonic Oscillator on 31 March for €600. Payment sent directly via bank transfer after agreeing off-platform on WhatsApp. No tracking number provided. No response to messages since I paid.

I had successful transactions with him before, last in January (four modules, EUR 1,185 total, delivered via DHL from Warsaw). That prior shipment included a DHL label with the seller's full name and residential address in Warsaw, despite his ModularGrid location being listed as Berlin.

I will initiate a bank recall and will be filing a fraud report with the relevant prosecutor's office in Warsaw via email. If anyone else is filing or wants to coordinate, PM me.

ratman77531

EDITED Friday April 10, 23:52

Yes, you're right, sequencers use digital logic to advance steps, and have done so since the 1960s. But what's distinctive about Cessna's approach is that he discretized the waveform itself, encoding its shape as a table of amplitude values. That's clearly digital synthesis in the sense of constructing signals from numbers. Also, his implementation of pitch tracking was computational. But I think ultimately the distintinction between digital and analog is moot: even on analog systems, we are thinking digitally when we use on-off gates or when we use a sample and hold to transform continuous voltages into stepped ones.

All sequencers use digital electronics to move between each step of the sequence, does that make an analog synth with a sequencer "digital"? One of the most common modular synth tricks is putting audio-rate signals into inputs not "meant for" audio rate inputs, so does putting an audio-rate (or higher) square wave into the Clock In of a sequencer fundamentally change what the synth is?

Bizzare rating concidering Plaits is one of the most popular modules of all time and this version improves on its usability in pretty much every way.

people are weird...

What am I missing here?
-- wiggler55550

The exclusion currently only works on the description text not the manufacturer name or title

Greatest new feature in a long while :-))
Though: While 'wasp -doepfer' works as expected, 'buchla -tape' still lists modules by Tokyo Tape Music Center.
What am I missing here?
Have a nice week end.

In 1965, an Iowa physics student working on satellite signals built what one person has called called "the world's first digital synthesizer." This video unpacks how James Cessna’s “Arbitrary Waveform Generator” worked, and then recreates it as a Disting NT plugin, with a space ambient track to show it in action (patch notes included).

I'm curious to see how people here would classify this strange instrument. It was digital in the sense that it builds a waveform out of discrete amplitude steps and used a digital sequencer to scan them at high speed, like later wavetable or digital oscillator designs. But it still relied on analog amplitude controls. And if it was digital, was it really the "world's first digital synthesizer"?

Great job deleting the Polyend Poly Version 1 manual from you website ...

For those who like to keep using the modules they bought , you can find the manual here:
https://imagescdn.juno.co.uk/manual/667758-01U.pdf

Using VCV rack for percussions...

Exclude Search terms

You can now exclude terms from the free-text search using the “-” operator.
To find filters that are not Wasp, enter:

filter -wasp

In this specific case, I’m not sure why anyone would want to do that, though.

I'm wondering if it would be possible to expand this feature even more. If it's not too much to ask, I'm requesting the ability to also filter out certain text terms from the search results. For instance, I might want to search for low-pass filter modules, and exclude any results that contain the term "ladder" because I've already got all the ladder filters I need. AFAIK there's no way to do that currently.
-- aaaaaaaa

We have that now! Use it in the freetext search field with
low-pass -ladder

····

This is definitely not a module: https://modulargrid.net/e/eventide-h90

It's literally a pedal. No Eurorack power, no mounting holes

There are also a few new features:
• the search now includes an exclude filter
-- modulargrid

Much appreciate this new search feature! It seems like the current inferface design only allows for the exclusion of any single module function. Now that there's some code in place for excluding certain results from a search, I'm wondering if it would be possible to expand this feature even more. If it's not too much to ask, I'm requesting the ability to also filter out certain text terms from the search results. For instance, I might want to search for low-pass filter modules, and exclude any results that contain the term "ladder" because I've already got all the ladder filters I need. AFAIK there's no way to do that currently.

EDITED Thursday April 09, 23:36

duzze is a scammer, be careful.

Working great now, cheers for the quick fix!

Congrats on the redesign. Crossing my fingers that the code rework means we may get 19" rack added one of these days :)

When I search for modules I no longer see if they're already in the active rack or not

Say I'm following a certain manufacturer for the rack.. I filter by their name.. their modules get sorted by newest.. but I can't quickly see where I am up to on their releases. The old site used to give a count by the search result of how many of these modules I have already in that rack
-- wagoo

Thanks for the report, that should work again.

When I search for modules I no longer see if they're already in the active rack or not

Say I'm following a certain manufacturer for the rack.. I filter by their name.. their modules get sorted by newest.. but I can't quickly see where I am up to on their releases. The old site used to give a count by the search result of how many of these modules I have already in that rack

hi, i have a tesseract tex mix with stereo and mono modules. i want to add an extra mono module but the cable only has 3 connectors. Searched everywhere online. Anyone know where i can find one with 4 or 5 connectors?

-- Nilbig

I don't own a Tex Mix myself, but I assume you are referring to this cable!?

