Mutable Instruments’ Frames had one of Émilie’s best and most underrated ideas: apply keyframing, as in animation and motion, to modular control. Now, Grayscale Modular is developing that concept with 12 channels and more control. It’s available for $399 as hardware, or you can try it right now in VCV Rack for free.
I’m immediately excited about the VCV Rack edition, because this is one possible answer to a question I asked last week: with Jeremy Wentworth’s Arrange module handling on/off sequencing on a grid, how might you sequence different voltage levels and voltage changes? I’d forgotten about Frames, honestly, but that’s partly because the original worked as a 4-channel VCA — and had just one preset.
Nexus ups the ante with 12 channels and 12 presets. And it does that in the same 18HP space that Frames used, meaning its hardware version could also fit into your rig.
In software, it’s an instant must-download. (Grayscale now offers both light and dark themes, as you’ll see in the screenshot.)
You can hear how many live modular performances struggle to capture different moments or structures, especially with newcomers or folks who don’t have elaborate rigs. A jam will start with a great idea and then sort of … stick there, or fall apart. But voltage can be a wonderful way to imagine form and change in composition and performance. Like Frames before it, Nexus can capture snapshots at arbitrary points in time, and interpolate between values with various smoothing or stepped possibilities (see image below).
Grayscale has added to that framework in a way that puts that utility to use. New in their version:
- 12 VCA channels (up from 4)
- 12 user presets (Frames has just one)
- Autosave
- Stereo I/O
- Multi-channel editing
- Level randomization
- Clickless sequencing
- Random sequencing
- Copy/paste keyframes
- VCA calibration
Nexus isn’t just for doing long-range arrangement; you can use it as a very sophisticated envelope generator/VCA, too, obviously. But that makes it great for any time-domain operations, and you can use it with the internal VCA function or think of this as a way to store and shape other elements. The design has a wonderful physicality to its interaction – one big knob to dial in where everything goes.
Grayscale also included presets for different applications: min/max fading, stereo submix, a six-way stereo crossfader, FX send/return, and even quad spatializing. (I just spoke to Nan Tang about how she’s working with quadraphonic sound on the Buchla – connecting that to Dolby Atmos for dispersion. There are tons of new possibilities there.)
You can even use it as a clock divider, six parallel CV/gate sequencers, and more. It’s a rare case where we’re talking about presets on a Eurorack module as a way of understanding its possibilities, but that’s absolutely the case here.
Nexus is free now on VCV Rack, which you can also use for free. I have a feeling I’ll break down and get the module, too, but I know it’ll be a big part of my software workflow immediately. (If you have Grayscale’s modules added in VCV Library already, you’ve got the module waiting for you right now. Sweet.)
Previously: