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We’ve looked at a number of ways to communicate between your computer and Eurorack modular synth, using Reaktor and Ableton. However, there is a world of available options to make the most of the computer with your system including a companion app for the ES line of devices from Expert Sleepers called Silent Way.

Developed by Expert Sleepers to maximize the usefulness of devices like their new ES-8 DC coupled audio interface, Silent Way is a suite of plugins, each with a focused function. One of the simpler functions, Silent Way DC, is a direct current offset control. While this may seem like a basic idea, the plugin offers some imaginative parameters, including offset multiplication and separate unipolar and bipolar offset controls

More complex functions can be found in other plugins in the collection, like SW LFO. Like the DC plugin, the LFO is much deeper than a simple multimode LFO, with two unique channels which include random and noise sources among other things. We even find a complex Voice Controller plugin, which includes a group of envelopes, external oscillator calibration and much more.

Setting up these plugins is about as easy as it gets. Simply loading one of the audio effect plugins onto an audio track will enable the plugin to send signals directly to your selected interface or soundcard. Beware though, if you do not have your DC coupled interface selected, you may get unwanted DC signals routed to your studio monitors. You will generally want to avoid that.

Additionally, the Silent Way plugins act just like any other VST plugin in Ableton. This means if we want to take things even further, we can. For instance, we can use the super handy LFO MIDI Max4Live device to assign an LFO to any of the parameters in the Silent Way plugins. Why would we use the LFO MIDI tool when we have the Silent Way LFO? Because they perform different duties, which becomes apparent when working with them (of course, one is sending audio, the other connects via MIDI.)

How are you connecting your computer and Eurorack system? Tell us in the comments!!

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