The Eurorack Module with Transylvanian Soil

Last week we had carrots as audio adapters, which I touted as the most ridiculous story of 2024...however, not a week has passed and Rikard from Forever '89 may have suggested something even more outlandish! The ERD/ERD (Earth Return Distortion) is an permanently earthed module, given that it comes with a small enclosure of actual Transylvanian Soil. There is clearly potential for quite a muddy mix (come on...!), but the story gets even weirder when you discover there is a Vampire Edition which is shaped like a coffin! 

There's a pretty extensive Mod Wiggler thread on the device(s)

You'll find the manual for the original version here: https://1010.co.uk/org/ERDERDmanual.pdf

The ERD/ERD vampiric edition contains mixed earth from both Golgotha, Jerusalem and Whitby Abbey, England. Whitby is the landing and stranding place of Dracula's ghost ship Demeter, delivering the fifty oblong boxes ("a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould") which find their way to the Count's chapel at Carfax. This earth is essential to Dracula, it forms "his earth-home, his coffin-home, his hell-home..."

It is this earth which is later sterilised and rendered more holy by Dr. Van Helsing. It is this earth which is contained and rendered audibly and psychically influential anew with the ERD/ERD vampiric edition.

ERD/ERD (Earth Return Distortion) is the first and most extreme expression of the ERD philosophy, seeking to literally put the earth back into circuit with technology. All world electricity travels through the earth and nearly all electronic circuitry and devices are extracted and refined from the earth. ERD/ERD puts a small block of forest earth into the Eurorack circuit, allowing control and audio signals to be distorted and amplified as they pass through the earth block. It can be viewed in conventional terms as an earth conditioned VCA (amplification factor by knob control or CV) and distortion. Local electrical and atmospheric signals can condition and distort the earth signal. Two jack connections are also included, optionally switching out the local earth block in favour of routing through local earth piles and forest sites.

The header image comes courtesy of Tom's Gear Depot on Reverb.com

You'll find more details on the Vampire Edition on Modular grid: https://modulargrid.net/e/erd-erd-vampiric-edition

Thanks to Rikard for the suggestion! Check out what Forever '89 have to offer here