VCVRack virtual modular synthesizer

[kveye]

If you want to get the feel of real modular system, I’d suggest making a template with the modules you like/need and working solely with that for a while. Otherwise vcv lacks this “instrument” feel

[RMBLRX]

I just meant that it’s too much damned fun.

Half-baked patches aren’t necessarily a bad thing in my view. I have more than a few that I’ve returned to to develop into something more coherent. The big drawback, I think, is having very little constraints outside of those self-imposed and having the tendency toward virtually endless progressions inherent to the modular format.

At least with hardware there’s more constraint to contend with as well as the urgency inherent to the likelihood of impermanence; whereas being able to save patches and freely or cheaply obtain most any module desired makes for a more leisurely process. Though even just the range of sounds obtainable by two oscillators and a filter alone can suck me in for hours; so yeah, not uniquely a phenomenon of VCV Rack, but it sure does introduce a whole new dimension into that.

As an aside, I just fired VCV up for the first time since my brief exploration of 1.0, and it seemed extremely sluggish, even after the last update. I’ve gotta give another look when I get the chance, but I was just wondering if anyone else noticed a recent drop in performance (maybe just with ASIO running, I’ll have to compare it to running it over bridge).

[naxuu]

I’m familiar with this “too much choice” problem. When file sharing replaced CD buying for me, I stopped my practice of listening to one single album over and over and learning its nuances and intricacies in favor of shallow-but-constantly-novel listening to a wider breadth of releases I had access to, and I’m not sure it was for the better. The same goes for my discovery that I could just download ROMs of anything from my favorite old game consoles with just a few clicks. It just meant that I played the beginning sections of a whole lot of games but didn’t get to the interesting/challenging later parts of any of them. Now the same thing is in danger of happening with eurorack hardware vs. VCV. It’s the same situation where I’m thrilled at the embarrassment of riches, but years down the road I realize that there was a real virtue in sitting with just a few modules and being forced to spend time with them and learn them over the course of months or a year before branching out because they were all I had and all I could afford.

This is less criticism of VCV or any one particular thing, and more just thinking out loud. I’ve shrunk my eurorack down drastically to the point where I’ve almost started over, but I’m keeping around hardware modules that really take a lot of time and investment before they pay off major dividends. The Teletypes, Mannequins, Make Noises, Endorphin.eses, etc. of the world really benefit from being physical hardware modules taking up space and demanding your single-minded focus and attention.

[WeatherSystem]

it seemed extremely sluggish

Same. Just opening a patch on my very recent MacBook Pro makes the fans scream. Add a couple modules and the sound would start crackling.

Are you using a Mac without an external video card? If so, try running a patch while watching CPU usage on Activity Monitor, then minimize Rack to the dock and see if there’s a change. On my machine, usage would go from 98% down into the thirties. Apparently the way in which the screen is drawn takes a ton of video processing, and on a Mac without an external video card things can slow down dramatically.

I changed the frame rate down to 20 FPS in Rack’s settings file and run the app in low resolution mode (you can find this in the app’s Get Info box.) It’s now usable for me, even if things are a bit blurry.

[RMBLRX]

I have a newish gaming laptop with discrete graphics (GTX 1070) and a decent processor. I’m guessing there’s some hardware acceleration option I have to toggle. Though I was running on battery, at the time, whereas I had always been plugged in before, so maybe that has something to do with it and would require lower settings as you suggest (I do believe my laptop uses different optimization on battery power).

Thanks for the head’s up!

[xidnpnlss]

I feel this.

It demands constant effort on my part to create some kind of relationship with the digitsl bits I have such easy (and cheap) access to. iPad apps, streaming, virtual modulars, ect. I try to find one by purchasing the vinyl of music or physical copies of games I like or getting some kind of hardware version of a module or app i like. But all those options are still a distraction even from their hardware versions. Objects for me have taken an almost sacred position in the face of the never ending fog of limitless options.

[RMBLRX]

Totally. So much of what constitutes first world problems is learning to cope meaningfully with abundance, and I think the reverence or general regard for legacy approaches and technologies that seems to crop up in the midst of it is an appropriate means of balancing that out. In my case, I treat VCV work as “recreational learning,” and though I welcome anything worth recording that might emerge out of that, I find hardware (and I suppose not just any hardware) more conducive to planning something like an album (perhaps owed to being something of a nonmusician).

[RMBLRX]

It actually did end up being that the laptop was unplugged, but I also discovered some odd behavior in the scope (lag at the tail end of the envelope) when using a qwerty keyboard for midi input, which completely went away when using a proper midi controller.

[kasselvania]

Has anybody found any modules within Rack that emulate our sound like the mannequin modules? I heard some stuff involving the Mangroves and Three Sisters and would love to play with those.

