Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

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sysrqer
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by sysrqer »

jonetsu wrote: As for playing melodies, why not use a DAW and its MIDI capabilities and use the Rack for what the Rack can excel at ? This is where I find that the VST version shines.
I don't know really, I quite enjoy working outside of a daw (enjoying puredata with automatonism as well) and had planned to record in to a daw when i have something to work with. The sequencing side of things has been the biggest hurdle for me but it's incredible what you can do and such a different approach. I need to watch the Venetian Snares video of him sequencing his modular setup with renoise, he did some crazy stuff.

Also, is playing the patch in realtime in to a daw (or whatever) the only way to export it? I found a recorder module but it doesn't seem to work.
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by jonetsu »

sysrqer wrote: Also, is playing the patch in realtime in to a daw (or whatever) the only way to export it? I found a recorder module but it doesn't seem to work.
Hmmm not sure about your question. In a DAW the export function will export what's playing. I'd say that if the Rack is 'playing' an ambient patch or sequence w/o any end, very loosely, that audio will get exported (along other tracks) up to the bar limit set for the export. Otherwise any audio recorder (like Audacity or Ardour) would be able to be set up to record the audio outs of the Rack until the Stop button is pressed.

This said there can be many charms to have the VCV Rack 'come up' with shifting melodies. I think Dave has posted some examples of that.
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by sysrqer »

jonetsu wrote: This said there can be many charms to have the VCV Rack 'come up' with shifting melodies. I think Dave has posted some examples of that.
Indeed, Turing Machine and some of the Audible Instruments stuff is crazy, it's so refreshing to have starter melodies/sequences generated so easily - it's like sampling almost. It's incredible how deep some of the modules are, incredible that someone designed them in the first place but also that it can be put into hardware and software. Very clever people.
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by sysrqer »

Maybe this link should be added - https://mi-rack.github.io/catalog/gallery/
Nice graphical overview of lots of modules.
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by jonetsu »

Another concept perhaps, is that the 'machine goes on' even if it's audio outputs are disconnected. This has to do with hardware oscillators not knowing anything about stopping. Voltage is put, it goes. In a complex rig this can mean that transformations are always happening. The current state is always a state of transition and not one of gating. If you pardon me, in philosophical terms this means that it strives away from the Greek concept of working up from difference to difference (what we usually do) to one of flowing transitions for which the Greeks have barely a notion.

How can this translates to music ? We have heard some examples. Is this machine music ? IMHO interaction between continuous voltage effects and flowing human input would be a key to enrich the notion that all things are of a transitional nature.
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by jonetsu »

sysrqer wrote:Maybe this link should be added - https://mi-rack.github.io/catalog/gallery/
Nice graphical overview of lots of modules.
That's great. There are some png in the VST version (probably in the regular version also) that shows available plugins from a maker as well as different configurations .
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by thebutant »

jonetsu wrote:Look at the screenshot I posted above, upper left. There's a MIDI module. That module takes the MIDI input from the DAW and 'converts' it to a 'voltage' value related to a scale. But it will not stop the note that's played. For that you need the gate output from that MIDI module and connect it to an ADSR which in turn goes to a VCA and then to the AUDIO module.

For playing the VCV rack like a regular VST synth you need those modules to start with, before adding any sound-producing oscillators and waves and such. Everything goes between the MIDI (DAW in) and AUDIO (DAW out) modules. You can load the VCV Rack in that screen shot, it's one of the given examples.
Thank you, this was really helpful!
Rather a must just to get started with the vst.
sysrqer wrote:I'm starting to think that vcvrack is one of the most successful pieces of free software - there are loads of uses on all platforms, users are contributing a ton of modules, youtube is filled with tutorials.
Yeah, it's great! Far outside of free software environments, it's simply good and cool and there's nothing quite like it (at least that I know of).
I find VCV to be open standard at its best. Easy to contribute, fun to play with, a free (as in beer AND freedom) software that encourages creativity and which has an openness proprietary software just cannot have.
No matter how much I like U-he's Bazille, their modular softsynth (and yes, I adore it), it just cannot develop the way VCV already does. It's stuck the way it is (maybe with a new feature or two in a future update), there aren't new modules coming along all the time, people don't have new ideas of how to use it and contribute their own way. It's just not what proprietary does. It's what free software does at its best. :D
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by jonetsu »

It could be cool if well-known softsynth makers, like u-he for instance, were to start building VCV Rack modules.

