Eurorack News: New Modules from Mutable Instruments

Eurorack Manufacturer Mutable Instruments release three new modules: Kinks, Veils and Blinds.

We've just received three new Modules from Olivier at Mutable Instruments: Kinks, Blinds and Veils. These three utility modules offer a wealth of features for controlling, routing and mangling your audio and CV paths and offer the pristine sound and build quality we expect from Mutable. They're all very competitively priced as well so why not spruce up your rack with some new toys, you know you want to!

Kinks is a handy little 4HP module providing analogue utility functions for altering the shape of audio or control signals.

The Sign section consists of a precision signal inverter, and half- and full- wave rectifiers (which respectively clips to 0V, and inverts the negative half of the signal). They can help in creating new LFO shapes, add overtones to audio signals or even transform CV melodies.

The Logic section provides an analogue OR gate which outputs the maximum of two signals: not only it can merge two streams of triggers/gates like its digital counterparts, but it can also hybridizes LFOs, envelopes or even audio signals – creating the same type of inharmonic side-bands as ring-modulators. The analog AND gate outputs the minimum of the two signal. With it you can mute/un-mute a stream of triggers with another gate, or explore other shades of audio and CV mangling.

The S&H section is a classic synth effect. On each trigger received on the TRIG input, the output voltage takes the value of the input voltage and holds this voltage. The signal input IN is normalized to a white noise generator – to easily generate stepped random values. The white noise signal is also available through the NOISE output jack.

Blinds is a 4-channel voltage-controlled signal polarizer. Each channel consists of a polarizer circuit, also known as a four-quadrant multiplier. This circuit acts like a VCA, except that a negative control voltage will cause the output signal to be inverted, instead of being silenced. Blinds’ outputs are daisy-chained, allowing adjacent groups of 2, 3, or all 4 channels, to be mixed together.

One can think of Blinds’ as a voltage-controlled version of Shades, the control center for all the modulation CVs used in a patch. Many other uses are possible, though. For example, each individual channel can be used to scale/offset a CV; and with audio rate modulation signals, each channel acts like a ring-modulator, with massive potential for drones and feedback patches.

Veils is a Quad VCA at a stunning price. VCAs are the cornerstones of modular patches: shaping the amplitude or timbre of a tone with an envelope, animating a mixture of several oscillators, controlling the amount of filter modulation with a random source or a touch controller, applying an envelope on the linear FM signal hitting an oscillator… are all possible uses of these super versatile building blocks. That’s why you never have enough of them. What about four more?

Veils provides four VCAs with an adjustable response curve. Veils’ outputs are daisy-chained, allowing adjacent groups of 2, 3, or all 4 channels, to be mixed together.