Molten Music Technology Drops the Sycamore & Oak: Melody Machines for the Modular Rave Bunker

Sycamore isn’t just another random voltage box—it’s a two-channel melody generator that oozes simplicity and elegance, spitting out lines that’ll have you drifting off mid-patch. Molten Music Technology wastes no time falling for its charms, calling it a “beautiful thing” and letting the notes pour out while the module does its thing. There’s no fuss, no convoluted setup—just instant, engaging melodies that make you forget you’re supposed to be tweaking.

The beauty here is in how Sycamore takes the Turing Machine’s DNA and injects it with quantisation, making it far more musical out of the box. No more faffing about with external quantisers or wrangling unruly voltages. Instead, you get a module that’s ready to soundtrack your next late-night session, with a workflow that’s as smooth as it is addictive. Molten’s approach is all about letting the module breathe and do its thing—sometimes the best gear is the stuff you can just leave running while you get on with life.

Sycamore’s built-in quantisation is the secret sauce that turns random voltage into actual tunes, not just bleeps and bloops. With dozens of scales on tap and the ability to push notes around, you’re not stuck in musical no-man’s-land. The quantise knob is your ticket to adding or removing notes, while the shift and range controls let you sculpt the melody’s shape and octave spread. It’s all about hands-on play, not menu-diving.

The real kicker? Dual channels. You can offset them by a fifth, run them independently, or have one chase the other with a delay. That’s instant harmonic action or evolving counterpoint, depending on your mood. Molten shows how these two channels interact, making Sycamore a proper weapon for anyone who likes their melodies with a side of unpredictability. If you want to hear how wild or harmonious it can get, you’ll need to check the video—words don’t do the sonic interplay justice.

Sycamore’s mutate and seed buttons are where the fun really kicks off. Hit mutate, and you swap out a single note in the loop—just enough to keep things fresh without losing the plot. Seed, on the other hand, shuffles the whole melodic deck, giving you a brand new pattern in a heartbeat. It’s like dancing with the machine: tweak, listen, repeat.

This playful approach to generative melody means you’re always one button press away from something unexpected but still musical. Molten’s hands-on demo makes it clear—this isn’t about sterile randomness, but about organic evolution. If you want to see how these controls can take a simple loop and morph it into something hypnotic, the video’s full of real-time examples that’ll make you want to reach through the screen and have a go yourself.

True to form, Molten Music Technology peppers the review with stories from the DIY trenches—losing the kit for 18 months, building it live on stream, and wrestling with firmware hiccups. It’s all part of the charm: this isn’t some sterile lab test, but a real-world account from someone who actually uses the gear (and occasionally loses it under a pile of half-built modules). The honesty about build frustrations and the joy of finally getting it working is refreshing—no sugar-coating here.

Molten’s everyday use cases are spot on: leave Sycamore running in the background while you work, drop it into a live set to fill space while you repatch, or just get lost in the evolving melodies. It’s the kind of module that finds its way into your regular case and refuses to leave. If you want the full flavour of Molten’s style—equal parts practical advice and dry humour—the video is a must-watch. Some things, like the sound of a perfectly mutated loop, just can’t be captured in print.