Hey everyone!

I'm in the process of building out my first rack and I'm hoping for criticism and guidance. I'm pretty new to this and having done a ton of reading on this forum and hours of listening to Youtube demos, I got overwhelmed and decided to ask for your help.

I started out with Befaco Oneiroi and Mother 32, fell in love with the sound and the possibilities, and I want to build a rack instrument with dirty industrial synths, dark ambient drones and irregular noise rhythms.

Musical inspirations: Skinny Puppy, Meshuggah, Moderat, Brian Eno, Nine Inch Nails, MZ.412, Burial, Autechre, Front 242.

I'm not planning to perform live, but I want hands-on controls and as little menu diving as possible.

Here's the breakdown:

Misc

• Case: planning to go for TipTop Mantis
• I have the Oxi One, which will be doing clock, sequencing and lots of modulation.
• Audio mixing is done into RME Fireface UCX II and eventually recorded into Ableton (but I don't want to have the computer hooked up to the system on a daily basis)

Voices

1. Mother 32 - already have it, will pull it out if I need space for more modules. Love the sound on this thing.
2. Coral - it's a bit complicated but I figured it's a ton of functionality per HP + integrates well with Oxi One.
3. Oneiroi - already have it, absolutely love it.
4. (not Euro) Digitakt 2 - already have it, for drums and samples.

Modulation

1. Oxi One - serves clock, sequencing, envelopes, LFOs, triggers, pitch etc.
2. Zadar - envelope generation, mostly for Oneiroi. I love the visual feedback from the screen.
3. Polimaths - I don't fully understand it…but it seems like it can give me tons of CV modulation to create unpredictability and polyrhythmic grooves.

Effects

1. Ruina Versio - distortion, noise. I love how it sounds, hands-on control looks fun + super flexible, as I can flash other modules onto it.
2. Mimeophon - delay, reverb, looper. I'm looking for an excellent-sounding delay/reverb that can do weird things if needed, and after hearing a million demos, this seems to be it. It sounds almost as good as Starlab to my ears, and its capability to do weird sounds very fun and musical to me.

Utilities

1. Oxi Pipe - 8x CV and 8x gates from Oxi One.
2. FH-2 - MIDI from Oxi One for even more modulation. Makes me wonder if I need Zadar?
3. Warna II - looks very cool and useful, but I'm not sure if I need it, since there is a simple mult in Mother 32 and Polimaths is so powerful.
4. Nano ALT - this seems to be the most feature per HP quad VCA I could find.

What do you think? What am I missing? Thanks for looking!!

You look to be on the right track.

Good choice of first case. I'd suggest removing the Mother into it's own case to create more room but you can come to that point organically as your system grows.

Perhaps look into additional utilites such as switches (quad sequential, et al.).

LFOs also seem underrepresented unless you want OXI One handling all of those.

Maybe a filter?

You may also eventually find yourself wanting additional vcas.

You're probably best off working with the above for a while and seeing what limitations you're bumping up against, and adding capabilities based on that.

Best of luck!!

Edit: I just realized you had polimaths vs. normal maths. Unless you're planning on expanding with Make Noise's New Universal Skiff System, you may be better off running a regular ol' maths? I'm not very familiar with the NUSS, so don't quote me on that, though.

EDITED Yesterday, 15:46

Good choice of first case. I'd suggest removing the Mother into it's own case to create more room but you can come to that point organically as your system grows.

That's the plan!

Perhaps look into additional utilites such as switches (quad sequential, et al.).

Literally never heard of those. Thanks, I'm off to read about them!

LFOs also seem underrepresented unless you want OXI One handling all of those.

Yes, that's the plan for now - Oxi gives me 8 CVs + Zadar for many more.

Maybe a filter?

What would you recommend for industrial? I was looking at Doepfer A-124 (Wasp), Bastl Ikarie and WMD C4RBN.

You may also eventually find yourself wanting additional vcas.

Definitely yes!

Edit: I just realized you had polimaths vs. normal maths. Unless you're planning on expanding with Make Noise's New Universal Skiff System, you may be better off running a regular ol' maths? I'm not very familiar with the NUSS, so don't quote me on that, though.

I was under the impression that Polimaths works well stand-alone, but I'll look into NUSS. Maybe I want to get into it and I just don't know it yet :)

Thanks for your comments, super helpful!!

Good choice of first case. I'd suggest removing the Mother into it's own case to create more room but you can come to that point organically as your system grows.

That's the plan!

Perhaps look into additional utilites such as switches (quad sequential, et al.).

Literally never heard of those. Thanks, I'm off to read about them!

LFOs also seem underrepresented unless you want OXI One handling all of those.

Yes, that's the plan for now - Oxi gives me 8 CVs + Zadar for many more.

Maybe a filter?

What would you recommend for industrial? I was looking at Doepfer A-124 (Wasp), Bastl Ikarie and WMD C4RBN.

You may also eventually find yourself wanting additional vcas.

Definitely yes!

Edit: I just realized you had polimaths vs. normal maths. Unless you're planning on expanding with Make Noise's New Universal Skiff System, you may be better off running a regular ol' maths? I'm not very familiar with the NUSS, so don't quote me on that, though.

I was under the impression that Polimaths works well stand-alone, but I'll look into NUSS. Maybe I want to get into it and I just don't know it yet :)

Thanks for your comments, super helpful!!
-- Pe8er

Right on! :)

Re: Filters. These are a very personal choice, and I don't have much experience with Industrial, but I can say Ikarie and Wasp are highly thought of in general, and sort of "classics," especially the Wasp. I'd say go with your ears, though, when making a choice.

Re: Mixing. How do you plan on mixing your various voices and signal flows? I'd probably put this above even switching, but forgot to specifically mention it above.

Thanks a lot!!

Re: Mixing. How do you plan on mixing your various voices and signal flows? I'd probably put this above even switching, but forgot to specifically mention it above.

I've got a RME Fireface that I use for mixing and matrix routing.