Make Noise

Peek into anyone's Eurorack modular synthesizer, and there's a good chance you'll spot a module from Make Noise. After a period of time working for Moog, Make Noise was founded by Tony Rolando in 2008, and since then they've grown to become one of the best-known purveyors of experimental electronic music tools. Their visibility and passion are also a big reason why Eurorack has grown beyond a small niche and into an appealing platform for any musician looking for a dash of experimentalism and charming unpredictability.

Modules and Instruments Across the Legacy of Electronic Music

While Rolando's past experience with Moog might suggest a preferred type of synthesis, Make Noise designs are actually an all-encompassing survey of the sounds that synthesizers can make. Modules and instruments like DPO, Optomix, and 0-CTRL show strong roots in the West Coast synthesis traditions established by Don Buchla, respectively offering fresh takes on the complex oscillator, lowpass gate, and touch-based sequencer and controller. Yet also in their catalog is QPAS, a strong and characterful filter that calls to mind the sounds of Moog and other East Coast synthesizers, but radically encourages patching and techniques outside of that paradigm. And we can't forget one of the most famous Eurorack modules to ever exist: Maths, a powerhouse combination of Serge-style function generators with flexible CV generation, processing, and mixing capabilities.

Though their roots were in analog synthesis, that's only a small part of the story. In a partnership spanning over ten years, Make Noise has worked with Tom Erbe of SoundHack to develop one-of-a-kind DSP-based modules, running synthesis and effects processing algorithms tailored to the needs of a modular environment. Morphagene is a malleable, voltage-controllable block of time, perfect for looping and manipulating pre-recorded or real-time sounds on macro and micro levels. For a comprehensive do-it-all delay module, few modules are more capable than Mimeophon, easily covering the range from comb-filtering and chorus to expansive reverse echos with stereo spread and smeared repeats.

With such a varied catalog of products, it might seem like finding a cohesive sound is difficult. But the magic of Make Noise is that their sound is exemplified by a distinct blend of inspirations from across various electronic music practices. And when you see their designs collected together in one place, like in their systems and semi-modular instruments, this is even more clear. Their Black and Gold Shared System Plus seamlessly includes many of Make Noise's analog and digital modules; the 0-Coast borrows from both East and West-Coast design philosophies; and the Tape and Microsound Music Machine brings some of the previously latent processes of both tape and computer music techniques to the real-time patching environment of a modular synthesizer. Meanwhile, the semi-modular Strega presents its own noisy, chaotic, and unpredictable take on sound design, developed in collaboration with Alessandro Cortini.

Make Noise in the Present Day

Today, Make Noise continues on a forward trajectory into the sonic stratosphere, with a recent focus on stereo spatialization in the context of a Eurorack modular system. In addition to the Tape and Microsound Music Machine, which itself can beautifully send sounds across the stereo field, their latest module XPO is an analog oscillator with several highly compelling stereo animation circuits packed inside. While the common way to think about stereo positioning is at the end of your signal path, XPO and many of the other new Make Noise modules challenge this tendency for a more modular approach to stereo, allowing you to apply changes or modulation at any point from start to finish.

Make Noise have been around for awhile now, but our excitement and enthusiasm for all that they do has never dulled. It's their combination of compelling designs with a signature aesthetic, as well as an ethos of endless curiosity and exploration of sound, that have cemented them as a cornerstone of Eurorack modular synthesis.