If you read my recent review of the Four Seas, the debut module from Helsinki‑based trio Ferry Island Modular, you’ll know that this new kid on the block means business. This month we grill company founder and engineer Justin Goney on his modular journey, his favourite modules and his thoughts on the scene at large.
On his entry into modular
I was playing drums in a band and we wanted to bring in some synth sounds. So I got this MIDI controller and started dialling up sounds in Logic. Just preset‑surfing felt pretty lame, so I bought an Arturia MicroBrute to learn how synthesizers actually work. While I was waiting for it to arrive, I stumbled on a Mylar Melodies video where he was interfacing it with something I’d never seen before: a small Eurorack system with a [Industrial Music Electronics] Piston Honda in it. Having grown up on Nintendo games, I got the reference but I had no idea what this thing was beyond the fact that it looked cool and I wanted to know more about it! Eurorack is super expensive of course, so I started looking into the DIY modular scene. The lightbulb moment was discovering that the Mutable Instruments designs were open source. I built a handful of modules myself and never really looked back.
On his to‑to modules
For oscillators — aside from Four Seas, of course — I like [Joranalogue] Generate 3 for analogue and [Noise Engineering] Loquelic Iteritas for digital. They’re very well conceived; deep, flexible, and great‑sounding. For modulation, [Frap Tools] Falistri is a great take on the dual function generator, and as far as I can tell, nothing else really does what [Malekko] Voltage Block does. For effects, I have this little WMD/SSF DPLR delay module, which is small, modulatable and almost always sounds great.
Erica Synths’ Black Joystick2 and Intellijel’s Planar 2 are two great recordable joysticks; I have what feels like about a billion filters, but one I always come back to is the old Analogue Systems RS‑100. It just does that Moog thing so well.
Finally, a special shout‑out to Xaoc Devices’ Leibniz system. It’s super fun and innovative, enough so that the first prototypes of Four Seas were Leibniz compatible — we just couldn’t get the UI to make sense without having the panel be, like, 50 feet wide!
On the story of Ferry Island Modular
Ferry Island Modular is named after our home island in Helsinki, Lauttasaari, which means Ferry Island in Finnish. Several years ago I made some DIY modules for myself and some friends, and almost as a joke I came up with the name Ferry Island Modular and it stuck.
I had been wanting to build my own oscillator for a while and I finally had the time and headspace to actually do it. I worked early on with a few friends from the Helsinki synth scene who helped with the design and interface of Four Seas. Then Jukka joined the team and my wife Aurélie turned this project into a real product.
I went to Superbooth 2024 with a prototype of Four Seas in my backpack and showed it to a few people, including Thomas from SchneidersLaden and DivKid, who were really encouraging. That felt like a turning point, it made the project feel real and pushed us to think about how to actually produce and release it. Four Seas launched in October 2025 and we haven’t slowed down since.
On the Four Seas
I wanted a wavetable oscillator that felt less like a little computer and more like an instrument. I really liked the Erica Synths Black Wavetable oscillator for that reason; even though it’s digital, it still feels like something you play. I was also inspired by [Mannequins] Just Friends, which was practically unobtainable at the time. I loved the idea of taking that kind of multi‑dimensional, harmonic thinking and applying it to wavetables instead of basic waveforms. That was the jumping‑off point.
We call Four Seas a four‑dimensional wavetable oscillator. It is designed around a wavetable cube that you navigate using the X, Y and Z position controls. The fourth dimension comes in through the interplay of the four related outputs, which gives you a ton of freedom without the burden of managing polyphony in Eurorack. It inspired our unofficial company motto: ‘no half measures’. It’s expressive and powerful while also knob‑per‑function and full of possibilities. It doesn’t hold your hand, it rewards experimentation, and it’s very patch‑programmable.
Justin Goney: There’s a spirit of collaboration that you don’t always find in other industries.
On the culture of modular
We feel very lucky to have been welcomed into it. People use modular synths in so many interesting and creative ways, and they’re all valid. It’s a very accepting, friendly culture that way — full of bright, creative people. What has struck us most is how generous people have been with us. When we were starting out, other manufacturers freely shared supplier contacts, component sourcing advice, things you might expect people to keep close to their chest. There’s a spirit of collaboration that you don’t always find in other industries. It doesn’t matter if you’re a one‑person DIY operation or an established brand: people are genuinely interested in what you’re making.