Back on October 31st on the way to dinner I panic bought a new sampler due to the hype around it I was reading about. Brian Clarkson of Orthogonal Devices over in Tokyo, Japan had built up a reputation of being a quality engineer who put an incredible amount of work into his first offering, the ER-101 and ER-102 sequencer combo. Something clicked as we were driving and so on my phone out in the middle of the desert on the way to Cave Creek I made my first large purchase of Eurorack modular gear over the phone on an impulse. The confirmation of my order took another week for Brian to get to and then a few more weeks would pass before at the end of November I received a shipping notification. A week after that and my ER-301 Sound Computer arrived in this beautiful wood box with a sliding top panel.

While I thought I was buying a sampler as that was the feature I was most focused on, it was in reality a sound computer in that not only could I record and play samples, I could also create full synth voices in this device. At $875 it easily qualified as the most expensive bit of gear besides my cases that I’ve purchased so far and it’s seriously well worth the investment. The firmware is pretty rough at this early stage, but Brian gave warning that this was better suited to the enthusiast who could be patient rather than the person who wanted instant results. It’s fun to be along for the ride.