JLR's Modular Synthesizers - System Breakdown #15

video upload by John L Rice

"This is my fifteenth video breakdown/rundown, this time for my largest system, the mighty 5U "wall"! 🥳 This is likely the last installment of this series.

Index:
0:00 Beginning
2:23 Preface
4:30 Introduction
5:28 Section 1

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NEW Mellotron Micro Module - 2025 review and demonstration video

video upload by Now You Know

"Review of the new for 2025, Mellotron Micro Module. Basically a Mellotron Micro without the keyboard. Use your own controller keyboard with the Mellotron Micro Module. Review the micro module for its sound, functions, price point. In 2025, the Mellotron Micro is retailing for around $500 USD. I paid $695 CAD. Thanks @MellotronFactory for this wonderful instrument."

This one is in via John L Rice.

New CLUB OF THE KNOBS Modules For a Colourful Winter Time

This one was sent my way via John L Rice, via CLUB OF THE KNOBS.

"For a colourful winter time:

CP19 FOUR VOICE MIDI ADAPTER

C921P VOLTAGE CONTROLLED DUAL OSCILLATOR

p.s.

Also NEW in 2025 [not pictured, but mentioned in Dec 2024]

NEW! 2025
NEW! CP18 CHROMATIC TUNER
NEW! C929 VOX HUMANA (in addition to C1610 RESONATORS/FIXED MODIFIERS)"

http://www.cluboftheknobs.com

Rest In Peace Jon Andersen

video upload by Jon Andersen

Friday morning classical guitar and strings

video upload by Jon Andersen

This one is in via John L Rice who had the following to say:

"'Just me' on ModWiggler spotted this Facebook post of Jon Andersen’s family seeking help and information on selling his Synthesizers.com modular. They posted a link to a video of his from 5 years ago of a performance he did with his modular and a couple keyboards. He only had one other video where he plays guitar and a keyboard."

Both videos are featured above.

Click through the Facebook link if you'd like to help or just leave your condolensces.

Hans Zimmer Next Level Giorgio III Monumental 5U Modular System

Hans Zimmer 2025 - Batman Dark Knight - Opening - Cologne / Köln - Next Level Live

video upload by C3|Nik

Pics and details below. First the video description:

"Some thoughts regarding the "Hans Zimmer - The Next Level" concert:

Amazing! Amazing! AMAZING!

I went to all shows of Hans Zimmer, some I've seen even multiple times. The sound quality of "Next Level" blew them all out of the water. It was louder, it was more intense, really top notch sound engineering. That part at 5:50 in the video was extremely intense, I have never experienced that kind of bass before. I sat close to the front, there was a line of subwoofers right in front of me, I would not be surprised if that part causes some anxiety for people, that's how intense it was.

Some pieces were re-arranged which was an interesting touch, it added a nice new dimension to it.

I can recommend it. It is expensive but a one-of-a-kind experience in my opinion."

Update: SynTesla video below added.

GIORGIO III, Hans Zimmer's monumental synthesiser manufactured by SynTesla

video upload by SynTesla

"SynTesla is the manufacturer of the gigantic GIORGIO III modular synthesiser commissioned by Hans Zimmer for his world tour 'Hans Zimmer Live The Next Level'. Discover the unboxing and assembly of this fabulous instrument."



This one is in via John L Rice.

via pidjyman on Mod Wiggler:

"The Giorgio III is a monumental 5U Modular synthesiser created by SynTesla (Pierre-Jean Tardiveau, aka pidjyman on MW) for composer Hans Zimmer for his world tour.

This synthesizer is undoubtedly the largest modular synth in the world, consisting of 12 cabinets measuring 5 x 5U + 1 x 3U in height. Only 10 cabinets are installed on stage, with two others serving as back-up behind the scenes.

This monster represents 10 months of hard work in total. 23 types of modules were designed and produced in large numbers. To give you an example, the synth is composed of 3 separate units of 4 voices each, for a total of 12 voices, with 2 VCOs, 2 DCOS, 2 filters, 6 DADSRs, 6 VCAs, 1 resonator, 4 LFOs, buffered multis, logic, attenuators, attenuverter, mixers, wavefolders, gate delays, summing mixers, etc. etc...

