AMYboard brings vintage-flavored synthesis to Eurorack for $29.90

A 10HP Eurorack module for $29.90 is the kind of number that makes modular people stop scrolling, and Floyd Steinberg’s hands-on demo showed why AMYboard landed with so much force. Built around Makerfabs’ ESP32-based hardware and the open-source AMY synthesis toolkit, the board is not just a cheap panel with jacks. It is a small, playable synth voice that Steinberg pushed through a web interface, then through virtual-analog tone shaping, oscillator shapes, PWM, tuning, LFO behavior, effects, filtering, an amp envelope and EQ.

That breadth is the real draw for vintage-minded tinkerers. AMY is designed to load different synth engines and patch ideas, with models that reach back toward Juno-6-style analog patches and DX7-style FM, while also handling samples, wavetables, sampler-style playback and user-programmed setups in MicroPython. In the demo, that translated into something closer to a compact lab than a novelty module, with enough hands-on control to make the vintage lineage feel tangible rather than decorative.

Makerfabs’ hardware backs up the pitch. AMYboard ships as a 10HP Eurorack-compatible synth module with 10 installed 3.5mm jacks, stereo audio in and out, two CV channels in and out, MIDI in and out, and stereo S/PDIF digital audio in and out. The analog audio channels can be switched between 1Vpp line level and 10Vpp modular level with DIP switches, and a microSD slot handles samples and program storage. The board can run as a standalone synth or inside a case, and over USB it can present itself as both a MIDI device and a serial device for patch transfer, file transfer, code transfer and DAW control.

The details make it feel unusually complete for the price. Makerfabs also includes a front-panel I2C connector for add-ons such as knobs or OLED displays, plus an acrylic Eurorack cover and example CAD files for custom 3D-printed or laser-cut panels. Sonic State identified Brian Whitman as one of the two developers behind AMYboard, with DAn Ellis as the other, and said AMY itself had been under development since around 2021 after the team wanted a reference hardware platform that could show off the system without extra setup. Makerfabs said on May 19, 2026 that orders placed since May 18 would ship on June 1, a sign that the appetite for cheap, hackable synthesis was already outpacing expectations.

For vintage synth fans, that is the telling part. AMYboard did not just gesture at old-school workflows, it put them inside a $29.90 module that can sit in a Eurorack case, speak MIDI and CV, and still invite the kind of hands-on experimentation that makes classic synthesis feel alive again.