Midweek Modular: NAMM, Dual CS-20, Sibilla and a White Rabbit
4,8 / 5,0 | 
A sprinkling of modular at NAMM made it worth our interest, while we discovered a dual MS-20 filter, a digital drone oscillator and followed a White Rabbit.
But first, NAMM doesn’t seem to be as exciting for synths and modular these days. Maybe it’s too close the Superbooth and will be more interesting when it returns to its January roots in 2024. However, there were a few bits worth mentioning.
First and foremost the intimidating Cascadia from Intellijel. A complete complex modular system in a semi-modular form that combines East and West coast synthesis in a very modular-focused package. Read more about it here.
Verbos Electronics had a great looking three channel envelope follower and pitch gatherer for bringing external instruments into your modular and making great use out of them. Read more about it here.
4MS kicked off a new range of DIY modules that aim to be simple and creative. The first two are a Looping Delay and a Sampler. Read more about them here.
And Modbap released the Meridian, a dual inter-spliced multimode filter array. Which is a clever of saying stereo filter with some cool effects and configuration options. Read more about it here.
Midweek Modular
Here are the other bits of modular that didn’t make it to NAMM that caught my eye this week.
Error Instruments White Rabbit
An interesting collaboration with modular makers This is Not Rocket Science (TiNRS). If you bring together two eclectic designers it’s got to result in something good. White Rabbit is an experimental Delay and Reverb module. Each effect has three options starting with a normal effect, then a more experimental approach and finishing up with something appropriately mad.
The two CV inputs, X and Y, allow you to steer different pathways through the effects. Depending on the mode, they take on things like time, feedback, depth, and modulation.
White Rabbit is a good-looking module designed for messing about that will inject some weirdness into your modular.
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Clatters Machines Sibilla
Talking of weirdness, we were invited to navigate the mountains of Sibilla to generate harmonic and sub-harmonic topologies of noise-influenced saw waves. I think Sibilla is a drone machine with internal LFOs and two competing sound sources. It’s digital, fascinating and can be used as a regular oscillator if you can fathom out what’s going on.
The sounds coming from the demo video are really interesting and suggest that it could be worth our time to find a way behind the mysteriousness.
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- Clatters Machines website.
CubuSynth Dual CS-20 VCF
The CS-20 is a filter module based on the Korg MS-20 filter and asks the question, what would happen if you put two MS-20 filters in one module? The answer is that you get two channels of phase-inducing, resonant screaming, face-oscillating filtering.
It can be a stereo filter, independent or in series. The central knob takes control of both cutoff frequencies for quick and devastating control. You can morph from lowpass to highpass via bandpass for a full range of timbres.
CubuSynth is keen for you to push the CS-20 into self-oscillation, and you are rewarded with glowing green LEDs around the cutoff knob. With both filters oscillating you have a lot of opportunity for cross FM modulation and phase effects giving it a whole other vibe.
This is a very fun filter.
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- CubuSynth website.
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