#180

Cool. I’ll look around there. I forgot there’s a VCV Rack exchange on it.

1 Like
#181

SICK! I have finally figured out 90% of my audio and midi routing system, have the OPZ patched in and my Midi Fighter Twister all properly assigned. So, its time to start getting more comfortable with these audio generators. Going to put together a simple OPZ melodic sequence together and begin exploring with the audio capabilities outlined here.

And if anybody is curious, the basics to fixing some of the clocking issues with VCV Rack to external devices (such as the norns and the OPZ) would be to send out clock at a 24x your VCV Clock Generator, such as this method:

54
Screenshot 2019-10-11 16.22.54.png792×742 278 KB

4 Likes
#182

Figured I’d bring this question here, since it’s VCV Rack based but also Modular related;

Basically I’m taking the plunge in to wanting to design my own sounds. I have been mainly midi and samples/kontakt libraries for a long time, but have heard so many great modular sounds (which are what I have always WANTED to produce but haven’t been able to).

Can anyone give tips on where to start? Guidance on what standard paths and modules might be to replicate much of the softer, more dreamy tones I hear around here? I guess this post doesn’t help much since I don’t have sound examples, but I could grab a bunch and see what folks thing about replicating them.

On the other side of this; how did many of you begin your exploration in to the modular space? We’re there any things you did that felt as if they ‘clicked’ with you and really broke ground for you with making music in modular form?

#183

We’re living in amazing times for sound exploring. VCVrack on computers and miRack on iOS/iPadOS are excellent starting points to figure out what you want in the long run.

I started my descent into modular with a pair of Doepfer Dark Energies and an MS-20 and I have to say, as joyful it was, I would’ve saved a lot of money if VCV and its relatives were around back then.

1 Like
#184

A great place to get an introduction to ambient modular synth is YouTube, just search on that phrase…

There are some brilliant examples with clear views of the instruments and often very detailed descriptions and/or comments…

Some of the wonderful artists behind those videos are members here… :sunglasses:

#185

posted a beta version of my first vcvrack module: Orca’s Heart

15 Likes
#186

Just as a general question to folks who design VCV Rack modules or understand the underlying structure of the C/C++ framework that drives the beast: is a crow module within VCV Rack a possibility? I know we generally have Midi communication as a built in value to VCV, but there are always complications running a norns clock accordingly, not to mention some of the difficulties of getting midi out of a norns and midi signals back in…

Also, I mainly ask this question out of a desire to better understand the structural aspects of VCV to Euro Rack. I generally aim to get a Euro Rack in the next year or two with crow, so it’s no biggy.

#187

Interesting idea, seems possible. You would need to basically

  • swap out all the hardware stuff with appropriate CV I/O, timers, etc for VCV. the good news is I think a lot of this has already been done in various VCV ports of STM32-based modules, e.g. Mutable ports?
  • figure out what to do about I2C (maybe ignore it for now, this would also need some follower modules to exist) and the serial port (modified version of the “Notes” module, with some type of message passing to send stuff to crow’s virtual USB buffer?)
  • get a build of crow working with your hardware proxies, a Lua environment hosted and stuff. As I understand it the I2C descriptor stuff is currently built into the firmware as sort of a code generation step, that part could be interesting (and maybe you can skip it to figure out I2C behavior later)
  • other stuff I’m overlooking?

From a quick search it looks like there are maybe a couple existing VCV modules hosting Lua, for instance here. This looks like it maybe also lets you script the module’s UI with Lua?!

1 Like
#188

Wow! This is a cool find!! My main reasoning behind the desire for a crow module is the general difficulty of syncing a norns clock to VCV. I love the ability to modulate the global clock in VCV and being able to effectively apply that (plus the midi start/stop of mlr and midi sync of mlr) would be HUGE.

Since I’ve now stumbled on to such a subject, has anyone tried and successfully synced the Norns clock to VCV?

#189

Right, this reminds me of one of those things I’m overlooking in a crow emulation - you need to be able to pipe serial connections with external devices into VCV to talk to your Virtual Murder. VCV can maybe just talk to the serial port like any other program? Probably someone has got a cross platform C++ library that could be used. Here is where I start betraying that I have not worked with VCV programming at all.

#190

I don’t think there’s much point in a super-faithful hardware emulation of crow in VCV for norns interop. (It would involve making your computer act as a USB serial device!) There’s almost certainly a better way to accomplish anything you’d hope to gain by that.

