Sonic LAB: STG Soundlabs Eurorack Mankato Filter Review

A Sexy sounding filter, great modulation source, oscillator and slew limiter   07-Oct-15

In between his time running the wildly successful Knobcon, Mr Suit has found the time to make a really silky smooth and sexy sounding filter.

Based on a PCB designed by Thomas Henry and sold by Magic Smoke Electronics the Mankato is a four-pole lowpass filter with positive and negative outputs at every pole, giving you slopes of 6db/oct, 12 db/oct, 18 db/oct, and 24 db/oct simultaneously.

First up in this video I run through the different slopes to hear the difference. The Mankato has 3 signal inputs so in order to use all of these I used 3 oscillators to create a chord, two sawtooths, and a FM'd square wave.

One of the great features of the Mankato is that you can combine the different positive and negative outputs using a mixer to create different filtering effects, if you also pan these outputs then you can also create movement in the panning spectrum.

When using the Mankato as an audio oscillator I thought it sounded great when being FM'd, either by its self (using one of the alternative outputs) or by an external oscillator. The Mankato has three Control Inputs everyone of which can track 1v/oct.

In use I found the Mankato a joy to patch with, especially when creating a complex modulation patch, the fact that you have 8 modulation outputs all at different phases makes it a very interesting FM source.

One comment that I have read a lot over the internet is that the Mankato is quite large and although in a small euro system it would take up a lot of space, I think if you can live with this then you get a really great filter, and a great modulation source. The size makes the Mankato easier to patch with, so I don't think you could have the filter in this layout with a smaller faceplate, as it would detract from the ease of use.

Sometimes in Eurorack land it can seem that saving HP's is everything, but in this case I think you should embrace the space.

Edd Butterworth