Manufacturing goals

Manufacturing things ethically in a globalized world on the verge of climate collapse is a difficult thing. Some companies label their products "sustainable", "carbon nuetral", or "ethically sourced", but the meaning of those terms is opaque and untrustworthy. Rather than claiming something like that, we've decided to provide a summary of the techincal details of the materials and labour that go into making OVUM for Eurorack. As a small manufacturer, we don't have a lot of buying power, so we're forced to stay on the beaten path more often than we would like - but a great deal of care and thought went into the makeup of this product, and we hope it shows. This summary is likely to change over time - we will endeavor to keep this page up to date, and revise as our processes improve.

• Country of origin

Every OVUM for Eurorack module is made with care in our workshop in Vancouver, Canada. But "made" can mean a lot of things. We did not mine the metal or cut down the trees that were used to make these instruments. By our accounting, weighted using the cost of parts and labour, each module was made:

• 63% Vancouver, Canada
• 17% Shenzhen, China
• 20% China / Unknown¹

¹ Many of the components we use are made by companies with factories in different countries, and they do not make public which specific factories make each component. Since these components arrive to us via China, our assumption is that is their country of origin.

• Labour

Our goal is to source our parts and materials from places where human rights are respected, and labour protections are strong. However, most of what we need is only available from places where we can't verify if they meet that criteria, or if they are available elsewhere they are prohibitively expensive to meet our goal of an accessibly priced instrument. We are actively seeking to improve this. If you have suggestions for better sources or alternative parts and materials, please let us know! hello@crowselectromusic.com.

• Assembly details

• Circuit boards are printed in Shenzhen, China.
• Surface-mount electrical components are placed on the circuit board by robots operated by humans, and reflowed in ovens in Shenzhen, China.
• Through-hole electrical components are hand-placed and hand-soldered in our workshop in Vancouver, Canada.
• Each OVUM for Eurorack is then hand-assembled from all of the pieces mentioned above, tested, packaged, and shipped, all from our workshop in Vancouver, Canada.

• Climate impact

The actual climate impact of anything even slighty complex is nearly impossible to calculate. As an example: our company will never be able to determine how far the sand for the semiconducters we've used traveled before being turned into chips, or if it was moved by trains or trucks. Even something like how far the workers commuted to the factory that made a part matters if you want to actually know the impact of something. Operating at the scale we are, we can't make many choices on hard data - but when we can, we do. While putting a specific number on it may not be possible, we can say that we believe that the climate impact of OVUM for Eurorack is quite small, as long as it is used and loved.

• Materials composition

The matrials composition of every component isn't something we can perfectly gather, since parts manufacturers aren't legally required to disclose that information, and we're not a big enough customer to require them to disclose voluntarily. When we can't know, we make an educated guess. By our accounting each OVUM for Eurorack contains:

• 0g of lead - all parts and solder are RoHS certified lead-free.
• FR4 (fiberglass and resin epoxy) printed circuit board.
• Other metals in the knobs, sliders, resistors, capacitors, and integrated circuits.
• 43g aluminum front panel
• 1g spacer made from upcycled acrylic
• Various other plastics in the knobs, sliders, capacitors, etc.
• Solder (paste and flux-core, all lead-free)
• A very small amount of glass in the electronic components
• A very small amount of other materials (silicon, precious metals, ceramics etc.)

Service & repairs

Details here.

Power

OVUM for Eurorack is powered by a standard eurorack power cable (10pin 2.54mm IDC ribbon cable).

Changelog

In the interest of transparency, as this document changes - ideally because we've improved things - changes will be noted here:

• July 25th, 2025: initial outline is complete. Still missing a few points of data (weights for PCB, power consumption).