Modulr Touch
Three touch plates for the low, the middle and the high of a drum sound, with no buttons and no keyboard at all.
Modulr Touch is a drum synthesizer after the Buchla 200’s touch-plate grammar: three plates for the low, middle and high bands, each with a pitch and a decay, played with no buttons and no keyboard at all. Twenty-six patches, each a tuned setting of the three bands.
26 kits, played as they ship.
Each clip is the plug-in itself: the patch is picked in the drawer and loaded, and its pattern runs from the Start key. Each patch is Modulr’s own groove for a style, named for what it is; it is not a copy of any record. The sound is the instrument’s own output, with no effects and no mastering.
A drum synthesizer you play with no keyboard at all.
- A disk of sources.Three touch plates: the low, the middle and the high of a drum sound, struck from the plates or from your host’s MIDI notes.
- A grid of source buttons.A pitch and a decay per band: strike harder and the band rings, tune it down and it sits under the beat.
- A sixteen-step phrase sequencer.The plates are the performance: hold one, roll across them, and the machine answers.
- An output mixer with a phone amplifier.The sound is the instrument’s own output, with no effects and no mastering.
- Patches that load the whole kit.Pick a patch and the three bands’ pitches, decays and levels all move to it at once; the drawer closes and the kit is ready to play.
- Services.Choose whether the instrument answers your host’s MIDI and clock, set its output level, and age it: the decay shortens and the tone softens.
What it needs.
| Format | Systems |
|---|---|
| VST3 · Audio Unit | macOS 11 or later, on Apple silicon |
The editor, and the module it becomes.
The plug-in is built. The Eurorack module is drawn, with its macro knobs and the control jacks under them, and is not.
Mock UI — drawn by the specification’s own kit, not a screenshot of a shipped editor. Values are illustrative, not measured. The study is Buchla 200’s grammar, redrawn in Modulr’s own words, and nothing on it is measured against the instrument.
Buchla 200, 1970.
The instrument’s own grammar, as the catalogue recalls it: the sections, the controls and the look the study borrows.
The touch-plate drum grammar: three large touch plates for the low, middle and high bands, each with its own pitch and decay, a pulse and a noise generator behind them, and one shared output.
A warm brushed aluminium panel in 26 HP: the name under a row of three small touch plates, eight black knobs with a coloured pointer each and its own control jack under it, and a dark jack bay along the bottom.
- Three touch plates: for the low, the middle and the high bands of a drum sound
- Each plate gives a pitch and a decay
- A pulse and a noise generator behind the plates
- Two envelopes
- A shared output
- Banana jacks throughout
- No keyboard and no buttons
The module, knob by knob.
The macros are the signature controls a player reaches for, not a generic set; each one has a control jack under it on the module.
| Macro | Key | Range | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low pitch | low.pitch | 40 Hz – 120 Hz | 60 Hz |
| Low decay | low.decay | 20 ms – 2 s | 400 ms |
| Mid pitch | mid.pitch | 120 Hz – 900 Hz | 300 Hz |
| Mid decay | mid.decay | 10 ms – 1.2 s | 180 ms |
| High pitch | high.pitch | 900 Hz – 6 kHz | 2 kHz |
| High decay | high.decay | 5 ms – 400 ms | 90 ms |
| Shape | osc.width | 5% – 95% | 50% |
| Level | out.level | -60 dB – +6 dB | 0.0 dB |
| Side | Jacks |
|---|---|
| In | Note (MIDI), V/Oct (CV), Gate (CV), Clock (CV) |
| Out | Out (Audio) |
Legendary is the catalogue of the Modulr Synths project: 43 design studies drawn with the specification’s own kit, 33 after the synthesizers of all time and 10 after the drum machines. The makers and years named here are the instrument’s; the names, the layouts and every value are Modulr’s own.