Noise Engineering has announced the discontinuation of  Basimilus Iteritas Alter, Manis Iteritas, Cursus Iteritas, and Ataraxic Iteritas, as the CPU used in these modules has been discontinued.

In the company’s announcement, they explained:

“The bottom line/TL:DR: We are discontinuing the four core Iteritas, but Loquelic Iteritas, Loquelic Iteritas Percido, and Cursus Iteritas Percido will remain in production for the foreseeable future.

5U (the four core Iteritas) will remain in production as well for the moment. And if you’re still in the market for one of the discontinued Iteritas, many retailers still have them in stock, so you’ve still got time to pick one up.”

The less-expensive CPU that Noise Engineering chose for their oscillators in the early days of the company turned out to be challenging  (if not impossible) for users to update. Updates to the early modules required a special daughterboard and a custom PCB and so on – a problem that was avoided in later Noise Engineering product lines like Versio and Legio, whose firmware can be updated via USB.

“We spent years living in fear that [the CPU manufacturer] would one day end-of-life (EOL) our chip. Over the course of the pandemic, we got them in fits and starts and with zero predictability, despite lead-time buys of over a year. We managed to make it work (and a giant shout out to our manufacturer for making it so), but we were starting to see the writing on the wall.”

The manufacturer has now officially discontinued the part.  What does this mean for Iteritas product line?

Noise Engineering has seven Eurorack products that run on the discontinued CPU:

• The four core Iteritas: Ataraxic, Basimilus, Cursus, Manis
• Loquelic Iteritas
• Loquelic Iteritas Percido
• Cursus Iteritas Percido

As the remaining supply of CPU dwindles, Noise Engineering has had to make “a very difficult decision in a frankly bleak year to cull some of [their] most popular products.” This option allows Noise Engineering to set aside the remaining CPUs for warranty repairs. “If your module malfunctions, we want to be able to help, and if we don’t have any spare parts, we won’t be able to get them in the future.”

Loquelic Iteritas, Loquelic Iteritas Percido, and Cursus Iteritas Percido will remain in production for the foreseeable future. 5U versions (of the four core Iteritas) will remain in production as well.  And for the four discontinued Iteritas modules, many Noise Engineering retailers still have them in stock.

Noise Engineering says they “have lots of ideas … to explore in the sound-generator space.” and “still have plenty of oscillators and voices in [their] lineup,” including the Tymp Legio for percussion and Virt Iter Legio for stereo sound design.