Synth-pop pioneer Vince Clarke, in collaboration with Analogue Solutions, has announced the release of the Imaginator VCX-378 – a new module that he describes as ‘a practical writing tool’ that can generate musical patterns, based on user-controllable variables.

Housed in a 36 HP-width Eurorack module, the Imaginator VCX-378 has a front facia-located one-octave ‘keyboard’ — with each ‘note’ having a push button and associated LED — alongside two Quantize sections, Octavize and Transpose sections, a Velocity treatment, plus internal (Sequencer) and external (Midi/Clock) clocking, as well as a full MIDI interface.

In most cases, users will want to sync to their sequencing software by sending the Imaginator VCX-378 a MIDI note clock. The Imaginator VCX-378 references these notes and uses this information to clock the musical patterns it produces. The resulting patterns can be used ton control soft synths or hardware synths.

Here’s an intro to the module from Vince Clarke himself:

“For full operation of the unit, I suggest you make yourself a nice cup of tea and watch the user video,” says Clarke. “Thanks for watching… and now I must get back to my day job.”

Here’s the video manual:

The Clarke Imaginator is available now, for £349, from the Analogue Solutions site.