Slow build with some fun evolution.

VCV mapped to midi controllers. Simple patch and nothing crazy, just wanted to share. :)

I've been using Rack mostly for techno, so I wanted to try a longer, slower piece inspired by Schulze and early Tangerine Dream.

Here's The Lost Signal, 43 minutes of Berlin-school music released as Multivibrator. Rack supplies the synth voices; REAPER handles the arrangement and automation, with Mellotron sounds from M-Tron. This is a studio arrangement, not a live patch recording.

Full film: https://youtu.be/Yl4VxrHmTK8

AI tools helped with production. The film uses AI-generated stills with animation added separately.

If you wanna have a go at it, here it is:

https://github.com/spliffrider/metropolix-vcv-plugin

Share feedback if you have it. I'm still gonna do some UI changes and MIDI controller linking improvements, but feature wise it's pretty much all there.

Shapes is a free macro oscillator for VCV Rack 2, built on Émilie Gillet’s open-source Plaits engine: 24 classic models plus three bass models of our own, up to eight voices from one poly cable, and a real scale quantizer. The display tells you what HARMONICS, TIMBRE and MORPH do for the model you’re playing, so you never have to guess.

What else is new:

New website with one account for all free modules: enter your email once, get a link, download Texture and Shapes for Mac, Windows and Linux, always in the latest version.

Texture Beta 3: fixes for the crashes some of you reported on Windows, a new display look and a calmer value readout.

Rhythmicon is coming soon: a polyrhythmic sequencer after the 1931 instrument by Cowell and Theremin, with a display that shows the rhythms drifting and meeting again.

Get Shapes at https://thoow.com/

It’s an early beta, so feedback is very welcome, here or via thoow.com/feedback.

Testing one of the builds of Beads, and making some ambient guitar sounds. Liking this a lot.

Was planning a tutorial but have a sore throat and couldn't be arsed recording and editing a Voiceover!

I've been loving drones lately, so here is a small patch I did last night.
https://youtu.be/kZSLzpsgpBk

In this video, we’ll dive into creating a semi-generative and sequential 1970s-style Kosmische ambient patch in VCV Rack, inspired by the lush, evolving soundscapes of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. Using a beginner-friendly modular setup, we’ll craft a calm, slowly evolving electronic piece reminiscent of classic synth music.

We’ll use Befaco’s Random8, with its built-in quantizer, to create a musical sequence with controlled variation. Rich analog-style filters, delays, and reverbs will shape the sound into deep cosmic textures, while subtle modulation keeps the patch evolving naturally over time.

I'm brand new to modular synthesis and have been experimenting with vcv rack after watching a few tutorials. I've been having trouble with making this sequencer pattern without any clicking sounds. After reading this post it seems my problem might be from the voltage signal quickly switching but to be honest all these concepts are new to me so I'm not sure. Any advice for how to adjust my patch?

I’ve been working on a dub techno suite for VCV Rack for a while now (Thoow Dub: chords, echo, mixer, motion and a “brain” for scenes; I posted about it yesterday). Then Emilie Gillet released the source code of Beads under the MIT license a few days ago, and I couldn’t resist.

So here is Texture, a free granular texture processor built on the original Beads engine. The DSP is Emilie’s code, compiled for Rack as it is. What I added is everything around it:

• A display that shows what the engine is actually doing. The buffer is drawn as a tape loop: the waveform stays put, the write head moves across it, and every grain the engine plays shows up as a glowing read head with a short trail. Height is pitch, reversed grains are drawn as rings. So you can see why the cloud sounds the way it does.
• 8 presets to get going fast: Cloud, Haze, Stab Spray, Octave Bloom, Pulse, Frozen Pad, Dust and Down a Fifth. Turn the PRESET knob and the module sets all knobs, the quality mode included. Each one is a starting point, not a final sound.
• Four quality modes: Clean, 12 bit, Tape and Worn, with longer buffers at lower quality.
• A few extras in the context menu. “Soft grain edges” (off by default) smooths the ticks you get from very short, hard grains. You can choose what the ASSIGN input controls (feedback, mix or reverb). Clicking the display toggles a little logo flash on incoming gates.
• The usual Rack things: full CV, stereo or mono in, and SEED/FREEZE as both buttons and gate inputs.

It’s free, for Mac (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows and Linux. It’s an early beta: it sounds good to me and runs stable here, but I’m sure you’ll find things I didn’t. There’s a feedback form on the site, and I read everything.

Download beta: https://www.thoow.com
Full manual: https://www.thoow.com/manual/texture/

Big thanks to Emilie for Beads and for opening up the code. Texture is not affiliated with Mutable Instruments; the engine credit goes entirely to her.