The modules were manufactured in France by Syntesla and designed by Yusynth and SynTesla. They were assembled in Los Angeles at Hans Zimmer's studios and then shipped to Germany for final assembly on the tour stage.

When the synth arrived in Oberhausen, Hans Zimmer had never seen it before (he was rehearsing in London while it was being assembled in LA), and I can promise you that his smile in the photo is not fake (neither is mine).

The electrical part of the cabinets was also designed and built by SynTesla. It includes an oversized power supply with a capacity of 10 amps, an active filter that provides perfectly stable and clean voltage, and a power distribution board in SynTesla and DotCom format, as well as an integrated voltmeter and ammeter. The whole system has several levels of safety.

This made it possible to connect each cabinet to a solid-state relay socket controlled by DMX from the lighting console. The robustness of the device allows the whole or part of the system to be switched on and off in sequence, depending on the pieces being played on stage."

Remembering Gert Jalass of MOON MODULAR

John L Rice wrote in to let us know today is the late Gert Jalass' birthday. I met Gert a few times at NAMM, and John would often man the Moon Modular Booth. Gert was a great, kind soul. I miss his smile; I miss his presence.

John mentioned the Moon Modular website has had a few updates since his passing. The About and History pages are worth a look.

You will find the following there:

LUNAR MAGIC | Gert Jalass’ Work of Life

as well as

THE HISTORY OF MOON MODULAR 2002 - 2025.

Steffen Marienberg of Marienberg Devices Has Passed Away

Some sad news in via John L Rice, via the Sequencer.de forums

Google translation of attached funeral notice:

“We are sad that we have lost you. We are grateful that we were able to live with you. Steffen Marienberg *September 30, 1961 +August 19, 2025 In silent mourning: his Sigrid, his brother Holger, and all relatives. Alterode, August 2025. The funeral service, followed by the urn burial, will take place on Saturday, September 13, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. at the Hoym cemetery.”

Marienberg was a maker of 5U modules. You can find the Marienberg website at http://marienbergdevices.de/.

See the Marienberg label for a posts dating back to 2013 featuring their gear.

Tube based 5U System Coming in 2026 From Knifonium Maker Jonte Knif

You might recall the Knifonium from previous posts here.

John L Rice wrote in to let us know Jonte Knif is working on a tube based 5U System. Pictured here are a few images John pulled from Facebook.

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Can You Guess What This Is?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by CinePost (@cineposthouse)

This one is in via John L Rice.
"Wendy Carlos hidden gem in a stereo 35 mm optical Jiffy Test Film for test doby stereo."

“Liar, Liar, 960 Denier!” 😅

video upload by John L Rice

"I’ve been getting a bit burnt out doing endless video editing lately so when my friend David (Kindred Lost) made a nice cover/demo of his Moog 960 style sequencer doing the bass sequence from Tangerine Dream’s 'Rubycon' and said 'nothing but the 960 can do this' so I fired up my trusty Moon 569 sequencer to see if I could do it too! 🤓 David’s demo sound much more 'Moogy' that mine and is closer to the original TD track, I mainly just wanted to see if I could recreate similar patterns. Check out David's video 👌😎: • Franke and Ruby [posted here]

I used the following modules:
Moon Modular: 569 sequencer
Oakley: Slim VCO B (as VC clock)
Marienberg: Envelope Generator A, VC Sine Phase Oscillator
Noise Engineering: Cursus Iteritas Magnus VCO
STG Soundlabs: Post-Lawsuit Lowpass Filter
Synthetic Sound Labs: Tube VCA, Quad LFO
Synthesizers.com: Q125 Signal Processor

Also:
Allen & Heath: MixWizard 20S
Lexicon: MX400
Strymon: BigSky, Timeline"

The “Thing” The Great Seal Bug.

video upload by Behind Designs

This one is in via John L Rice.

"WW2 & Cold war weapons and spy gadgets were truly amazing! Have you ever wondered about the history of RFID and how it works? It was originally developed and first used as a Soviet cold war spying device. The Thing or The Great Seal bug as it was known, sat on the wall of a US ambassadors office for 7 years completely undetected listening into American secrets. The technology behind this revolutionary device now resides in your pocket in the form of Radio Frequency Identification. or RFID. Thank you so much to everyone who has subscribed and supported the channel so far.

