Saturday, October 11, 2025
Designing a Eurorack Module interface | Instruō - ceithir
video upload by Instruō
"Hello!
Welcome to a video I’ve been wanting to make for a long time.
Instruō actually began as a video project. Specifically a time-lapse of me designing the original troika module. Ten years later, I’ve returned to that idea with ceithir, a winter holiday project I designed with video documentation in mind.
This video explores the initial design stages: sketching, layout, and concept development. There are vlog sections and time-lapse sequences with new voiceover commentary.
If you’ve ever wondered how an Instruō module design begins, this video captures that process in full.
~~~
For these early stages of Instruō I have Josh Holley (Malekko/Dark Place MFG) for his support and encouragement at a time where I really needed it ♥
I’ve done the occasional behind-the-scenes video documenting module design. I actually have terabytes and terabytes of footage recorded from most of my designs over the past five years or so.
But these have all been captured pretty piecemeal and would likely feel a little abstract.
(Here is an introduction to the ceithir with more detailed project background and sound examples.) [posted here]
The ceithir is a project I approached with video documentation in mind. It was a winter holiday project I focused on during my Christmas break in 2024.
I documented the entire development of the ceithir, but I’ve focused in on specific stages of my design process as their own self-contained video features.
The initial design stage of any module I’ve done is always the most abstract. I find it’s a similar headspace to writing music. There’s a certain vagueness that can be frustrating, but once the process gets underway it becomes quite satisfying. This first sketch also sets up the subsequent stages of design, which bring their own challenges but tend to feel a little less... solitary.
By that I mean the interface layout and design stage works best for me when I’m out of the office and specifically not at my main work desk. The sketching takes as long as it takes, so a bit of an open schedule is helpful as well.
In this video, I’ve combined a sequence of recorded sessions. Some of these are screencast vlogs between design binge sessions.
I start by talking through the features and functionality I came up with for the ceithir, which I have in a master bullet point list.
I then alternate between condensed time-lapse recordings of my sketching process and screencasts.
Over the time-lapse sections, I recorded new voiceover narration describing what’s happening on screen.
The two programs I use in this video are Adobe Illustrator for all graphical design work, and EagleCAD for component layout and placement.
I now use KiCAD for all my actual PCB design, but I’ve used Eagle for so many years during this stage that, as clunky as its interface is, I’ve built a lot of ingrained muscle memory navigating it for component placement experiments.
Please feel welcome to join the Instruō Discord server.
It’s a growing community that shares creative ideas, technical support, and general chat. It’s becoming a really nice place to share projects like the ceithir.
I hope you enjoy!
Cheers
~Jason
00:00:00 Instruōduction
00:04:54 Pre-design feature rundown - Cast 24/Dec/2025
00:16:02 Single filter component placement. Time-lapse with commentary
00:22:23 Component placement iterations - Cast 25/Dec/2025
00:29:59 Quad filter component placement. Time-lapse with commentary
00:33:33 58HP component placement rundown - Cast 25/Dec/2025
00:36:32 Interface graphic design. Time-lapse with commentary
01:00:04 Wrap up
PREVIOUS PAGE
NEXT PAGE
HOME
© Matrixsynth - All posts are presented here for informative, historical and educative purposes as applicable within fair use.
MATRIXSYNTH is supported by affiliate links that use cookies to track clickthroughs and sales. See the privacy policy for details.
MATRIXSYNTH - EVERYTHING SYNTH













© Matrixsynth - All posts are presented here for informative, historical and educative purposes as applicable within fair use.
MATRIXSYNTH is supported by affiliate links that use cookies to track clickthroughs and sales. See the privacy policy for details.
MATRIXSYNTH - EVERYTHING SYNTH
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: To reduce spam, comments for posts older than 7 days are not displayed until approved (usually same day).