Amsterdam, Netherlands
About this listing
This is an original Mutable Instruments Plaits, not one of the many open-source rebuilds. Mutable closed in 2022 and the designs were released freely, so clones are everywhere and they sound the same; what they do not have is this panel, this build, and this box. If that distinction matters to you, you already know why you are reading this listing.Plaits is a complete voice in twelve HP. Two banks of eight models sit behind one selector: the green bank covers pitched synthesis, running from plain virtual-analogue waveforms through waveshaping, FM, granular and physical modelling, and the red bank covers noise and percussion, from filtered noise and particle textures to drum models that need nothing but a trigger. One button walks you through them and the LED tells you where you are. There is no screen and no menu, which was the entire design argument against its predecessor Braids: Émilie Gillet cut the model list down to the ones that were genuinely distinct and gave each of them three shaping parameters instead.Those three are HARMONICS, TIMBRE and MORPH, and what they do changes with the model while staying conceptually consistent: harmonics deals with spectrum, timbre with brightness or density, morph with the character of the model itself. Together with FREQUENCY they are the whole interface. Because the meaning is consistent, muscle memory carries across models, and sweeping a knob while stepping through the bank is a legitimate way to find sounds.Two things make it work as a standalone voice rather than just an oscillator. There is a built-in low-pass gate, so patch a trigger into TRIG and you get a shaped, decaying note without a filter or a VCA anywhere in the chain. And an internal decay envelope is normalled to the unpatched CV inputs, so the module modulates itself sensibly out of the box and stops doing so the moment you patch something in. The LEVEL input turns the whole thing into a voice with dynamics when you feed it an envelope.OUT and AUX carry two different signals at once, related but distinct per model - a sub oscillator against the main tone, or the noise component separated from the pitched one. Patch both and you have two voices from one module. The output is DC-coupled and the frequency range extends down into LFO territory, which Braids could not do, so it doubles as a very capable modulation source.One thing to know before buying: this is a digital module doing a great many things well rather than one thing perfectly. If you want the specific character of a particular analogue oscillator, buy that oscillator. Plaits is what you buy when you want breadth in a small space and a voice you can finish a patch with.Condition: excellent. The panel is clean with no rack rash, the etched graphics are sharp, all four knobs and three attenuverters turn smoothly and the jacks are tight.Included: the complete original packaging - the printed outer sleeve and the inner box - along with the Mutable sticker, a ribbon cable, four mounting screws, and the small turned wooden top that came in the box.Specs: 12HP wide, 25 mm deep. Current draw 50 mA on +12V and 5 mA on -12V. Model, timbre, FM, morph and harmonics CV inputs, trigger, level and V/Oct inputs, OUT and AUX outputs, all 3.5 mm. Designed by Mutable Instruments, France.Shipping from the Netherlands, tracked. Offers welcome.
Original Price€300
14% price drop
New Price€260
+ €10 Shipping
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