Shakmat Modular Bard Quartet
Quad quantizer with harmonic progressions and microtuning
10 HP Eurorack module
The Bard Quartet is a quad programmable quantizer with an integrated keyboard interface, capable of controlling up to four instruments simultaneously across eight customizable harmonic progressions. It features microtuning, arpeggiator modes, channel grouping, and shift-register-style channel interactions, making it a powerful compositional tool for building entire song structures from harmonic progressions within a single module.
Features
- 4 independent quantizer channels with individual scale programming
- 8 harmony locations per channel for harmonic progression creation
- Integrated 12-note keyboard interface for direct scale editing
- Microtuning per note per channel per harmony with +/-50 cents range
- 5-mode arpeggiator per channel (Up, Down, Pendulum, Spiral, Random)
- Octave spread for arpeggiator from 1 to 4 octaves
- 10 non-volatile memory slots storing all settings including 8 harmonies
- Up to 320 scales memorizable (4 channels x 8 harmonies x 10 slots)
- Channel grouping for shared scale editing across up to 4 channels
- Harmony CV input for voltage-controlled harmony selection
- Transpose CV input assignable per channel as pre-quantize, post-quantize, or octave
- Gate input assignable per channel as track & hold or sample & hold
Controls & Jacks (32)
- OCT
- Harmony
- T OUT
- Power
- GT IN Button
- Voice 1
- Voice 2
- Octave -
- Voice 3
- Voice 4
- TRSP Button
- OCT Select
- EDIT
- Step
- ARPG/Memory
- uTUNE/Option
- PRE
- Octave +
- POST
- Waveform
- TRIG OUT
- GT IN
- IN 1
- IN 2
- IN 3
- IN 4
- TRSP
- OUT 1
- OUT 2
- OUT 3
- OUT 4
- HRMN
How-To Guides
- Save Settings to Memory Slot
- Load Settings from Memory Slot
- Factory Reset
- Copy Harmony to Another Channel
- Four-Voice Harmonic Chord Progression
- Cascading Shift Register Melody
- Just Intonation or Gamelan Microtuning
- Arpeggiated Chord Accompaniment
- CV-Controlled Song Structure Navigation
- Buchla 1.2V/Oct Microtonal Quantization
- Live Harmony Editing While Playing
Explore the interactive Bard Quartet panel on BleepDex — tap any control to learn what it does.
