Current Modular Synth Manufacturers

• Boards Only
  • Catgirl Synth - Ken Stone is widely respected for both his designs and his quality of service. Site has a lot of useful SDIY info. (Note that some separate companies, namely Elby Designs and Metalbox, provide kits and fully built modules, respectively).
  • Music from Outer Space - Ray Wilson offers boards for his famous Sound Lab Mini-Synth, as well as tasty VCA, ADSR, and VCO designs
• Boards or Kits
  • Electronics for Music - Tom Gamble's budget designs bring modular to the masses; but you have to know what you're doing, as the instructions are minimal, and you need to provide your own front plates. Extremely useful site in that schematics are provided on-line. Has been known to have delivery problems in the past, but EFM appears to have gotten those kinks worked out. (Update: Alas, Tom has closed up shop.)
• Kits or Fully Assembled
  • Synthesis Technology - home of the Moog-look-inspired MOTM line (known to have the highest build quality of all the kits - but also the most expensive)
  • Blacet Research - John Blacet's fascinating designs in fracrack format
  • PAiA - economical designs, including the MIDI-controlled Fatman and the 9700 series modular (fracrack format), which packs lot of functions in each module
• Fully Assembled Only
  • Analogue Systems - British company
  • Buchla and Associates - home of the Buchla 200e, an amazing modular synth with patch memory that can cost as much as a new car - let the gear lust begin!
  • C.M.S. - Phil Cirocco's line appears to be made with discrete transistors - i.e. you can buy an op amp made with discrete transistors from them, which they use in some of their modules. The price, as you might expect, is out of this world. The front panel graphics are gorgeous. Company also does a lot of servicing of old ARPs.
  • Cyndustries - Cynthia Webster's mpdules, along with cables, cases, back issues of Synapse online, and other goodies
  • Doepfer - German company (eurorack format) - probably the largest variety of modules
  • Electro-Acoustic Research (EAR) - markets Peter Grenader's Buchla-inspired Plan B designs, and has also resurrected Oakley designs
  • Modcan Synthesizers - many modules with either banana or 1/4" jacks
  • The Unofficial Serge Synthesizer Web Site is actually the best source of info on these beasts. They're being currently manufactured by Sound Transform Systems, which, strangely, doesn't have a website of their own. You can't buy individual modules - you have to fill up a whole "panel's worth," which STS then custom builds, so the entry point involve shelling out serious $$$; there's no way to just get a little bit of Serge. Serge's designs are known for being particularly flexible, with one module serving lots of functions depending on how it's "internally patched."
  • Synthesizers.com - one of the most economically feasible of the fully assembled module manufacturers. Invokes the "classic Moog modular" look.
  • The Wiard Synthesizer Company - Grant Richter's weird, wild, and wonderful designs (in fracrack format). Nothing else quite like them in modularland.

Who uses what kinds of connectors?

• Banana: Modcan Series A, Cyndustries, Serge
• 1/8": Blacet, PAiA, Wiard, Doepfer
• 1/4": MOTM, Synthesizers.com Modcan Series B
• Banana for control, 1/8" for audio: Buchla