Uncovering Modular Esoterica with Alchemy Lab
Danny Turner · 8/10/26
While Hermetic Modular may be a relatively new name in the Eurorack world, it arrives with an ambitious vision that extends far beyond releasing just another effects module.
Founded by Seattle-based developer and musician Luke Pendergrass, the company combines performance-focused hardware with an open-source philosophy, giving musicians and developers alike the tools to create, customize, and even build entirely new instruments.
At the heart of that vision is Alchemy Lab - a flexible hardware platform powered by Daisy Seed that can transform into different modules simply by loading new firmware.
Designed as a platform for experimentation, launch firmwares such as the stereo dual delay and reverb controller ‘Echoa’ and multi-effects processor ‘Spagyros’ showcase the hardware's capabilities, while the open-source Alchemy SDK invites developers to create their own instruments.
In the following interview, Luke discusses the thriving Seattle modular community that inspired Hermetic Modular, why Daisy became the foundation of Alchemy Lab, and the design decisions behind its unique workflow.
Interview
Hi Luke, it’s great to talk to you. Can you introduce Hermetic Modular and tell us the story behind what inspired you to start designing Eurorack modules?
Hermetic Modular started directly as a result of the modular and hardware scene here in Seattle. We have a great local community, with hardware and experimental shows happening weekly. Organizations like Modular Seattle, Modbang, and Electric Blue, alongside various underground raves, make for a thriving environment full of ideas, beta testers, and even volunteer module assemblers for when you get an unexpected number of orders.
We also have a monthly open soldering/dsp/diy/electronics night that was instrumental in getting Hermetic Modular off the ground. Puget Audio just arrived from that group, so we’ve got a synthesis incubator taking off!
As to my inspiration: there were two problems I wanted to solve. First, I perform with live hardware a lot, which creates a need for very specific workflows and interfaces. Balancing ‘knob per function’ and ‘compact for travel’ as two competing forces is a main design tension and constant negotiation.
Second, I felt the market was lacking a visually expressive, MIT-licensed, expansion-loaded, flexible, beautiful, Eurorack developer platform. Alchemy Lab, and all future releases from Hermetic Modular, fill that gap.
How would you describe Hermetic Modular's design philosophy, and what kinds of musicians or creators do you have in mind when designing your products?
There’s this medieval idea - before the scientific revolution - where you have people doing art, science, faith, alchemy, and magic all at once. Monks. Hermeticism. If you asked one of these people to demarcate: which part is science, which is art; they’d look at you like you were crazy. How can you possibly draw such a line?
To me, this is what synthesis is, especially modular synthesis where you might ask “When does the engineering stop and the music begin?” When I’m patching, asking whether I’m programming or making music feels like the fundamentally wrong question to ask. Hermetic Modular invokes this in its design language, engineering philosophy, and most importantly, vibes.
As an extension of the company’s philosophy, what specifically inspired the Alchemy Lab platform?
Alchemy Lab is designed to be that blank slate, ready to be populated with the tools you need to do the work you want to do. Field-programmable switched jacks, expressive LEDs, an open source SDK extending libDaisy to develop with, and a Daisy at the heart. I built it as a dev board to support my own firmware development and I’m extremely excited to see what the community brings to the platform.
How did you first discover the Daisy platform and what initially attracted you to Daisy Seed compared to other embedded audio platforms?
It’s hard to pinpoint a specific moment; it seems that Daisy was just always there. Funny enough, this initially led to some resistance. I wanted to do it all myself, so for the first series of prototypes I designed my own STM32H7 board, codec… the works. In hindsight, I’m glad I made this painstaking effort as I learned tons about the underlying embedded work, but I’ll be happy to never open CubeIDE again!
At what point did you decide Daisy would become part of your product development process?
At one point, I was adding an additional memory chip and suffering during the process of routing all these traces for a proper connection when I just thought, “What am I doing? I just need to use a Daisy.” To really drive the point home, after doing a cost analysis - on a pure unit economics level, I actually saved money using a Daisy versus doing all the electronics myself.
How does Daisy power Alchemy Lab under the hood - and what capabilities wouldn't have been practical without it?
At its core, Alchemy Lab is built around one of the best embedded chips available. Together with flash memory, volatile memory, and a killer stereo codec, it’s an awesome package. I haven’t even spoken about software: libDaisy is excellently put together, and the Alchemy SDK idiomatically extends all the patterns established by libDaisy and provides tools for quick and easy programming on the Alchemy Lab. That’s only possible by building on the foundation that libDaisy provides.
Was there a particular workflow, creative challenge, or gap in the Eurorack ecosystem that you wanted to address?
I wanted to create a new developer board that was different from what already existed - something simple and adaptable, but also expressive and powerful, without resorting to a screen. Not that I’m philosophically opposed to screens in Eurorack, I just find the constraint of RGB LEDs engenders creative, direct solutions to UX problems. I want developers to look at the board and see that firmware project they've had in the back of their mind finally come to life — painted in RGB glory across the panel LEDs.
How did you approach the design of the module's interface?
