The Rack Pack #22

This week the Pack takes on the ethics of reverse-engineering software and the open-sourcing of Beads. We also compare notes on getting ready for a 45-minute set versus a 15-minute one, and why rushing is dangerous. There’s gear too: making ambient music with the Befaco Oneiroi, the Befaco Ark “groovebox in a module,” Ethereal Electronics Shooting Stars and the Squarp Core. Plus Stu’s existential question of the day, and the synths we’d take to a desert island.

CONTEST! Download the stems we recorded at the Vintage Synthesizer Museum and make a piece of music with them. Your track must be 1 to 3 minutes long and use only sounds from this project. The stems come as a Logic project, with a subfolder of raw WAV files. Entries are due December 15, 2026. We’ll play the top three on air, and the winner, picked by The Rack Pack, gets some TRP swag.

Download the stems: https://bit.ly/4isXkJD

Links

• U•D•O DMNO: https://www.udo-audio.com/dmno
• Modular On The Spot LA: https://motsla.com
• Music For Wineries, Oct 25: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DemgKxUSoEB/
• EZBot stream on Elektron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DlNucvqP50
• Synthdad’s Oneiroi video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceUX5awTRRc
• Befaco Ark: https://www.perfectcircuit.com/befaco-ark.html
• Happy Modular cases: https://www.etsy.com/shop/HappyModular
• Ethereal Electronics Shooting Stars: https://etherealelectronics.nl/products/shooting-stars
• Nireus: https://www.instagram.com/nireusofficial/
• Genki Instruments Katla: https://genki.is/katla
• Squarp Core: https://squarp.net/core/
• The Vintage Synthesizer Museum: https://vintagesynthesizermuseum.com

In this episode the Pack chats with musician, producer, music educator, and content creator Sarah Belle Reid. The conversation hits how to improvise with electronic instruments, what it means to listen, and how Sarah approached her most recent project, an electro-acoustic opera that took seven years to make! We struggle with the usual modular existential questions like whether to go big or to go small, and how to embrace our mistakes, even the ones made while podcasting.

Sarah Belle Reid's "Times Undoing and Progress" is available for preorder at bandcamp: https://sarahbellereid.bandcamp.com/album/times-undoing-progress

Sign up for her course on sound and synthesis here:

https://www.soundandsynthesis.com

Sarah's website:

https://www.sarahbellereid.com/

The Rack Pack is back after a slow summer, minus Stu. Mark recaps Bloop Groop's Culture Night special in Dublin with Arturia, where he built a modular system from an empty case in front of a live audience. Jonas reports from Knobcon and the first EMIXX West in Denver, and recounts his run in with the law for playing synths. Plus: Swells vs. Desmodus Versio, the Plinky, Noise Engineering's 23 new Legio firmwares, Radio Music Mk II, Soma Enigma, the Sidekick, and the dangers of going to lunch with Jeffy.

Modular On the Spot LA: https://motsla.com

Dublin Bloop Groop: https://www.bloopgroop.com/

EMIXX West: https://www.emixx.org/EMIXXWEST

KnobCon: https://www.knobcon.com/