Description
Plinky is an 8 voice expressive polyphonic touch synthesizer that specializes in fragile, melancholic sounds, designed by mmalex. Think of it as an 8 stringed instrument, arranged in 8 vertical monophonic strips. You can play Plinky straight away with those 64 main pads. Plinky can be used either as a standalone desktop instrument or can be mounted inside a Eurorack case as a 24HP module.
Each of the 8 strings has:
- 4 oscillators or sampler grains, detuned by the movements of your fingers
- A white noise generator
- Two ADSR envelopes
- A resonant 2-pole low-pass gate
- Distortion
Plinky also has global delay, reverb, high pass filter and saturation units along with a simple mixer, arpeggiator, sequencer and sampler. The row of 8 shift keys (blue LEDs) along the bottom are used in conjunction with the main pads to select parameters, presets, sequencer patterns, and samples. Plinky also supports 4 external CV modulation sources, each with their own LFO.
Plinky was designed and released in 2021, but was then forced out of production due to the global chip crisis. In cooperation with Plinky’s creator mmalex, in 2024 Thonk and Making Sound Machines are bringing back the new and improved Plinky v3 Kit.
Plinky v3 integrates a TRS MIDI input and output directly on-board, so it’s now possible to sequence polyphonic chords externally and expressively play a melodic line on top. This new revision also improves the DIY build experience, making Plinky an even more easy-to-assemble DIY build. The USB connections have been updated to USB-C and the v3 circuit also improves the noise level on the inputs.
Best of all, Plinky is now open-source, with improvements and contributions from the Plinky community and PCB contributions from Making Sound Machines, TiNRS, Okyeron and LPZW.
You can power Plinky by either connecting it to your Eurorack power (it requires a 5V connection) or USB (although it is best not to power through both at the same time). For connecting USB you can use either one of the connectors on the front or the back (but again, don’t use both at the same time!).
Plinky Rev3 – Build Guide | Play Guide | User Manual
