London Modular Alliance

London Modular Alliance – My Studio

This is a shot taken at the V&A for an event we did down there alongside Boiler Room. It’s a Doepfer 9U flight case. I guess these are a popular one for us when performing outside the studio so we can feel confident of lugging the gear around without anything breaking!

Our Store

A quick shot inside our store in Hackney Wick. This shows an early prototype of our Eastwick modular case range. The tweed cases took so long to manufacture – they had to be varnished and sanded by hand multiple times to get a perfect finish. We ended up producing something similar in aluminium which can be bulk batched. I guess you don’t see the tweed out in the wild often, so this should make them hugely rare and expensive! Also in shot are some Genelec monitors which we use for the final mixdown.

Eastwick Tweed Case

A close up of the same Eastwick tweed case. The computer is there too for piecing everything together once the audio’s been recorded. We use a combination of Logic, Ableton and Cubase, depending on how we’re feeling that day.

Main Case and Latest Modules

One of the main cases in our store. We keep this one updated most weeks with the latest released Eurorack modules. This way it’s easy to give demos to customers, but also keeps things fresh from a production point of view as these are constantly changing.

In the store areas are set up for modular systems to perform a specific task. For example one case may concentrate on running sequences and melodies, another would do drums while another processes audio and creates weirdo results from simple beginnings.

In Action

There’s no set structure to how we piece everything together. It may be several weeks before all the elements are added together. But being in the store most days in the week you’re pretty much guaranteed of getting something unusual at any given time. The unfortunate part is the destructive nature of modular patches. We’d never save anything, so once it’s broken down, that’s it gone forever. We do use a selection of analogue synths like the DSI Prophet and Roland Jupiter, which make life a lot easier with recalling saved sounds, but once you get into the modular mindset of not really saving anything it all becomes quite rewarding knowing you’ve got to get it down in just a couple of takes