ALM Busy Circuits
A London outfit that treats Eurorack like a playground. Playful on the surface, dead serious underneath.
Overview
ALM/Busy Circuits is part of Allum & Company Limited, registered at 28 Tudor St, London EC4Y 0AY under company number 07494525 in England & Wales, with UK VAT registration GB151532145. That's the paper trail. The paperwork doesn't say that this is one of the more distinctive voices in modern Eurorack. One retailer says its modules "blend classic concepts with modern design and usability," and another describes "a singular vision of creative sound devices that are equal parts inspiringly playful, and strikingly powerful."
This page is about the brand rather than one module, but two products anchor most of what's known about ALM's catalog. The Squid Salmple, catalogued as the "ALM022 Squid Salmple 8-Channel Sampler Eurorack Synth Module," is an eight-channel audio and CV sampler. The MCO MkII is a "digital VCO and voice module," a compact multi-synth voice. Two very different tools.
Both lean on the past without wallowing in it. The Squid Salmple is pitched as bringing "the feeling and intuitiveness of early hardware samplers into the Eurorack realm." The MCO MkII draws its inspiration from 1990s and 2000s digital synthesizers shrunk down to fit a rack. Neither is a nostalgia piece. Both take the workflow instincts of older gear and rebuild them for a modular context.
Key Features
Squid Salmple: Eight Channels of Audio and CV
The headline number is eight. The Squid Salmple is an eight-channel audio and CV sampler, a spec corroborated across multiple retailer and database listings. CV sampling alongside audio means the module can capture and replay control voltages, not just sound. It is described as "designed for immediate real time sampling, editing and mangling within a modular context," and retailers consistently frame it around usability rather than menu diving. One listing puts it plainly: "Taking influence from early hardware samplers, The Squid Salmple focuses on usability & instinctive operation." Another claims it "has the character of vintage samplers like the Akai S950/1000," while a third frames the whole exercise as "reproducing the mid-90s bedroom studio lifestyle."
The Squid Salmple ships with a USB stick loaded with around 90 banks of royalty-free samples spanning "classic drum machines, synths, field recordings and CV modulations." The artist banks come from a roster that includes Mumdance, Solid Blake, Russell Haswell, Lauren Flax, Dave Burraston (NYZ), Sue Zuki, Dungeon Acid, Sasha Lewis and Andrew Duff. It reads more like a compilation than filler.
Firmware Updates via USB Stick
Updating the Squid Salmple is an old-school procedure. Place the alm022-fw.bin file on the root of a FAT-formatted USB stick, then power on the module while holding the Func button. The current firmware version referenced in available documentation is 190. ALM's own manual notes that updating the firmware will wipe any saved settings. To check which version is installed, power the module on with the start/stop button held down, and the firmware version displays on the LED. The official user manual is a PDF hosted on assets.busycircuits.com, and the company directs owners to its website and @busycircuits on Twitter for the latest firmware and downloads. Only official firmware audio files should be used.
MCO MkII: A Digital Voice in Six Horsepower
The MCO MkII is a "versatile and compact digital VCO and voice Eurorack module" that fits into just 6HP. That figure is corroborated across four separate sources, which makes it one of the better-attested specs in ALM's lineup. The design brief is explicit: it's "inspired by 90s/00s digital synths shrunk into just 6HP," and it "offers a broad collection of unique, high-quality synth voices, each with extensive, customizable parameters." Sonic State lists wavetable, additive synthesis, virtual analog, vocoder, and SID chip emulation among those voices. Sound on Sound specifically describes the DigiWave program as a wavetable oscillator.
A USB-C connection handles firmware updates, user wavetable upload, and device config backup and restore. The module also supports ALM's Axon expander modules, which increase CV control options. The Axon-2 is the expander listed alongside the MCO MkII in retailer inventories. For more modulation reach than 6HP of panel space allows, that's the path.
Historical Context
The Squid Salmple started as a tease. Per Gearnews coverage of Superbooth 2019, it was "ALM/Busy Circuit's mystery sampler module from last year," and by the time it was "all ready to go" it "seems to be called the Squid Salmple." MusicTech later confirmed that ALM Busy Circuits had officially released it. In the same period, retailer copy positioned the Squid Salmple alongside Pamela's New Workout and the MUM M8 filter, suggesting a signal chain of clocking, sampling, and filtering that lands in something like S950 territory.
The MCO MkII arrived much later. Sound on Sound announced its launch, and a Sonic State URL carries the date 2024/12/03. The original MCO was described by Perfect Circuit as "a digital wavetable oscillator which pays tribute to the nasty digital and hybrid synth tones of the early 90s." The MkII carries that lineage into a smaller footprint and a broader voice set. ALM's AB2 dual comparator (2020-2023) is a separate product with no explicitly stated relationship to the MCO line.
Similar items on eBay
No exact ALM busy-circuits listings are live right now — these searches show current ALM and similar vintage synth gear on eBay:
As an eBay Partner, we earn from qualifying purchases. This helps support our independent vintage technology research.