Is it really done? I’ve spent a lot of time looking over Eurorack modules on Modular Grid over the past six years since I started accumulating Eurorack. It can be addictive. For the most part I’ve concentrated on finding modules that fit my two approaches to electronic sounds: improvising with small cases and patching complex “automatic music”.

Here’s a link to a rack of all these modules (and a few more, not in a case) on Modular Grid.

Some people must look at this collection and scratch their heads, because of what seems to be missing: sequencers, samplers, drums, and MIDI. (Well, there are at least two modules here with some fixed samples. Can you find them?) I tried MIDI and sequencing before I settled on my approaches. It turned out that I am drawn more to events than to notes. More to accidental harmonies than planned ones. More to irregularities than regularities. Robotical, perfectly timed beats are not very interesting to me (unless very fast or very slow). My aim is to make electronic sounds structured after the model of natural sounds of animals I hear, sitting on my deck. Clouds drifting across the sky. Boats bobbing in the water at a dock. And I want the sounds to be especially electronic, not like the timbres of traditional musical instruments. Electronic sounds structured like natural sounds, but not imitating them.

What’s the purpose? As John Cage said in response to this question, “No purposes, only sounds.”