MODULAR INSTRUMENTS / EST. 2019 / BERLIN · DETROIT
Precision instruments for signal architecture.
We build the part of your studio that does not guess. Analog cores held to four-decimal tolerances, firmware you can read in one sitting, and panels machined from a single billet.
Every module earns its horsepower.
Select a module to inspect it. The rack is navigable by keyboard: arrows move, Home and End jump. Each module below is a real instrument in the catalog, not a placeholder.
NAVIGATE WITH ↑ ↓ · HOME / END TO JUMP · ENTER OPENS THE MODULE
Four decisions that define the instruments.
Everything in the catalog follows from these. They are written down here so you can argue with them.
A / ANALOG FIRST
The core is analog. The computer stays in its lane.
Every voice, filter, and envelope in the catalog is analog end to end. Digital blocks exist where they are genuinely better: the sequencer's memory, TESSERA's granular engine, the calibration system. We publish which is which. A module page that hides its architecture is a module we would not buy.
B / MEASURED, NOT MARKETED
Specs carry four decimals.
Headroom, drift, crosstalk, and jack cycle counts are measured on the production line and printed on the spec sheet, per batch. The numbers move a little between batches. That is honest, and it is the point.
C / FIRMWARE IS YOURS
Every line of firmware is published.
Under CERN-OHL-S. If the sequencer does something you do not like, the fix is in your hands, and the hardware accepts signed community builds. Two features in the current firmware were contributed by users and shipped unmodified.
D / REPAIR IS DESIGN
The instrument is built to be opened.
Panel screws, not glue. Socketed ICs, labeled harnesses, and a service manual with board-level diagrams for every module. The median age of an OSCILLA instrument in the field is 4.2 years and 96% of them still work. Repairability is why.
The machine is the instrument. The manual is part of the sound.
Most gear is designed to disappear. It hides its architecture behind presets and pretends the signal path is magic. We think that is backwards. When you can see the signal path, you can play it. A patch stops being a preset and starts being an argument you are having with physics.
So every OSCILLA panel is a drawing first: the blocks are where the signal actually flows, the annotations are the real values, and the silkscreen says what the circuit does instead of what marketing wishes it did. If a knob position surprises you, the silkscreen has already explained why.
This costs us velocity. A panel revision takes weeks of drafting before a single board is cut. It buys us instruments that people still understand a decade later, which is the only kind we are interested in making.
PRINCIPLE / 01
An instrument you can read is an instrument you can repair, modify, and outlive.
PRINCIPLE / 02
Publish the measurements. Let the numbers argue.
PRINCIPLE / 03
If a feature needs a manual to discover, it is not a feature yet.
PRINCIPLE / 04
Drift is not a defect. It is a voice.
Field notes on drift
Why our oscillators are allowed to be 0.02% wrong, and what that wrongness does to a pad sound that perfect tuning cannot.
Tolerance stacks and the myth of the golden unit
How a four-decimal spec becomes a pile of parts that actually meets it, and why the last 0.01% costs more than everything before it.
Thermal drive, explained by a blowtorch
The KILN story: a filter stage we kept overheating on purpose until it became the product.
NEXT BUILD SLOT / JANUARY 2027
Buy once. Measure forever.
The catalog is small on purpose. Request access to the next production run, or book a bench demo at either studio.
"Batch 2026-06, serial 0614. Nine months of touring and the tuning error on the certificate is still the number I measure at soundcheck. That has never been true of anything else in my rack."
"I bought TESSERA for the buffer and stayed for the firmware. The release notes are better reading than most magazines I subscribe to, which is a strange thing to type about a grain sampler."
"Sent a KILN in with a scratch I caused. Came back with the scratch fixed, free of charge, and a repair note that was kinder about my screwdriver technique than it needed to be."
Which module should I buy first?
HELIOS-8, PHANTOM GRID, and OBSIDIAN MIX, in that order, if you are starting from an empty case. The full reasoning is on the catalog page, under "buying without a guru."
Do the batch measurements actually matter to how a module sounds?
Some of them, some of the time, to some ears. The drift note in the lab covers what nine engineers heard blind and what they did not. What the measurements always matter to is repair, resale, and trust, which are also part of how an instrument sounds to the person paying for it.
Why can I not order directly from this site?
Because the shops in our dealer network answer questions, keep demo racks, and accept warranty returns, and those services are worth more to you than the margin we would keep by cutting them out. Identical prices everywhere, so choosing the dealer costs you nothing.
| Claim | Where it is proven |
|---|---|
| Tuning within 0.02% | Tolerance stack note, QC record, per-batch certificates |
| Drift you can hear is a choice | Blind listening study, nine engineers, four studios |
| Jacks last 10,000 cycles | Sample lot verification, added to the rig log format in 3.2.0 |
| 99.7% first-pass QC | Batch record, 24 batches, cumulative |
| Warranty is five years | The warranty page is the warranty |
| Firmware is open | License section, full history public |
| Prices identical everywhere | Dealer terms, identical margins |
| Batch dates are real | Printed schedule, one quarter ahead |
FIRST HOUR
Getting started
Unboxing, mounting, power, and the first patch for every module, with the two mistakes that cause most support emails pre-solved.
SCHEDULE
The batch system
Why we build in numbers, the printed schedule a quarter ahead, and how a reservation works. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
BENCH NOTES
Patch recipes
Starting points, not presets. Fourteen documented patches with signal paths, settings, and the reason each one works.
LANGUAGE
The glossary
Plain-language definitions of every term on this site, written so nobody has to pretend they already knew.