Tuesday 1 March 2011

New Paia modules

I ordered 3 new Paia modules which arrived today - amazingly, customs only held them up for 2 days! I ordered a Noise Source, a Balanced Modulator and a Passive Mixer/Splitter from the new 9700 series of Frac modules. The Noise Source & Balanced Modulator are to go in the main Frac case, and the Splitter is for a separate sequencing case.



Looking at the new modules, I'm very impressed with the build quality. In fact, I don't know how they manage to sell them so cheaply. The front panels are very nicely done - they have the same 'mottled' paint effect as the 5U MOTM stuff - a very professional finish.



They are also very shallow - of the 3 I got, the deepest is barely 2 inches.

I've already given the Noise Source a quick test - it gives 3 different outputs, 2 of which are filtered versions of the main White Noise. Most of the output level seems to come from the far end of the pot travel, but most of the time this will be fed into a mixer or into the Bugcrusher, so I don't think that's a problem.

Based on these 3 I'd recommend getting a few of these modules - they are great value (even when having to pay customs duty).

Saturday 26 February 2011

New modules on the way

I had to wait until the New Year before ordering up some more modules to finish up my Frac case. On the way are a Paia noise generator, balanced modulator and passive mixer/splitter; from Blacet, a Binary Zone, Window Comparator and Cloud Generator (this is the repackaged Synth Tech E340).

I also took delivery today of a BugBrand Wavefolder - they are starting to offer some modules in minijack again, the Wavefolder is the first.

Some things I need to finish off are a Fonitronik VCPS & MFOS Quantiser. I've spent too long trying to finalise a panel design for the VCPS, but I think I'm just about there now and have worked out all the hardware mounting issues.

Once they're done, they'll go into a 'sequencing' case - 1 row consisting of the VCPS, Quantiser, Binary Zone, Seq Switch & Divider.