Rat King Modular Cell

Three cult synthesisers in one with plenty of patch sockets

With Cell, Rat King Modular presents an analogue synthvoice with a focus on basslines and typical acid sounds. The module requires 36 HP of installation space in the Eurorack case, but all the controls have plenty of room and invite you to tweak sounds extensively. Cell is a monophonic synthesiser and consists of the following components: oscillator, filter, VCA, envelope, VC envelope and Random sequencer. With a total of 19 patch sockets, there are many ways to combine Cell with other modules and/or semi-modular synthesisers. The oscillator is based on the AS3340 IC, a replica of the CEM3340, which was used in the original SCI Prophet-5. This offers the waveforms square and sawtooth, which can be crossfaded manually and via control voltage using the SHAPE controller. In addition, the oscillator is tuning stable over a wide range and has an FM input and hardsync. The 24dB Lowpass filter and the VCA are based on the AS3372 IC, which is a replica of the CEM3372, whose sound is familiar from the Oberheim classics Matrix-12 and Xpander, among others. The ADSR envelope has also been used in various classics; here it is the IC AS3310; this was used as the CEM3340 in the SCI Pro One and has a percussive control behaviour. In summary, it can be said that Cell contains the DNA of three different cult synthesisers. The modulation options are supplemented by a voltage-controlled slope generator (VCE), which functionally moves between an envelope and an LFO, and by the random sequencer. The latter independently generates self-changing sequences with which the sounds of Cell can be brought to life. Since all functions are normalised, the cabling effort is kept to a minimum and genre-typical basslines can be generated.