Been thinking about this size a lot lately. I have a self-enforced rule of building a live rig that fits in my bike courier bag and no more, I love the idea of rolling up to a show with just what’s on my back. In addition, the rig would also include one of the following: a sequencer, a sampler, an analog synth voice, a multi-effects unit, and a mixer.
So, I already had a Deluge which covered the sequencer and sampler and then I went and bought an 0-Coast to tick off the analog synth voice (and a whole lot more). The more I looked into it, it seemed eurorack was the only area where interesting multi-effects were being developed, so I bought a Synthrotek Power Lunch case (before I heard about the owner’s offensive comments) as something small that would fit in my bag from the eurorack realm. So, here’s what I have in it currently:
Clouds with parasites firmware had all the “effects” I was looking for: granular, resonator, delay, reverb, etc. And with any eurorack you want modulation, so Peaks appealed especially for it’s gate triggered LFO’s, then all the extra goodies that came with the DMC firmware was all bonus. The Erica stereo mixer then allowed me to patch all the other pieces in and the PFL expander also be to preview everything (still waiting on these to show up actually, things are slow coming in from Latvia apparently, ha). Finally the Crosscaler gave me attenuator options for Clouds in the leftover 2hp. In the 1U row I through in the Intellijel audio interface so I would have a nice balanced output to a venue’s PA system and balanced to euro inputs so I could hook it up to all the other gear I have in my home studio.
All of that fits in my bag including a pair of headphones and all the necessary cables.
Then…I caved and bought an ER-301.
So, now I’m rethinking everything. But I really hated the idea of getting a new case for it because then it wouldn’t all fit in my bag. Ha. So after staring at the Power Lunch case for a while I have an idea of how I can fit some rails in the lid to add yet another set of 3U and 1U rows to the case. AND that if I take out the V-Rail system that came with the case which wastes all this space on the sides and used some MakerBeams I could then go right to to the edge which, after shaving a couple mm off the inner walls, would expand the width of the case to 50hp. If this all works the Power Lunch will be a 8U 50hp case. Not 100% sure it’ll work, but would be rad if it does.
If that works, I have some nifty options for units to pair with the ER-301, here’s what I’m currently thinking:
So, with the ER-301 in the lid, that leaves room for the Erica mixer + PFL to go beside it with 2hp left over, so throw the Crosscaler in there. The 1U row in the lid would be filled with gates and attenuator/offsets to use with the ER-301.
In the body of the case things get a little tricky. I really like the Tetrapad that Intellijel just released, I think that would be a great companion to the ER-301. And I was reading about the expander they are planning to build for it, so I included that in my planning (it’s the blank panel below). I can’t fit both Clouds and Peaks beside the Tetrapad + expander. So one or both would have to go. With the room left over I am torn between having another voice or another sequencer, so I threw in one of each for now while I ponder it. Then add a couple of USB hookups in the 1U row, one for a light and the other to possibly power a tiny side case with the Clouds/Peaks.
Apparently I’ve been wanting to ramble about this for a while now, ha!
