You mention about predominantly using cv/gate and not midi, can I ask for curiosity sake when would the use of midi be required as opposed to cv/gate?
a lot of people use midi to sequence (mostly from computers or - and maybe you could from the matriarch, but not much piint as you can use cv/gate from the matriarch - if you are not going to use midi then in buying the palette you already paid for 1/2 a midi converter - buying a mantis you pay nothing for midi converter unless you want/need one
In regards to listening to the Matriarch, my current setup is directly from the main outputs into a Saffire pro 40 interface. This shouldn't be affected by the use of Eurorack as long as I patch everything back into the Matriarch mixer right?
you can patch straight from the rack into the interface - no need to go via the matriarch unless you want to - just make sure your gain staging is ok - possibly attenuate signals from the rack (some passive attenuators will do the job)
"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