A few things to consider:
- You have to ensure that the module actually supports attaching that many expanders to a single chain (EDIT: according to the manual (on page 2) 6 channel expanders should be ok).
- You need to make sure the pitch is correct (I assume it's the standard Eurorack 2.54mm pitch).
- If you can't find one online, you can easily build these cables yourself! It's actually quite simple and requires no soldering – you just press the connectors onto the ribbon cable with some pliers. Of course you have to double check the orientation of the connectors + red stripe. But it shouldn't be that hard as you already have a template.

Here are the parts you would need (links are from a German electronics store, but you can find these anywhere):

https://www.reichelt.com/at/en/shop/product/10-pin_idc_socket_with_strain_relief-14571
https://www.reichelt.com/at/en/shop/product/awg28_set_1m_cable_plugs_10-pol-208106

EDITED Thursday April 09, 10:22

hi, i have a tesseract tex mix with stereo and mono modules. i want to add an extra mono module but the cable only has 3 connectors. Searched everywhere online. Anyone know where i can find one with 4 or 5 connectors?

EDITED Thursday April 09, 07:07

Could it be that his account got occupied by someone else?
-- VONDENFUNKEN

No, very unlikely.

Others may have a different view, but my thinking is that anyone still waiting to hear back from sugarfreedaddy who used PayPal goods and servcies should consider opening a dispute and immediately escalating to a claim. Anyone who paid with F&F should see if they can initate a chargeback with their bank or credit card company.
-- wont

It's a diffuse situation, but at this point I recommend what @wont says.

strange, i purchased a few modules from "sugarfreedady" in the past and all went well.
I never had problems with him.

Could it be that his account got occupied by someone else?

EDITED Wednesday April 08, 16:29

I had a problem with this seller, @sugarfreedaddy, quite some time ago.
This was reported here.
The situation was: I purchased a module, he did not send it. He was "unable" to send it, he was also "unable" to refund me.

I think that the situation was quite similar to what is being experienced here (with several purchasing the same module)

I talked to him via messenger. I had to insist a lot, during weeks, months. He was never "able" to refund me, but after weeks he ended sending me other modules for similar value.

I don't know if you guys will find a way to get your money back. I'm just writing this here to encourage you all not to give up.

Good luck to you all!

Unfortunately, at this point I think its safe to assume that this is not just a misunderstanding considering:

• The number of people having issues (looks like it could be 9 or more)
• The same module being sold to at least two people (both of whom paid) with no indication in the ad of multiples being in stock

Others may have a different view, but my thinking is that anyone still waiting to hear back from sugarfreedaddy who used PayPal goods and servcies should consider opening a dispute and immediately escalating to a claim. Anyone who paid with F&F should see if they can initate a chargeback with their bank or credit card company.

Hi guys,

unfortunatelly, I have similar experience with @sugarfreedaddy. First, smooth communication, then I payed for the module (3.4.) and since then no communication at all. Tried to write him everywhere I could (MG, email, IG), but no response. Now I see his MG accound has been suspended.

This is interesting, since I have read in this forum, that several trades were made with this guy, and some of them appeared to be flawless, and he has also quite positive feedback. I hope this is only some kind of misunderstanding.

Cheers and happy patching to everyone.

EDITED Wednesday April 08, 13:18

Vinx PER|FORMER firmware – update v0.4.0
https://vinxscorza.github.io/performer/
Performance-focused and exploratory.
The idea is to make the PER|FORMER feel more playable in a live context, while still keeping it open to less predictable workflows. What I’m aiming for is a solid machine for live performance, but also a crazy one for experimentation. The goal is not simply to add more options, but to push the PER|FORMER toward stronger creative generators, safer destructive workflows, better live interaction, and a more complete and well-documented ecosystem.

Sadly have to report a negative experience with user @sugarfreedaddy as of 04 April 2026.

Collide 4 was purchased on 25 March. Price listed in EUR and seller location in Berlin, but seller's PayPal account was set up to receive PLN. I confirmed with the seller that this was how they wanted it before sending. Paid using PayPal goods and services (thankfully) and added the agreed on shipping costs plus 3.7% to cover fees. When seller was hit with exchange fees that left them short, they insisted that I send an extra EUR 20 via F&F (actually ended up being EUR 21.99 due to my getting hit with the exchange fees this time). Because the price for the module was still very good, I agreed to do this although I did express that I wasn't happy about it due to the listing having been in EUR.

Seller originally committed to shipping the module by 27 March at the latest. When I followed up on 28 March to request tracking details they promised a new latest shipping date of 31 March. I have received no responses to subsequent follow up messages and emails since 28 March.

Update as of 07 April 2026: It's been 10 days without any response from sugarfreedaddy via Modulargrid, email, or PayPal messaging. I've escalated a claim to PayPal and will continue to share updates here. I feel very lucky to have had buyer protection in place. I was about to use F&F (which I frequently do) but changed to goods and services at the last minute due to a little doubt being raised at the receiving PayPal account expecting a different currency from the listed price.
-- wont

Oh, sadly you posted this on 4th of April so I did not know. I also purchased the same Collide 4 module on 31st of March (the module is still on their sale list!!!). I have dealt with this seller before, a year ago or smth. and everything went smooth back then, so I used PayPal F&F this time. So it looks like the seller sold the same module to several buyers consciously.