If you want variable clocking, then yeah, MIDI 24ppq clock messages are not going to work well. But you can send triggers as MIDI notes. Adapting a norns script to take a variable clock stream via MIDI note triggers from VCV would be just as easy as adapting it to receive crow triggers.

(There would be value in a VCV crow port that ignored the serial interface stuff and let you script in Lua solely within the VCV patch, especially if it supported i2c to other modules, but as people have pointed out, there are already Lua-scripting modules in the VCV library.)

1 Like
#191

Yeah, I guess in general, having some reliable method of syncing the clock is really all I would truly want, and the Crow method seemed like one of the more easily conceptualized due to my lack of understanding behind the true structural nature of both crow and vcv architecture.

The Midi note to clock method would be awesome, but that’s still a bit over my head. Someone linked to the lose structure that someone has used to house Lua in VCV which seems like it could be fruitful.

I guess I’m asking this all selfishly for 2 reasons; these types of questions are the best way for me to learn a subject and that I really just want to modulate the clock of certain norns scripts from VCV haha.

#192

Sorry these instructions aren’t more detailed, but at a high level, it would go like this:

  • Get an iConnectMIDI2 or 4 or some other host-host USB MIDI adapter, and connect your computer and norns to it
  • On the norns, assign the midi device to slot 1 in devices > midi
  • In VCV Rack, add a CV-MIDI module from the Core collection and patch your clock into the Gate input
  • In the norns script you want to use, add a m = midi.connect() to the top of the script, and then take the code that’s inside the script’s clock callback and paste it in a new m:event(id, data) handler.
  • Put in a check for note on messages so you don’t double-trigger on note offs.
3 Likes
#193

If you don’t want to have to bother with another piece of hardware, you could also try the same strategy with OSC messages over the network. Use trowaSoft’s cvOSCcv module, and put your norns clock action into a osc.event(path, args, from) handler. (I have not personally tried this.)

1 Like
#194

So, I’ve had midi in to VCV Rack using the 2host by @okyeron

It’s worked well for getting midi triggers in through the Midi to CV I guess I could just do this similar method of the m = midi.connect trick. I’ll take a look at some of the scripts I’d like to have this work for (for now I’ll scope out awake) and see about setting up the callback script. You mind if I PM you about my eventual novice question or two?

The OSC event script seems awesome, cause it could cut out a ton of problems in relation to a second norns (via the FATES board). This all allows for a huge amount of flexibility though, which is always my main reason for reaching for Rack

1 Like
#195

Seasons
Seasons.jpg1980×1080 483 KB

Hey everybody, I’ve just released my first VCV module called Seasons.
Seasons combines a sequencer and a shift register to create 4 simultaneous outputs that can be used to modulate multiple parameters at once.

It’s quite a fun way to add clocked movement to your patches.

It’s open source and it’s available at https://github.com/SpektroAudio/Seasons/

Update: It’s now available on the VCV Library!

25 Likes
#196

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and below you can see the rack that I came up with. It only requires three free module sets: Befaco, Vult, and Nysthi. It’s a pretty good start for a “VCV Shared System.”

Priority went to ease of readability and use. I left out modules that may have done a more in depth job but I felt were too complex. This rack allows the user to jump right in and start making sounds, with the heart of experimentation likely coming from the Simpliciter. This allows for real time sampling and loading of wav files

Otherwise, the inspirations should be clear.

Imgur

Playing around with this and a MIDI Fighter Twister has been very entertaining.

11 Likes
#197

That’s a fantastic setup! I will definitely be using it as a jumping-off point. (Those nsynthi modules are way prettier and more usable than I remember them being not too long ago, what a relief).

On first glance, I’d personally replace the Befaco spring reverb with Valley Audio’s Plateau, which takes its main inspiration from Make Noise’s Erbe-Verb. Seems more fitting with the “Shared System” approach, I suppose. Likewise, I’d throw in dBiz’s SPan, which is modelled after Make Noise X-Pan. Maybe for some deeper oscillation capabilities, either dBiz’s Verbo (Verbos Harmonic Oscillator) or Trosc (Instruo Troika). And for a straightforward lowpass filter, something from Lindenberg Research - either Valerie (12db MS-20) or Alma (24db Moog).

2 Likes
#198

Curious, what would be your reasoning for using the twister fighter as a CC device like this instead of midi training out to control module knobs?

#199

Sadly, it’s only those two modules which have been re-designed (by a mysterious ‘Pyer Cllrd’). The rest are still… eccentric.

1 Like