UI, immediacy, chaos&#x2F;entropy, and compatibility&#x2F;flexibility.<p>The UI of a modular is great. There is (generally, a few digital modules have menus&#x2F;modes) only one function per knob&#x2F;button&#x2F;jack. Everything is pretty obvious as to its function. The workflow <i>feels</i> creative, in a way that programming CSound or MAX&#x2F;MSP never did to me. I sit at a computer ~8+ hours a day coding as-is, do I really want to do that for my instrument? I generally just set ProTools to start recording, and then turn off my monitor and ignore the computer.<p>Immediacy of modular synths is amazing. The sound you have now <i>is</i> now, once you unpatch or turn knobs you aren&#x27;t getting it back. Even if you take photos, you&#x27;re unlikely to get it back again. That&#x27;s part of the great part. It isn&#x27;t a preset that you&#x27;re using. You&#x27;re using something that you put together. For live performance, this adds a really neat aspect of danger. Is there really much danger (aside from a system crash) of hitting &#x27;play&#x27; in Ableton? No. But the modular can do all sorts of stupid things, which leads me to my next point.<p>The chaos and entropy in these systems is great. Sometimes you use patch cords that are too long and get some crosstalk&#x2F;resistance that you weren&#x27;t accounting for. Sometimes there&#x27;s noise. Sometimes things skip and don&#x27;t play in 4&#x2F;4 as you were expecting (I had a weird clocking issue&#x2F;ghost in the machine last week, that caused it to basically make its own drum fills... without any unit dedicated to that). For creativity, this is like a drug. The sound you&#x27;re making will almost certainly not be the sound anyone else is using- period. That&#x27;s pretty damn cool.<p>Flexibility&#x2F;compatibility. Voltage is voltage. If you don&#x27;t care about tracking pitches to a 12-tone scale, then there are practically no limits to what units will work together. A modular from the 70&#x27;s can patch in with my current eurorack, and also my Minimoog Voyager- your software from 1970&#x27;s probably doesn&#x27;t work great with your iPad. My modular has stuff from around a dozen makers, and I have another dozen guitar pedals, mini synths, and such that also can deal with control voltage stuff. I can make little Arduino toys trivially that will work with it as well. I don&#x27;t have to deal with different plugin formats, outdated systems (Protools TDM anyone?), inter-system issues, etc. It just works and that&#x27;s pretty amazing.<p>Of course, I do have a computer hooked up to my recording gear, but it rarely gets used until I really have the idea ready to go. I&#x27;m thinking of getting an 8-track tape machine so I can remove the computer entirely.