Never heard back from the guy via ModularGrid, PP messaging and emails...

As an exercise in Modular Grid, drop a quarter of those modules. (so that's 26hp to sacrifice)
Conceptualy split what's left into two, planning each half as a viable synth, whatever it does, on its own.
Now, with that newly freed space in the middle, fill it with utility and glue modules.
Adders, offset/attenuators, active multiples, submixers. Stuff like that.

EDITED Wednesday April 08, 15:42

intellijel OUTS 3U, After Later Audio Bartender V2 and Barback V2

-- TVhint

Those modules should now show up. Thanks for the feedback!

-- modulargrid

Yep! perfect!

Hello everyone !
This is my first post here as I need some advice! I’ve been using Eurorack modular synths for about a year now, and I’m struggling to achieve the musical style I’m aiming for.
Here’s my current rack:

https://cdn.modulargrid.net/img/racks/modulargrid_2860927.jpg

Here are some references for the sound I’d like to produce:

As you can see from my rack, my setup is live-oriented. I dislike and avoid modules with submenus—every module I own follows a simple rule: one button = one function.
For future purchases, I’m obviously considering the PAM. I wanted to buy The Order sequencer from 63 Studio, but unfortunately, it’s not compatible with my Doepfer power supply. I’ve also thought about the Quad Quantizer from Tenderfoots Electronics.
Looking forward to reading your advice!

I have to report this former seller @hellonwood40.
I purchased a first-model Vhikk, paid via PayPal, "relatives and friends," so yes, I'm the stupid one.
I paid for the product on April 2nd, and now he's not responding to emails.

This is the wonderful answer the scammer gave me:
"Open a dispute to get a refund!
Maybe it's too late for this talk but I'm deeply sorry :)"
perfect...

EDITED Wednesday April 08, 05:47

Not sure if it's the sound you're looking for, but how about a Toros Iteritas Alia (10hp)?

Hey, just annouced a week ago the release of Spice : https://modulargrid.net/e/floating-knobs-spice

In short :
- It is a 12HP quadraphonic wavetable oscillator of my design.
- 4 quadraphonic oscillator engines : Phase modulation for cross patching, regular V/oct, Scale for easy melodies and Binaural.
- gritty bitcrush.
- early access so still cheap (phase 1 sold out, phase 2 for the end of this month).

It might tick a few of your boxes, check it out and if you have question do not hesitate to reach out.

intellijel OUTS 3U, After Later Audio Bartender V2 and Barback V2

-- TVhint

Those modules should now show up. Thanks for the feedback!

Hi all,

I have MG set to dark mode. However, every time I load a new page the background flashes white for half a second before changing back to dark grey. I'm on Safari 26.4. Anyone else having the same issue?

Hey, I’m posting here in hopes of getting a response from @sugarfreedaddy as I am having problems with him as well.

I’ve seen a lot of positive feedback about him, including from people I trust, so I’m assuming something unusual is going on. However, I sent payment nearly two weeks ago and communication has largely stopped since then.

Five days ago, I received a message mentioning ModularGrid’s message limit and stating that tracking information would be sent via email. However, no tracking details have been provided, and I have not received any further replies despite multiple follow-ups via ModularGrid, email, and PayPal.

At this point, I simply need clarity on the situation. I would appreciate either confirmation that the item has been shipped, with tracking information, or a refund if the item has not been sent.
I hope this message helps re-establish contact so we can resolve this quickly.

Thanks

EDITED Monday April 06, 10:15

I like the new look, and the overall functionality seems to have improved, but some of the modules currently available no longer appear in the search results.

-- TVhint

Do you have an example?

-- modulargrid

intellijel OUTS 3U, After Later Audio Bartender V2 and Barback V2

I like the new look, and the overall functionality seems to have improved, but some of the modules currently available no longer appear in the search results.

-- TVhint

Do you have an example?

I like the new look, and the overall functionality seems to have improved, but some of the modules currently available no longer appear in the search results.

Not quite a trad drone but it can do them; this one (16 hp) has an expander for v/oct:

https://modulargrid.com/e/blukac-endless-processor-both-panels

EDITED Apr 5th, 14:08

At the center I have the NerdSEQ — it’s the brain of the system, sequencing everything (drums, modulation, FX…). It’s a tracker-style sequencer, so very precise and powerful for complex rhythms. 

For drums and samples I use the Rample, where I load and slice breaks into multiple layers, so I can mix and switch between them in real time.

Then I have the Multigrain which is a granular sampler — it lets me take samples (like vocals or textures) and completely reshape them into evolving sounds or atmospheres. 

The Ikarie is a stereo filter, mainly used to shape and animate the sound, especially for movement and tone.

And the Castle is more of a sound source (FM-style), used for melodic or harmonic content.

Everything is then processed and modulated with CV, which is the big difference vs a smaller setup or a groovebox — you can constantly change and interact with every part of the sound.