Mutable Instruments Plaits — Genuine MI Silver Panel

Description:

Mutable Instruments Plaits — the 12HP macro-oscillator that became the default "one module, any voice" in thousands of racks. Discontinued since Mutable closed in 2022.

Build and provenance — please read: This is a DIY build, not a factory unit. The panel and knobs are genuine Mutable Instruments parts purchased directly from Émilie Gillet. The PCB was fabricated from her open-source v5 design files, with SMD components machine-placed by JLCPCB. Through-hole assembly, testing and calibration done by hand.

What it does:

Sixteen synthesis models across two banks, each with three dimensions of tone control — no screen, no menus, no hidden settings. Just knobs.

Bank 1 — pitched models: two detuned virtual analog oscillators; variable-slope triangle through a waveshaper and wavefolder; 2-operator FM with variable feedback; twin formants with variable window shape (VOSIM, Pulsar, Grainlet, Casio CZ territory); 24-harmonic additive; wavetable oscillator with four banks of 8×8 waves; chord generator with divide-down string/organ emulation; speech synthesis with formant filter, SAM and LPC algorithms.

Bank 2 — noise and percussion: granular, modal resonator, analog kick/snare/hi-hat emulations and more.

Why it's a complete voice on its own: a built-in digital low-pass gate with adjustable filtering intensity and virtual vactrol response means you can patch a trigger straight in and get a finished percussive or plucked sound — no external VCA or filter needed. An internal decay envelope is normalled to several CV inputs, so it's playable with almost nothing patched.

Controls and I/O:

• Two model buttons with 8 bicolour LEDs
• Coarse frequency, 8 octaves (narrowable to 14 semitones)
• HARMONICS, TIMBRE, MORPH
• Attenuverters for timbre, morph and FM
• CV inputs for model selection, harmonics, timbre, morph, FM
• V/OCT with wide -3V to +7V range
• TRIG and LEVEL inputs
• OUT and AUX outputs — two related but distinct signals from every model

Specs:

• 12 HP, 25 mm deep
• Power: +12V 50mA / -12V 5mA
• Cortex-M4 ARM processor
• CV inputs 100k impedance, 16-bit at 4kHz
• Audio out 48kHz 16-bit DC-coupled, 32-bit floating point internally
• Firmware updatable over audio