This module went through so many iterations. We had versions with jumpers instead of microcontroller-addressable switches and others with routable audio jacks and encoders, not to mention the layout adjustments. It took a long time to settle on the right features in the right way. Someday I’ll make a detailed video going over every failure - that’ll be a fun one!
Are there any interface elements or workflows you're particularly proud of?
I’m particularly proud of the switchable CV in/out jacks. Being able to live reprogram the analog interfaces enables so many options in firmware. It also allows for on-device calibration by connecting the two nets to each other. Another standout feature is the front USB-C port. You can flash firmware from it and even live control the device from hermeticmodular.com - managing presets, settings, and live auditioning. This really makes configurability and juggling multiple firmwares a manageable thing.
You mention that some of the jacks can switch between input and output. How does that work, and why did you build it that way?
To get the extremely hot Eurorack signals safely into and out of a microcontroller (Daisy) for processing, you need to appropriately scale those signals. You also need a different circuit for boosting, and another one for reducing, and you have to do it with a smart offset to handle positive and negative CV.
For the six central jacks on Alchemy Lab, both circuits are present and there is a switch that can be controlled directly by the microcontroller in real-time that connects or disconnects those networks. This means a developer can choose what they want to output from those jacks: they can either be CV in or out, making for so many more flexible applications.
Even cooler, assignable CV inputs are a standard in Eurorack, but with Alchemy Lab, a developer could also add an assignable CV out. Instead of assigning a jack to modulate something as CV in, a developer could provide, for example, an envelope follower CV out, and let the user choose to output that from the jack instead.
Jacks can be switched instantly in real-time with no firmware changes or reboot, and you can technically switch them many times a second, but I’m not creative enough to find an actually useful application for that!
Alchemy Lab can run different ‘firmwares’ like Echoa and Spagyros instead of doing just one thing — can you explain that idea in simple terms?
Alchemy Lab alone does nothing; it’s just a powerful bundle of potential with tons of processing power, individually addressable LEDs, assignable jacks, and a pro audio analog front end. The firmware animates it and turns it into something for making music.
Echoa and Spagyros are examples of firmwares. For example, Echoa is a stereo dual delay and reverb controller, but it’s my dream delay, built for refined, tight reverbs and wild, series delay line sound design.
Spagyros, on the other hand, is a stacked end-of-chain FX processor built for live performance, and I’ve been performing live with prototypes for months now! You can layer three effects at once for transitions, breaks, and everything from imparting understated character to total signal destruction.
Who do you see as the ideal user for Alchemy Lab?
Everyone, of course! But seriously, over time the Alchemy Lab will develop such an extensive library of official and community firmwares that I expect everyone will be able to find some novel sound design or gap that Alchemy Lab can fill in their rack.
I also hope to see increasingly more people writing their own embedded software and creating unique, custom modular hardware. Alchemy Lab is designed to be the easiest entry point possible, with zero compromises on real embedded programming for those who desire to get in the weeds.
Ultimately, Alchemy Lab is a digital module, so analog purists likely won’t find much use for it, but for those of us with our heavy processing digital modules racked up, it’s a delight.
Now that it’s available, what’s the response from early users been like so far?
The first community firmwares have already started to show up days after the units shipped, and I’ve already had the joy of seeing Echoa and Spagyros used in shows and performances a few times here in Seattle by people other than myself.
Like I said earlier, we have such a thriving scene here that there’s a show almost every week. As the community grows, I’m really looking forward to building out the community firmware and preset sharing infrastructure and tools over the next months.
What's next for Hermetic Modular?
A new Hermetic Modular synth is nearly complete! It’s bigger, and quite different from the Alchemy Lab, but that’s all I can say for now, other than it will definitely follow and extend the open source pattern that we’ve established. And of course there’s a Daisy in it.
Alchemy Lab expanders are also in the process of being designed right now, but I’m waiting on the community’s feedback before I decide what direction to invest. There are also many new official Hermetic Modular firmwares on the way.
One particularly exciting one I can tease here is in collaboration with Matt of Heavylight Industries. He’s implementing a novel data compression and time stretching algorithm on the SDK and also bringing an Alchemy Lab and this firmware for his presentation on the algorithm at the International Conference on Digital Audio Effects (DAFx26) this year.
The firmware’s called Capicola, which is a real-time time stretcher, pitch shifter, beat slicer, and crazy glitch machine with a ton of heart. I can honestly say it sounds truly unique, and that’s definitely in part due to a (now peer reviewed!) novel algorithm at its core.
Beyond the core algorithm, what else does Capicola bring to the table?
It not only processes sound, but analyzes it, offering two envelope follower outputs with thresholded triggers, enabling the dynamics of the processed audio to drive other modular gear. Plus, both envelope followers and an external CV are normalized to each of the controls, allowing for self-modulation with no external patch cables.
Matt says that the UX abstractions, and particularly the expressive feedback from the LED rings, were key to his choice in implementing Capicola on Alchemy Lab. We met online, but since he’s in Portland and I’m in Seattle, we’ve had some fun hacking sessions when he comes up and crashes on my couch!
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