DASYRAC (Digital/Audio System Yielding Retro Auditory Coolness) is my voltage-controlled audio mad science lab, containing sixty or so Eurorack synthesiser modules. I started putting it together in early 2017 partly as a 40th birthday present to myself and partly as a practical introduction to electronics. Once I figured out what I wanted from a modular synthesiser setup and how to solder, there was very little to stop me. 🙂
Eurowhat?
Eurorack is a Eurorack modules have a standardised height of 3U – that’s 133.5mm to the rest of us. The widths of the modules is measured in horizontal pitch (HP for short). 1HP is equal to 5.08mm. My smallest module is all of 2HP and my widest one is 22HP.
DASYRAC is housed in a 9U (= three rail) 104HP Synthrotek Cheeks Of Steel open rack, a 104HP Tiptop Z-Ears + Z-Rails rack and an 84HP Tiptop Happy Ending kit rack for a total of 500HP. The modules are powered by one Tiptop uZeus power supply and two 4ms Row Power 30 supplies. The modules connect into shrouded IDC power connectors at the back; the Row Power 30s are daisychained to run off a single 90W laptop power supply, and the uZeus runs off a 2A power pack.
There’s a list of modules on this site or you can see how those modules are set up on Modulargrid: DASYRAC main rack, DASYRAC side rack.
External instruments
Most of these instruments talk to DASYRAC using voltage control.
- Korg ARP Odyssey synthesiser (23 January)
- Korg SQ-1 sequencer (24 February)
- Arturia Beatstep Pro uber-sequencer (3 March)
- Arturia Keystep keyboard/sequencer (7 March)
- Arturia Drumbrute drum machine (28 November)
