Keeping this thread alive with another progress update. After 4 years it’s well past time to move on from the old Zoxnoxious panels I designed. I’ve started implementing a new visual direction for the Zoxnoxious modules.
The search began by looking at vintage telecom equipment, then pivoted toward nuclear instrumentation modules (NIM). That turned out to be a better fit: NIM has a distinctive scientific instrument look. At the same time, these are still meant to be musical tools, so I’ve tried to keep them recognizable and usable for anyone familiar with Eurorack conventions. Not just Hainbach.
So far, I’ve completed updated panels for the Z3340 VCO and the Output Interface. There are no functional changes. The oscillator still uses a CEM3340 (clone) on the hardware card, takes VCV Rack inputs for control, and includes the full feature set: four sync modes, dual outputs with VCAs, etc. The Output Interface now reads more explicitly as what it is: an interface to external hardware. In addition to routing to a hardware output, the Output Interface shows what voice cards are present in the hardware as well as whether or not their frontend modules are instantiated in Rack.
With these panels come a few new custom visual elements. The BNC-style jacks are purely aesthetic, reinforcing the instrumentation theme. The slotted thumbscrews are borrowed directly from NIM hardware to help signal that this isn’t just another VCV Rack module. The latching push buttons are styled after HP-lab equipment. The custom VCV Rack slider didn’t fit the style, and NIM modules don’t use sliders, so I opted for a standard mixing desk type here.
NIM modules have precise control on some functions via a turns-counting dial. This was an interesting challenge. A physical multi-turn dial displays its count mechanically at the top. Here, I’ve replicated that behavior with a 7-segment LED embedded in the knob itself. The display shows the oscillator’s octave, with one full rotation corresponding to one octave step. The precision control is implied in the widget. I added some mouse acceleration so it’s easily usable in Rack. (it’s wildly fun to use - I’d upload an animated gif if I could)
Scroll up in this thread for a reference on where I was coming from. The previous modules do, in fact, look like a “Fisher-Price: My First Oscillator.” And that’s not entirely a criticism. The color-grouped functions and compact layout had some merit. But beyond that very little was working. Almost nothing aligned to a grid, the design language wasn’t consistent, and overall it just didn’t hold together. It’s off to the github dustbin.
Now I’m working through re-skinning the remaining modules in this style. Meanwhile, the Yamaha FM board from earlier posts is still sitting on the backburner, patiently waiting to be tested. Only so many hours in a day. Big thanks to the Rack Discord crowd for putting up with my “does this look ok?” cycle. The feedback has been consistently helpful.