I can see that my enjoyment of Rack will most likely turn in to Euro Rack, but until the funds (and my general conceptual understanding of module music making) increases, VCV seems like my only answer

[naxuu]

I’m not aware of any Mannequins emulations. But at least for Three Sisters, it might be worthwhile to see if you can build something using existing VCV modules based on the technical maps block diagrams and descriptions that lay out the architecture. I actually used them to very quickly / half-assedly build something like Sis’s “crossover mode” for the Roland AIRA modules, with some additional stereophonic stuff going on for fun (no clue if it’s sonically similar at all, since I’ve never had or used a Three Sisters. Sounds good though, and that’s enough for me.)

[kasselvania]

Very cool! Thank you! I’m still very new to the modular synth world. I am trying to get more in to designing my own sounds and modular seems more in line with my general sound preferences. It is certainly a tough uphill start. But been listening to some people’s work and trying to figure out how it’s done or find what modules they use and looking in to those.

[naxuu]

This is an old, not-up-to-date Google Docs sheet (via wayback machine) and likely some of these haven’t been updated for 1.0, but there are some wonderful emulations and inspired-bys here that can give you at least some approximation of their euro hardware counterparts (some better than others).

[kasselvania]

Very cool. Thank you. This will be super helpful. In this case, what I might do is watch some demonstrations of the mutable stuff and get those modules much more under my belt. Get some good trigger and gate experience, and then begin to move outward from there. Since those so closely resemble their real world counterpart, that might be the best place to start.

[ceedotgeedot]

I’m not sure if this will work in VCV, but to approximate a Mangrove, I’d run a function generator at audio rate for saw-triangle-ramp waveshaping with the rise/fall controls and then run that into another function generator to get subharmonic divisions. It won’t be quite the same, but should come a little bit close.

[naxuu]

That’s certainly what I did, it’s a great way to go. Set aside an hour or so to watch DivKid’s video tutorial on Mutable’s Marbles, at the least, to appreciate just how deep, multi-functional, and downright musical that module is. It’s an absolute gift that we have that one perfectly captured in free software.

[naxuu]

Oh, and pay close attention to Befaco’s Rampage module as well. It’s free and as good as Maths. It’ll always be a great choice for function generator / cycling envelopes / modulation / etc.

[kasselvania]

I will do that now. I watched a 30 min video on Clouds. Holy crap is that amazing, but it is still dependent on outside sources. In a way, having something like this in software form is so cool! Just push wav files through it! But next is the video you mentioned. In general, I’m still having some issues with properly running modules through an envelope, and triggering them correctly. Haha. So, yeah, REAL new comer

I’m not sure if this will work in VCV, but to approximate a Mangrove, I’d run a function generator at audio rate for saw-triangle-ramp waveshaping with the rise/fall controls and then run that into another function generator to get subharmonic divisions. It won’t be quite the same, but should come a little bit close.

I hope to acheive something like this soon.

I have really gone wide in learning all this stuff. I have long been away from music making and have gotten deep in to learning lua for norns programming, learning VCV Rack and modular synth stuff AND trying to propel my work further in terms of the “last mile” of producing in Ableton. So, hopefully soon enough I’ll have some of this stuff just a little better understood soon enough.

[ceedotgeedot]

Ok, so that Mangrove suggestion more or less worked. Here’s the patch:

The oscillator is the left side of Rampage. I’m not sure if I just don’t get the Rampage, but I got it to cycle by patching the End of Cycle to the Cycle input and hitting the manual trigger. Rise/Fall control waveshape and frequency. I don’t think the both input is v/8, but it changes pitch. You could just use a regular VCO since it won’t cost money here, but it works.

The right side of Rampage is doing the subharmonic division. I’m using a scaled down offset instead of the rise slider because the practical range is pretty small. The division themselves are kinda rough, hence the filter.

[kasselvania]

So, I’ve been trying some stuff out and been hitting a bit of an interesting snag when trying to bring outside Midi in to my Rack. Let’s say, just for the sake of grid/Monome based parity, I am using something like the Awake script on a norns, or Mark Eats Sequencer app on my computer:

When I try to set up the Rack like so, I get an issue where the gate lacks a certain amount of snap. Basically, notes that should trigger as almost being Arpeggiated end up blending in to one solid note (without a restarting of the envelope).

Would someone be able to suggest a way to prevent that and have midi notes coming from different sources have snappier gate triggers?

Ps; sorry for the potato image. Started this on my phone and didn’t wanna have to upload a screen grab.

[unicity]

You could try the Trigger Delay from ML.

Upper blue trace is the output from a Clocked module.
Lower pinkish trace is the same output after being shortened by the Trigger Delay.