As a live modular performer, I’m constantly swapping oscillators depending on the sound I’m exploring. But turning an oscillator into a full voice usually means patching together several modules: filter, envelopes, and VCA, which takes up space and slows down the creative flow. I wanted something that could quickly turn any oscillator into a complete synth voice, with full performance control, without locking you into a fixed oscillator.
When I shared the idea with Devin from Weston Precision Audio, he immediately loved it and was excited to collaborate. Devin brought a deep level of technical expertise to the project. From the filter architecture and chip choices to the overall circuit design. We worked closely together on the layout and workflow, making sure it felt intuitive for performance while still offering the flexibility modular systems are known for.
The result is Trivium, a 12HP module that combines the essential building blocks of a subtractive synth voice: a filter, two envelopes, and a VCA with built-in overdrive.
At the center of the module is a Discrete OTA State-Variable Filter, designed to deliver a rich, musical response while remaining highly controllable. It features selectable lowpass, bandpass, and highpass modes, allowing you to shape everything from deep bass tones to sharper, more resonant textures. The filter includes controls for cutoff, resonance, and filter envelope amount, making it easy to add movement and expression to a patch.
Trivium also includes two envelopes with different characteristics, giving you flexibility when shaping your sound. One envelope follows a traditional ADSR structure, ideal for precise control over amplitude or filter shaping. The second envelope operates in an AD/AR style, which works well for percussive modulation, rhythmic patches, or evolving textures.
A special feature I wanted to include was the ability to modulate the filter cutoff directly with CV. Surprisingly, this kind of dedicated performance control isn’t always present on Eurorack filters, but for me, it’s incredibly important in a live context. Being able to control the cutoff dynamically makes it easy to create buildups, breakdowns, and evolving transitions during a performance without repatching.
The VCA section includes a built-in overdrive circuit, allowing the signal to remain clean and transparent or be pushed into saturation and distortion. This was an important element for me, especially for live techno and hardware-driven performances where a little grit can help a sound cut through a mix.
The module also includes a routing section that allows envelopes to be assigned and positioned pre- or post-filter, opening up different tonal and dynamic possibilities without making the interface complicated.
For me, Trivium is about flexibility, performance, and efficiency. It keeps a system compact while letting you pair it with whatever oscillator inspires you, analog or digital.
In a way, Trivium is a simple idea:
A module that brings your favorite oscillator to life as a complete synth voice.
Designing Trivium with Devin has been an incredibly rewarding experience. It’s a module that reflects how I actually work with modular: hands-on, flexible, and built for performance. I’m excited to see how other artists bring it into their systems and make it their own.
I’m also grateful to Weston Precision Audio for believing in the idea and helping bring it to life. I’m excited for Trivium to finally make its way into the world and into people’s racks.
— Trovarsi
Josef Anders is the new improvised techno alias of Denver-based modular synth artist Alex Anderson, best known for his output of house music as ALX-106 and as the video guy at eurorack manufacturer WMD. Created as an outlet for fully live, modular-driven performances, his sound is driving and hypnotic, blending minimal textures, hip-hop–influenced breakbeats, and the raw energy of his background as a drummer and multi instrumentalist in punk, dance, and math rock bands.
In 2008, Sophizta and his friends were drinking beers and reading spam, hunting for sentence fragments that stuck. One of them did. He liked the shape of it enough to carry it as an alias through his earliest days making music in Reason 5 with a MIDI controller, and he's still carrying it now. Keys have been the tether for as long as he can remember, through good stretches and bad, and he describes what he makes as ideas he rehearses and cements in hardware with an atmosphere of improvisation orbiting them to smooth the edges and make it psychedelic.
It started with School of Rock, of all things, and a seven-year-old's sudden urge to play. His mom, who he still thanks, bought him a guitar and an amp the next day. Lessons came from a teacher at the local music store who smelled funny in a way he only understood years later. A year in, it hadn't taken, so his mom bought him a digital Kurzweil piano instead, and keys just made sense to his brain. Years of theory followed, but the real click came the moment he was allowed out of the recital format and into his own ideas.
A few years ago the Korg Minilogue XD was on its way out the door. He wanted something different and hadn't bothered to learn its depth, which he now calls a total space-cake move. Then he sat down with the sequencer, and bonding with it turned out to be the best thing he could have done. Learning to build patterns on hardware instead of in a DAW is what finally made everything cohere, and now he wants a second one. His still has no cap on the pitch bend joystick, so he just presses the bare nub, which he's decided makes it unique.
He calls the rig the Nexus, an arrangement with many permutations. The core is the Minilogue XD, an Arturia MicroFreak, a Moog Messenger, and a Roland TR-6S for beats. Beyond that it extends into a TC Helicon VoiceLive Touch 2, an ASM Hydrasynth Explorer, a Yamaha 61 for actual piano, and the Nord Stage when he wants the truly bulky configuration. A TR-8S is on the way, chosen deliberately over the flagship because he wanted the rudiments first. Everything sits under an overhead camera, which is why his videos look like a bird's-eye view of a small city.