I see the upcoming Bitwig Grid as some kind of proprietary competition to the VCV Rack. I wonder if Bitwig will publish their specs and invite other companies to build modules for their Grid.

The Grid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wHHbV8Zw4g
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by sysrqer »

Damn, I'm loving this software so much. I've made more music over the last week or two than I have in the last six months, maybe even year. It's so creative when you can use chances/probability/switch gates, just so much fun and takes you in wildly different places than you would ever consciously think of.

Since I've been playing around with, and reading the manuals, and watching a few of Omri's videos for the Impromptu Modular's modules, particularly the PhaseSeq16 and Foundry, I can see how powerful good sequencers can be and why people pay a lot for things like elektrons (I want one now). You can even use it like renoise's LPB setting and change the resolution of the clock/pulse. It really makes me wonder why more daws have not tried implement a similar workflow and feature set.
https://github.com/MarcBoule/ImpromptuModular

And then you have things like the Turing Machine to to give you randomness for your inspiration.

It would be cool if someone could make a zynsubaddfx engine synth module, would have to be stripped down of course but it would be amazing.
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by davephillips »

@jonetsu - New source for VeeSeeVSTrack available at https://github.com/bsp2/VeeSeeVSTRack. More modules, much expanded fun.

I'll provide Linux binaries asap.

Best,

dp
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by khz »

lilith wrote:On my system there's something wrong with the graphic. Some modules look strange, maybe I'm missing the openGL thing?
Is with me even if I load some modules / patches.
By quitting and restarting vcvrack and loading the patch I can solve the graphics problem.
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by sysrqer »

There's an interesting experimental fork of vcvrack here - https://github.com/Rcomian/Rack
Multithreading makes quite a difference for me and the module pushing is hard to live without when you get used to it.
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by thebutant »

I just listened to this interview with Andrew Belt, the maker of VCV Rack: https://artmusictech.libsyn.com/podcast ... t-vcv-rack
Apart from simply recommending it, as it's very interesting, I also want to ask about something he mentions towards the end - the vst version of VCV Rack named "VCV bridge". Does anyone have experience with this?
I just started using VeeSeeVSTRack, which I find really good so far. Has anyone compared these different vsts?

And as I recommend one VCV Rack related podcast, I'll also throw in this one: https://artmusictech.libsyn.com/podcast ... -wentworth
It's an interview with Jeremy Wentworth, who makes the JW Modules for VCV Rack. Both his modules and this interview are very interesting stuff! :D
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Re: Getting started with VCV Rack [updated 2/28]

Post by davephillips »

thebutant wrote:...the vst version of VCV Rack named "VCV bridge". Does anyone have experience with this?
I just started using VeeSeeVSTRack, which I find really good so far. Has anyone compared these different vsts?
The Bridge plugin has been abandoned. It was an interim solution to getting data from Rack into a DAW and vice versa. It was a limited solution that Andrew decided was no longer necessary. V2 of VCV Rack will include a VST version of itself but that won't appear for probably another year.

There's really no comparison between VeeSeeVSTRack and the Bridge plugin, they do quite different things.
And as I recommend one VCV Rack related podcast, I'll also throw in this one: https://artmusictech.libsyn.com/podcast ... -wentworth
It's an interview with Jeremy Wentworth, who makes the JW Modules for VCV Rack. Both his modules and this interview are very interesting stuff!
He's a very nice fellow. Jeremy created some of the earliest and best of the Rack modules, I still use some of his stuff on a daily basis.

Best,

dp
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