Music Credits Lord of the dawn - Jesse Gallagher
Maestro Tlakaelel - Jesse Gallagher

Research, Script, Voice Over, Animations, 3D Modelling, Rendering, Editing. - Me"

Interesing bit of history regarding Leon Theremin.

New GRP A10 Flagship Synthesizer Incoming

These in via John L Rice.

Left: front panel layout.

Below: PDF with full details. Click on each pic to zoom in.

Update: "The Grp A10 will cost €10,000* plus VAT and will be available at the end of 2026."

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Synthesizers.com Joins synthCube

Some news sent my way via John L Rice

via synthCube on modwiggler:

"We are happy to announce here (first) that Synthesizers.com will be joining our portfolio of synthCube brands here just outside of Boston. We spent the weekend packing all of the assets, inventory, demo units etc into trucks and will be taking the next few weeks to get everything set up again in our shop. We owe much gratitude to Roger Arrick for the initial effort to design and start the company in the first place, to James Allen and others who took on Dotcom when Roger passed it along to them, and to the most recent owners for their stewardship of Dotcom in the interim. If you're a designer / maker of dotcom/MU 5U modules, we hope that this helps re-energize interest in your products too... frankly, the more options that customers have, the better for those customers and for the format itself. Part of how we will measure success is NOT by how many makers we put out of business, rather it will be how many makers will now grow faster, and how many new makers might come in and create more dotcom/MU 5U innovations? We'll post more details about future plans here and in other channels when we have some time, and we look forward to hearing your feedback, ideas, and suggestions on how best to inspire and support the current generations of Dotcom users and how to improve the products and solutions for the next generation as well. We know Dotcom/5U won't ever be as popular as Eurorack, and that's OK; BUT we are equally confident that there will always be a place for high quality, large format, serious synth instruments and modules and 5U will be around for the long haul. How does that saying go? 'We liked the product so much we bought the company.'

Monika and Chris"

Moon Modular Joins SYNTH-WERK

Some good news for Moon Modular fans via SYNTH-WERK:

“After long and intensive meetings, discussions and formal obligations we can say today that Moon Modular is now a SYNTH-WERK company. We will continue the legacy of our friend Gert Jalass and will start the work on modules in the near future. We miss you Gert but your legend will live on...”

This one is in via John L Rice who noted: "Also on the 5th they announced a 5U module version pf their Bode Barberpole Phaser and yesterday announced their final version of their keyboard controller." The SW 955-CONTACT picured below.

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Eurorack Modular - Post Rearrangement Test May 6 2025

video upload by John L Rice

"Testing the lid of my briefcase Eurorack synth after recent changes. The following brands and modules are used:

Five12 Vector sequencer
Synth Tech E352 VCO and E440 VCF
Bubblesound VCA4p
Erica Synths Black Octasource LFO
CalSynth uPeaks for EGs (clone of Mutable Instruments Peaks)
Tiptop Audio Z5000 for delay and reverb
Circuit Abbey Unify mixer"

April 30th 2025 Patch Variation #2

video upload by John L Rice

"Just exploring the patch as one tends to do. Here I’m using a second Moon Modular 569 sequencer to control the first one instead of the sequential switch I used in the previous video [posted here]. The result was simpler but still interesting to me. I also changed up the synth voice a bit, using a MegaOhm LPG instead of the SSL tube VCA and processing its output with an Oakley/Krisp1 Flanger."

Using Moon Modular Sequential Divider Switches To Control Sequencer Step Position

video upload by John L Rice

"I’ve long loved the Moon Modular 564 Sequential Switch (directly inspired by the PPG 313) and love the Moon 569 sequencer as well, but I’ve often wished that the 569 somehow had an additional row of switches that could be used to set how many clock pulses a step would stay on each position like the 564 does. This is my attempt to use two 564 switches with the 569 to make it happen, with some limitations. Of course using an external voltage controlled clock to drive the sequencer with one of the sequencer rows controlling the clock can achieve similar results, but that sort of patch isn’t as predictably playable."

