Ieaskul F. MobentheyMr. Grassi / Mocante IFM Keyboard

Ieaskul F. Mobenthey Mr. Grassi / Mocante

Comprising the IFM keyboard are two of Ieaskul's touch interface modules, both Mr. Grassi himself and the Mocante keyboard, all housed within a unique wooden enclosure. Offering plentiful potential for intuitive touch interaction with analog circuits, each of these modules may be used to affect external CV inputs of a Eurorack system, or employed in the audible domain, creating shift-register squeals and haunting witch-tones with every touch. In keeping with the synthesynthesist's own manifesto, these controllers enable intuitive and exploratory interaction with sound, favoring musical motifs of finger-actuated happenstance over strictly linear control.

On the left side of the keyboard, Mr. Grassi's interwoven shapes of touchable patch points invite physical connection between the copper planes. Penetrating through its panel-circuit, square waves are instrumentalized to clock shift registers which intermodulate one another. Within the central hexagon, touching an outside pentagon to an inner triangle initiates this feedback process, scrambling the analog voltages at each of six four-bit DAC outputs. Use these outputs to listen to Mr. Grassi's modulated squeaks and wails with every touch. Because each DAC holds its position upon release, these may also be used as CV outputs for control of Mocante or other external devices, enabling an iterative process of touch and untouch transformations.

Mocante provides a geometric array of touch controls, inspired by the interface from Ciat Lonbarde's Tocante instruments. Implementing a twenty-four oscillator array of phase locked loops, tuned to the capacitor scale in the Tocante series, which are used to generate related CV values as well as audible sounds depending on the position of your touch interactions. The triangle shapes at the edges correspond to controller operation of Mocante's CV and gate outputs. Moving centrally, square shape touches invite signals to spill from the square drone outputs, while the circular shapes beget ethereal witch-tones in hard and soft waveshapes.

Taken together, Mr. Grassi and Mocante form the IFM keyboard, quite likely the most esoteric controller and/or sounding system compatible with the Eurorack format. Explore its landscape to uncover new modes of interaction and musical improvisation with analog circuits, exposing unique opportunities left obscured by conventional paradigms of control.

Mr. Grassi / Mocante Features

• Desktop modular touch controller and sound generator
• Includes IFM modules Mr. Grassi and the Mocante Keyboard in a unique wooden enclosure
• Mr. Grassi Features:
  • Shift register array which can be patched by touching
  • Connect outside shapes to inside triangles to scramble shift register data
  • Outputs are all 4-bit DACs
  Create squelching modem sounds on touch and held CV values on release
• Mocante Features:
  • Touch controller and sound generator inspired by Tocante instruments
  • Uses 24-oscillators tuned to Tocante capacitor scale to create CV and gate voltages (triangle shapes), Square wave drones (square shapes) and hard or soft witch-tones (circular shapes)