Erica Synths is reimagining a modular synth you’ve probably never heard of. In the late 1970s, Dutch publication Elektor Magazine put out something it called the Elektor Formant as a series of DIY kits. That modular system is getting a full reimagining and reboot from Erica Synths.
DIY kits are the very roots of Eurorack and modular systems as we now know them, led in particular by PAiA Electronics and John Simonton in the USA. What’s great about our more connected international community is, knowledge is spreading about other modular systems from around the world, as these instruments find an audience with a new generation.
You might think the Latvian mad scientists would be ready to rest on their laurels a bit, having just put out the mki x es.EDU DIY series of modules. But no, hot on the heels of that, they’re working with Harald Antes of haraldswerk.de to create a new modular based on those original Elektor Formant designs. There are modern niceities to bring the design into the current decade, and they’re adding their own modules to the mix, in the same spirit as the original but all-new.
The EDU series was great, but it was bread-and-butter stuff, by design. Elektor Formant, by contrast, is its own beast — and it’s every bit as dark, industrial, brutal, and strange as Erica’s own designs. It was a match just waiting to happen.
Listen:
Now come on, Erica Synths, I seriously miss Kontaktor Festival. Summer is ending, but let’s all meet in some truly bleak part of the winter and just make these sounds all night. (In those eternal Baltic nights who knows what hour it is, anyway? Light up the darkness with glowing LEDs.)
The Elektor Formant System DIY Kit is available for preorder now.
Modules:
- SEQ – a sequencer (new module, not found in the original system)
- 3 x VCO
- 12 dB/Oct VCF
- 24 dB/Oct VCF
- RFM – formant filter module
- FX module (new module, based on DSP found on Erica Synths FX modules)
- COM – an updated Output module
- INTERFACE module – MIDI-CV module
- EF/RING – envelope follower and ringmodulator module
- NOISE – noise and random voltage generators
- DIVIDER – frequency divider module
- WAVEPROC – waveshaper
- 2 x VCA
- PHASER – an 8-stage optical phaser
- 2 x MIXER
- DISPATCH – buffered gate and CV multiple
- LFO
- 2 x VC LFO
- 2 x ADSR
- ADSR CONTROLLER
- DUAL S&H
- PSU distribution board and external 12V@3.3A PSU
- Enclosure with rails and threaded inserts
Elektor Formant System DIY Kit
I can’t afford one, but yeah, I mean, I can just take a long bus ride up there if I have to and for all of those of you who are also too broke for a modular system right now, this intrepid website is here so you can live vicariously through the gear.
Estimated shipping due August 21, 2025.
Oh, and actually, if you’re seriously bothered about not being able to afford this — the mki x es.EDU DIY System is really affordable, both as a built system or the kit if you want to smell some solder.
Side note: Elektor Magazine lives — and they publish in English!
They’re a fun read for DIY electronics lovers: https://www.elektormagazine.com/
And, while this makes me want to scream into a pillow about what has happened to Keyboard and the writing of so many people (myself included), you can search Elektor’s entire 50-year-plus archive, including the original articles on the Elektor Formant, starting with part 1 from May 1977 (pictured below):
https://www.elektormagazine.com/search?query=elektor+formant
More videos:
LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER covered this some days ago, but it’s summer so I’m allowed to be slow (and this museum is another place to go visit it):
Oh and that’s Jacqui in this video – hi there!