His sets are always mutating, and right now they orbit an idea he calls the errata fragment: the human element, the error among the bytes. He's still fleshing out the abstraction, but the method is concrete. The week before a show he sits at the soundstage and reimagines what he has, running a track 20 BPM faster, moving it to a different key, changing where the sequence drops. Then he plays it, and the set effectively expires. His favorite part is losing control entirely, throwing a tape delay across the drum machine to announce that they are off the rails.
The first real show as Sophizta was July 19 at Old Town Pub in Pasadena, a small room packed with 30 or 40 people who all got down, and so did he. Since then it's been a run: the South Hayward Market lot with Ground Up Multicast and Chris the Jungle, a Buzz Works night in SF that Frank Nitti handed him and he's calling Wavetable, and an Amalgam day party in Oakland where he's curating the second stage himself. That last one is the real ambition, gathering like-minded people and building the nights he can't find in Sacramento.
Eurorack is the next door. He calls the modules an Einstein-Rosen bridge and admits the sheer volume of them is a little intimidating to walk up to, but that's also exactly the appeal. What he keeps turning over is the obvious question: what would a Sophizta Eurorack set actually sound like? He's close enough to be asking, and he'd rather learn it from people already deep in it than from a browser tab.
Frank Funke performs Live Techno — modular synthesizers, analog drum machines, digital hardware and samplers. His sound bridges the raw energy of 90s Berlin with modern textures and atmospheres — Detroit, Funk, Dub, and Latin rhythm feeding into his set. Improvised, physical, built for the floor.
Emerging from New York’s underground electronic scene, L.O.S is a modular techno artist focused on raw machine-driven energy and hypnotic live performance. Using a fully hardware-based setup, every set is built from the ground up in real time, just evolving sequences, heavy percussion, and deep atmospheric textures. Driven by experimentation and improvisation, L.O.S creates immersive sonic experiences that move between tension, release, and relentless rhythm.
Chang Rodrigues is a Brazilian DJ and live artist based in Berlin, working between house, techno and experimental sound, with a strong focus on modular synthesis.
Her live performances are created in real time using analog systems, shaping evolving sound structures where rhythm, texture and space interact continuously. Her work moves between club-oriented sets and more immersive formats, including ambient performances in 5.1 surround sound.
She has performed at Inhotim, one of the largest open-air museums in the world and at Novas Frequências Festival, a leading platform for experimental music in Brazil. Her work was also featured by FACT Magazine through her project Ruínas.
Rooted in both technical exploration and intuitive listening, Chang approaches synthesis as a living process, where each performance unfolds as a unique and responsive sonic environment.
Hailing from the vibrant electronic music scene of Berlin, Jessica Kert explores the infinite worlds of modular techno. Releasing albums on Detroit Underground, Athmophile Electronics, Associated Parapoloid with a constant output of her creative explorations.
Her live performances in clubs and at festivals are a dynamic experience of sound, beating rhythms, psychedelic textures, and hypnotic melodies – tangible through the raw energy of analog synthesis that captivates the audience and builds a faithful connection.
Driven by a strong fascination with modular synthesis, Jessica has delved into the intricate world of analog circuits and the complexities of modular synthesis. She gained a deep understanding of modular synthesis through her own research and her regular work at Berlin’s legendary synthesizer store SchneidersLaden.
Knowing the journey of learning the artistic expression through machines can be tough, it is important for Jessica to share her knowledge of synthesis and performing. This is how teaching modular synthesis became a passion, that she invites everyone to take part in, at workshops at SchneidersLaden and elsewhere.
Drawing inspiration from the pulsating energy of the city’s underground clubs, she is constantly transforming her own sonic identity.
As she continues to follow her own path through the unexplored territories of modular synthesis.
Los Angeles based producer Sleepy Cat (Ken Chow) recently unleashed his new EP, Ascend - a jarring, stimulating record that focuses on the methodical introspection of cerebral techno.
In this episode of Signal, host Trovarsi welcomes STUKES. STUKES core identity has been closely tied to the exposure and exploration of music.
Modular synthesist and Noise Engineering demo artist POBNRG (Patrick O'Brien) sits down with North², hosted by Korey Luna on Piqued.fm, to trace an unlikely path into Eurorack.
In this episode of Signal, host Trovarsi welcomes UN/SER. UN/SER is a modular techno live artist based between Poland and Berlin.
In this episode of North², host Korey Luna sits down with Raheem Jarbo, the Grammy-nominated artist behind Mega Ran. From substitute teaching in Philadelphia to headlining nerdcore stages for nearly 20 years, Raheem shares how freestyling in classrooms became a philosophy for performing, why making music for his son led to the biggest recognition of his career, and what happens when you let your obsessions lead the way.
How the Audeze LCD-X changed my relationship with mixing, at home, at my mastering engineer's studio, and everywhere in between.
In this episode of North², host Korey Luna sits down with Joseph, the Los Angeles-based artist behind Snakes of Russia. From playing drums in metal bands to crafting dark electronica entirely on his own terms, Joseph shares how he built a sound that lives between two worlds, and why he's never needed to choose just one.
In this episode of Signal, host Trovarsi welcomes Dave Mech an electronic music artist whose journey evolved through being an instrumentalist into electronic music live performer and producer.
In this episode of Signal, host Trovarsi welcomes Noise Code. Formed by LA producers, John Rojas and Aj Fructuoso.
