Photos of my electronic sounds studio as it is today.

The five small cases above were put together mainly for taking out to perform and collaborate with. From bottom to top we have the Synthux Academy Audrey 2, the IFM Mocante, Hexinverter Jupiter Storm DIY in a 4ms pod, IFM collection in an Intellijel case, Noise rack in the wood case built for me by Kri Samadhi.

The Mocante case and power are by Sound Machines. That, the Intellijel, the pod and the main ALA Adventure case are the only four out of fifteen cases where I bought the case and supply together. An all the rest I have installed a custom power system.

In this corner shot you see one of the Mackie HR824 near field speakers bolted to the walls. Also seen are a few 1/4 inch patch cords for the MOTM system that is on loan at the moment, the camera stand I use to make videos, and a spare oscilloscope.

• FURMAN PL+ Power Conditioner
• dbx DriveRack PA Speaker Management
• Two FMR Audio Really Nice Compressors (RNC)
• Denon DN-500R solid state recorder

The FURMAN Power Conditioner is one of two in my studio. Every piece of equipment is plugged into one or the other FURMAN.

The DriveRack PA manages up to three pairs of powered monitors. I control two pairs, the Mackies at the front and the iNSPIRE 1000s at the rear of the studio. I used it for equalization and limiting. It was necessary when I had home shows in the room with guest artists to keep the volume at a reasonable level with very transparent limiting.

The FMR RNC are stereo compressors that I use mainly for limiting the signal going into four channels of the Denon recorder. They plug into the insert jacks on the Allen & Heath ZED14 studio mixer.

The DENON recorder is used to capture my live experiments in sounds in 44.1 KHz, WAV file format. I record onto a memory card that I hand carry over to my computer for amplitude adjustments and MP3 conversion.

I chose the ZED14 mixer for its sound quality and routing options. I’ve had it for many years and it still works great. I take the USB output (white cable) to my iPhone to capture sound off the board (post limiting) when making videos.

From bottom to top, the banana jack modular racks are:

• A 2U blue panel of all CGS Serge
• The BugBrand modular
• CGS Serge in five 5U blue panels
• A 3U green panel of Nonlinear Circuits Eurorack modules in banana jacks
• A 4U Serge-ish rack
• The 2U Dual Benjolin

I have lots of posts about the Quantisise. Use the tag! The Quantisise rack also holds the second FURMAN power conditioner.

The Eurorack 6U case was bought used. I added my own analog power to this one. It takes a focus of pulse generators, switches and logic.

I’ve had this Synthrotek 9U wood case for many years, powered by two 4ms Row Power 40 modules. The module set has been changed dozens of times! Its focus is now on oscillators, envelope generators, VCAs, and mixers. You will notice banana cables running throughout, connecting the zero-volt (ground) terminal of each independent power supply to reduce return currents being carried over Eurorack cable shields. (This is a highly debated topic)

The three center cases are: one 64hp 4ms pod and two Pittsburgh Modular Cell 90 cases with upgraded power supplies. The pod holds mainly random CV generators and LFOs The Cell 90s collect miscellaneous modules.

The three cases above: top to bottom are a third Cell 90 with upgraded power that holds filters, the L-1 VC Stereo Mixer, and the Batumi v1 Quad LFO; a case of effects and output processing (mixing, equalization, saturation); and a second case of filters and effects (bottom row).

This case holds complex oscillators and a variety of other modules.

Simple patch cord storage in four plastic boxes. Shorter eurorack patch cords in the lower right, longer in the upper middle, stack cables to the left and at the very top of the pic is a box of Pomona banana cable, I color code patch cords for length, There’s my test rack at the upper left with the Joranalogue Test 3 modules for checking voltages and currents. The brown cardboard boxes hold jacks, jack hardware, and knobs.

The workbench is where I’ve built all the DIY modular gear since 2014. Cases of small parts, six cases underneath for large parts and unused modules, oscilloscope, static-free pad, etc.

If you use the case tag, you can discover more about each of the cases. See Modular Grid for a ridiculous case of All My 3U modules. I try to keep it up to date.

Even More!

Of course I have not shown here my collection of Ciat-Lonbarde instruments by Peter Blasser nor Peter’s circuits in plastic cases I’ve built over the years. You can find them by using the CIAT-LONBARDE category and corresponding tag.