I realized that in Eurorack I had few dedicated envelope generators. I was using universal slopes like Make Noise Function for a envelope duties, plus Stages and Just Friends. So I went shopping for a quad envelope generator. I looked at lots of videos of popular ones, such as Xaoc Zadar, Intellijel Quadrax, and Klavis Quadigy. Then I came across RYK Modular Envy Machine. I chose it for several reasons. First, it’s available as a kit from Thonk and Modular Addict. It also got a lot of love on the MOD WIGGLER forum from users familiar with several older quad envelopes. And it does a lot of other things, too!
Building the Kit
The kit comes with all SMD parts soldered. All the builder need do is solder jacks, encoders, push button switches, etc. This was slightly more difficult than some kits, due to having to solder in between SMD parts. The board has gold plating, but scant exposed metal land in places that made it harder to heat the lands for good solder flow.
Awesome Mechanical Design!
Enviable machining, I’d call it. The front panel is precision machined metal. The LED board is sandwiched between the front panel and the PCB with precise placement.
Check out the precision routed cuts for the LEDs and space (at top) for header pin clearance. Also note the two embedded standoffs for holding the PC board.
Loading the firmware
Among all the possible ways to load firmware into digital modules, I like this one the best. With module powered up, you connect it to your computer with the USB cable and — poof — there is a drive showing up on your file browser. Just drag the firmware file to it and you’re done.
First impressions
Even though operation is relatively simple, the modal interface, controlled by the gray and blue buttons, took me a while to get the hang of. At first I was pressing and releasing too quickly. I was monitoring the output of one channel on my scope. Turning the encoders to adjust parameters, I sensed a bit of lag and sometimes a surprise at the rate of adjustment, due to the acceleration when turning quickly.
Wave shapes, Clocking
The variable wave shape in all modes is one of my favorite features. It’s continuous from a standard log attack with exponential decay, through fully exponential, to rounded up to square. Linear is between rounded and square. The variable output level and offset adapts to just about any VCA.
While a gate is needed for the Envelope Generator modes (ADSR and AD), a gate works as a reset in LFO mode and in Random mode. In Random mode without clocking, the frequency is random as well as the level, until a clock is applied. Clocked Random with a square shape yields a standard stepped random voltage. I did notice, however, a 10ms delay from the time of the rising clock edge until the output steps. But all the possible wave shapes (under CV control to boot!), plus an optional offset, really adds value to the random feature. I expect to be using Random quite a bit, after my most anticipated use of simple AD envelopes.
