Eurorack utility modules tend to win on one of two axes: more of the same function, or more functions crammed into the same space. WMD’s ModBox MkII, now up for preorder at $279, is squarely in the second camp — an 8HP module (38mm deep) that packs two differently-behaved oscillators, a digital sample & hold, and a probabilistic sequencer into a footprint smaller than most single-function LFO modules.
What’s actually inside
The three-phase oscillator generates three related outputs with independently adjustable ratios on outputs two and three, switchable between phase, modulation and frequency-spread modes — effectively three LFOs that stay musically related to each other without needing external clock division. The skew oscillator morphs continuously between ramp, triangle and saw waveshapes with curve warping, and when clock-synced it becomes a beat-locked rhythmic LFO rather than a free-running one.
Underneath both oscillators sits a three-mode digital sample & hold and what WMD is calling a mini Turing machine: a 32-step probabilistic, Turing-style sequencer — the same lineage of “generate a sequence, then let probability mutate it over time” sequencing popularized by Music Thing Modular’s original Turing Machine, here folded into a multi-function utility rather than sold as its own module. An analog noise source feeds both the sample & hold and the Turing machine’s randomness. Clock sync covers 15 symmetric integer ratios from /8 to x8, calibration is full V/oct, and firmware updates happen in the field rather than requiring a factory return.
It’s a direct evolution of the original ModBox, a collaboration between WMD and Steady State Fate from several years back — the MkII keeps the “one utility module doing several related jobs” philosophy but adds the Turing machine and skew oscillator the first version didn’t have.
Why this is useful beyond the spec sheet
Eurorack cases run out of HP long before they run out of patching ideas, which is the actual reason modules like this exist — ModBox MkII is a bet that most patches want a related family of modulation sources (a few LFOs that share a clock, a sample & hold fed by actual noise rather than another LFO, some amount of controlled randomness) rather than one oscillator repeated three times across three separate modules.