Modular Monthly

Randomising explored

Winter Modular came into the Eurorack scene last year when they announced their debut module, the Eloquencer, at the Superbooth event in Berlin.

The module looked packed with musical features and outputs. Its eight CV outputs and gate outputs make it a perfect module for controlling lots of voices, drum tracks and/or more complex modulation, across a small or large system. The module is also built around the concept of chance – but with lots of control over how those random functions operate. You can decide when and where randomness will take place and how that randomness will affect your sequences. So even for those rigid random haters out there, maybe just having one step in your 16-step sequence – that might change the probability of a gate firing or its pitch changing – can go a long way. Of course, for those of us who love controlled musical uses of random, you can go from controlled to chaotic and back again in lots of musical ways. You can randomise CV (pitch), gate probability, gate length, ratcheting (think those lovely Tangerine Dream rhythmic bursts, or Trap style hi-hat flurries) all of which give you different ways to make permanently evolving patterns.

The module really is a very capable addition to a system, no doubt a consequence of Barcelona’s Winter Modular working with various people to bring it to life. It was great to see some of the best designers and engineering minds focussing on modular – there’s definitely big things stirring in that part of the world.