Rack of the Month - June 2024

Our goal for the first rack of the month was to showcase some of the Canadian modular manufacturers that we have at the shop - Motley Modular and Jroo from Ottawa, Omnitone from Kingston, Intellijel in Vancouver and System80 from Toronto. This is a straightforward build that can work as a simple two-voice synth, with a sequencer and a looper. Paired with a Keystep it can be a fun little jamming rig!

The Melodi and Quadar from Omnitone pair together very nicely - the gates generated from the Melodi serve very well as the inputs for the A/R envelopes of the Quadar. The System80 810 voice comes with its own filter and amplifer, and sounds rich and full just on its own. Intellijel's Dixie II+ serves as the other oscillator. The Jroo Loop serves as a flexible delay effect or looper - it brings a lot of power to this simple rack, allowing you to loop and overdub melodic phrases and add some interesting sustain. The Motley Modular Aydabtu is a compressor that can be used to give an individual voice more punch or glue together the mix. The Omnitone Lopas is a nice inclusion as a passive low-pass filter, particularly for this rack with limited power outlets on the bus board.

See the list below for the full rack breakdown. Thanks for checking it out, and stay tuned for some demonstrations of it in action!

Make Noise 104HP Skiff	A 104 HP Skiff. This straightforward skiff holds 3U modules. Make noise is one of our American friends that seems to have squeezed into our Canadian feature.
Omnitone Melodi	The Omnitone Melodi is a random sequence generator. It can be tuned in endless ways to capture the mood and noise you're looking for. Sequences generated by Melodi can be prompted by the push of a button or triggered through the trigger in. Looping can be toggled on and. Restarting the loop can be triggered through a button push or input. There are endless ways of tuning the Melodi all reflected in the colourful LED lights running through the module.
Omnitone Quadar	The Omnitone Quadar is an analog 4 channel slew rate limiter which can be used as a attack and release envelope generator. Attack and release time can be controlled independently with knobs and through a signal.
Intellijel Passive Mult	The Intellijel Mult 3U is a dual 4 way passive signal multiplier capable of taking an audio or cv signal and sends it to three unbuffered outputs. As the Mult is passive, it does not need any power in your setup.
System80 810	The System80 810 Mk2 is a complete three-in-one subtractive voice module. It has a VCO, VCF And VCA packed into a sleek, easy to read 30HP module. This module is a wonderfully full bodied vintage sounding analog voice.
Intellijel Triplatt	The intellijel Triplatt is a three channel active or buffered attentuverter and summing mixer. An attenuverter is the magic that inverts the incoming signal's polarity whereas the attenuator is the magic that maps signal to the difference of the voltage and zero volts. Each channel has a knob, which can function as a unipolar attenuator or a bipolar attenuverter, depending on the setting of its corresponding two-position polarity switch. Each output is normalled to mix the outout of the below channel allowing the module to be used in the creation of submixes. In addition to all of this, each channel has a special feature which uniquely alters the input voltage. Channel A doubles voltage, Channel B adds +5V to the input signal and Cannel C has a mute switch completely silencing the signal sent into that channel.
Intellijel Dixie 2+	The Intellijel Dixie 2+ is a complete analog oscillator with six waveform ouputs, PWM, sync and FM outputs. This module is packed with features including an eight position octave switch, a hard sync input, and fine tuning knobs which convert to coarse knobs in fine tuning mode.
Intellijel µVCA	The Intellijel µVCA is a compact dual channel VCA adapted from a design by David G. Dixon. It has a endlessly adjustable curve response, linear to exponential, and can serve as a 2 channel mixer. It includes dedicated CV attenuators and LEDs for monitoring the CV signals.
Motley Aydabtu	The Motley Modular AYDABTU is a fully analog, compact, high performance compressor. It features reverse power protection, a high performance 4305 audio engine and features a bilingual front panel. When flipped, the front panel features french labeling! Weighing in at only 2HP, this compressor focuses on power over bulk and can slip into any set up without compromising on space.
Jroo Loop	The Jroo Music Machines Lop is a digital tape loop module featuring dual mono tape loop, echo and delay utilization with adjustable tape speed play position, feedback and levels. The loop length is customizable up to two and a half minutes with manual and CV control.
Omnitone Lopas	The Omnitone Lopas is a passive low pass filter. It features five filters each with a difference cutoff frequency at -6dB per octave. No need to sacrifice a VCF as this module has no resonance. It is a fantastic, slim solution for quieting noisy modules or filtering your sound for a new vibe.
Intellijel Mixup	The Intellijel Mixup is a chainable audio utility mixer in either mono or stereo. It has the capability to combine mono and stereo sources into a single stereo mix with mute and level controls fort the first three channels. Using a rear connector, chain multiple Mixupos together with the super secret hidden fifth stereo channel. Mixups can also be chained using bus connectors allowing even more inputs and the ability to create sub-mixes in larger systems. This module uses AC coupled circuitry and logarithmic attenuators for the smoothest audio across it's volume range.
Intellijel Outs	The Intellijel Outs 3U is your gateway to external amplifiers, mixers, recording devices and DAW interfaces. Using the L+R Level knob, it scales modular-level voltages down to the level required to drive external gear at either the +4dBu balanced professional line-level standard or the -10 dbV unbalanced standard. It features a headphone amp which allows for built in monitoring, and LEDs to monitor the modular input signals. The left input is normalized to the right allowing mono compatibility and, if using with a Mixup, can be connected through a rear 3-pin link cable.