Quick Test Of Small Eurorack Synth

video upload by John L Rice

"Yet another rearrangement! ☺️
Synthrotek
Behringer
Happy Nerding
The Harvestman/Industrial Music Electronics
Erica Synths
2hp
4ms"

MOTM / Synthesis Technology's Paul Schreiber Has Passed Away

Paul Schreiber at CONTROL in 2018


It has come to my attention that Paul Schreiber has passed away.

Pictured: Paul Schreiber at the 2006 NAMM show. Top from this previous post (pic by fr1zz), and bottom from this post (pic by Synthtopia) - this is the first image of Paul on the site. There is one comment in that post: "He's a good guy." Indeed.

Readers of the site should be familiar with his work. He was the man behind MOTM and Synthesis Technology.

To say Paul was one of the greats to influence the synth community would be an understatement. He was pivital to the rebirth of modular synthesizers. He started when modular as we know it today was in its infancy, as one of a very small group of large format DIY modular manufacturers along with Blacet, Modcan, Cynthia, Wiard, Oakley, STG, Catgirl/CGS, Tellun/Lower West Side Studio YuSynth, Jurgen Haible, and of course DIY staples like Thomas Henry/ MFOS, Ray Wilson and PAiA (see this post for some modular formats back in 2007). I focused mainly on those offering DIY. There were other manufacturers including Synthesizers.com, Club of the Knobs, MOS-LAB, Moon Modular, MacBeth, CMS, and more. Feel free to mention others in the comments. This post is about Paul, but I think it's important to reflect on some of the large format modular manufactures he was amongst at the time.

Paul created the MOTM format of 5U modules in 1998. MOTM stood for Module of the Month offering monthly DIY kits. From Wikipedia: "MOTM was created by Paul Schreiber in 1998. The system was created in part due to the renewed interest in large-format analog modular systems that occurred in the late 1990s. Between 1998 and 2021, over 8000 modules were sold. The company, Synthesis Technology, also offered a limited number of modules in Eurorack[2] and Frac[3] format."

He was also helped design the Moog/Realistic MG-1. From Wikipedia: "In 1980, Moog Music was seeking to contract manufacture a mass-marketable synthesizer which could be sold via a large retailer. Moog representatives secured an appointment at the Radio Shack corporate offices for a 5-minute demonstration. Radio Shack approved the concept, and Paul Schreiber (then employed by Tandy Systems Development) worked together with Moog on the synthesizer's design to achieve Radio Shack's price requirements.[2][3]"

He later joined the eurorack scene with Synthesis Technology branded modules. FYI, his site for MOTM was always http://www.synthtech.com/, short for Synthesis Technology. The first post to mention Paul and MOTM was posted just under twenty years ago here on MATRIXSYNTH back on August 26, 2005. If you click through you will see it was a post announcing the MOTM/synthtech.com site was going down for the weekend. He announced he was retiring from the synthesizer business in August of 2023.

I beleive the first synthtech eurorack module was the MOTM E340 Cloud Generator. The first demos were posted on July 14, 2009, followed by a mockup of the front panel on July 20. The first post to mention Synthesis Technology was an Epic Son track by John L Rice in August of 2011. Since then there has been approximately 845 posts to feature MOTM, and at least 398 Synthtech.

You can find a number of interviews with Paul in previous posts here.

It's worth repeating, Paul Schreiber was one of the key figures that brought modular back to the masses. He was both respected and loved by the synth community. It's impossible to overstate his influence. He will be missed.

The following are the first the last video interviews with Paul to be featured on the site:

The SynthSummitShow Episode 2: Paul Schreiber (Synthesis Technology) and A.Dapt (music producer) ...

Streamed live on Oct 2, 2015 Flux302 of Fluxwithit.com. Details previously posted here.

SysEx Dumpster - Episode 44 - a conversation with Paul Schreiber
video upload by Sysex Dumpster on Jul 30, 2023. Details previously posted here.

The first videos to feature Paul presenting a module was back on January 3, 2010, and the first interview on SoundCloud in 2013, and he was of course featured in the modular documentary film I Dream of Wires.

Quick Test Of The Morphor Eurorack Sequencer

video upload by John L Rice

"The Morphor CV/Gate sequencer is impressively powerful for its tiny 4 hp size! 🤯"