Instruo Troika | Life after Retirement

video upload by Cinematic Laboratory

"One of the first Instruo modules I am aware of is Troika. It's a three oscillator VCO that started as a hand made heavy brass panel module and was officially retired a month ago. There aren't much videos around except for the official 'how it's made' and a handful of videos from a time where Eurorack was still a niche (six years ago). The official lifespan is 2016-2023. Honestly, I never had much interest in the Troika until I gave it a try last Jamuary in VCV Rack. It sounds absolutely amazing and it immediately went to my wishlist. When Instruo announced the module's retirement I got one.
My module has serial 22 so I can't help wondering how old 'brand new' really is.

When I started to make this video, my mindset was 'Moog/Subtractive/Eastcoast' because of the 3-Osc design. I recreated the mimimoog layout with a few special guests like Maths and Clouds, and AJH Transistor Ladder as the iconic Moog filter.

It's been three days of enjoying cool music and this morning I realized how important a 3-Osc VCO is for approximating 99.9% of the best 80's sounds ever. It sounds more like an ARP 2600 because of all the patchpoints (and Maths as the LFO). It got even better when I swapped the ladder filter for Instruo's 1047 multimode filter which was part of the older ARP 2500. So my personal conclusion is that Troika is a super interesting VCO for anyone with a love for the 70's-80's and want to go a few steps further than the Moog and the ARP can offer.

I was able to buy a used one about a year ago, but decided not to do it, because I did not see any added value to the stuff I alread have. I can now say, if you find a reasonably priced used one, it's worth it."