Hi everyone,

as a user from the early versions of VCV Rack, I finally found some time to work on my first module: A harmony engine combined with a 15-voice synth in one panel. It plays well with all your filters, delays and reverbs and helps play chords in interesting and approachable ways.

While I was on it, some more modules came to my mind. So right now I am looking of a collection of 5, with 2 more around the corner.

What’s in it so far:

• Chords: a harmony engine plus a 15-voice synth in one panel. Send it a scale degree and a gate, and it builds, voices and plays the chord. Parallel shapes for classic chain stabs, or diatonic thirds from the key. Voice leading, three engines (VA, pulse, FM tine), a dark ladder filter, tape dirt and chorus.
• Echo: a stereo delay with a clean core, with filters and saturation inside the feedback loop, so every repeat gets darker. Feedback goes up to 150 % and runs into a warm limiter instead of exploding. Plate, hall and a big “cloud” reverb behind it.
• Mixer: a small dub desk with sweep filters, two sends, a throw button per channel, and a FEED matrix that sends the returns back into the sends. Turn it past three quarters and the loop starts to sing.
• Motion: four slow, free-running modulators, from 10 minutes to 2 seconds per cycle. They never sync and never line up, so long tracks keep moving.
• Brain: 20 scenes for the whole chain. Pick a scene and the knobs on every panel turn to it, morphing over time or snapping on the next bar.

When docked, they talk to each other: Chords auto-throws its stabs into the Echo, the Echo runs as a send of the Mixer, and Motion can modulate the filter of Chords or the echo feedback, all without patching. A cable always wins, and every link shows up in the displays.

All the DSP and all panel graphics are my own, no samples. It runs in VCV Rack 2 Free and Pro.

I’m getting close to a beta. If you’d like to try it, you can sign up at thoow.com. I’d also love to hear what you think, especially from people who make dub techno or ambient in Rack: what’s missing, what would you patch first?

I happily paid my $149 a few months ago to support a company that develops for linux. IT DOESN'T WORK:

• CLAP version: UNDETECTED, not even appearing in the plugin menu. Never really worked since I bought it, 2 different distros at 2 different points in time.
• VST3: Detected but UNUSABLE given that end of stream error. I got it working a few months ago but it seems like I would need to not update my system ever or it breaks.
• VST2: UNDETECTED.

This end of stream error has been going on for years, literally you can look it up. It's either an insurmountable technical issue which should then be acknowledged, or the internal dev resources have been deliberately been reallocated out of linux QC to focus on the others. Which is totally fine, but then don't sell a product that you know has critical flaws and then spend years without addressing it. That is quite literally a definition of fraud.

So at this point I'm running VCV standalone and piping MIDI and audio as if it were the unpaid version. Having the ability to use as VST is literally the only value prop for those $149 bucks. I have contacted support and the responses are generic and hand-wavy and with literally weeks delayed. Technical support takes literally more than a month to answer sometimes.

I expect issues with linux products but I do not expect them to be completely unusable, then facing a deaf customer support team all for only $149. It would have been more fun to burn that money. It is clear that the company wants to support linux on paper and I'm sure Andrew genuinely wants to but the company very clearly has linux back-of-mind.

Again, I'm all for supporting companies that support linux and I literally throw my money at them (U-He, Bitwig, Reaper, etc etc) but they always work 95% and are responsive. In my experience with multiple distros throughout the last 8 months my experience has been that Rack2 PRO linux is unusable and in general the company simply doesn't prioritize (like, at all) support tickets made by paying linux customers.

I really hope they get their shit together when 2.7 finally comes out, this is unacceptable.

Just like the title says. I've always wanted to fiddle around with this sequencer in my vcv setup, So I decided to "vibe code" a picture accurate version of it for vcv rack 2. It's not 100% feature complete, but I'm getting there. If anyone wants to share some feedback, I'd be really happy to hear it.

you can check it out on my github. It's all open.
https://github.com/spliffrider/metropolix-vcv-plugin

Started another ambient patch, and realised I've got loads that aren't finished. So I recorded a few previous patches, loaded them into sampler modules, and mixed them in. Hopefully there's enough variation to justify half an hour of chill.

A gentle generative ambient patch inspired by Surround by Hiroshi Yoshimura — designed to feel less like a track and more like an environment you can simply spend time in.

For this patch, I added a nature radio stream to the modular system, blending environmental sounds with slowly evolving generative textures. The result was so pleasant that I honestly didn't want to turn it off.

This is probably my favorite kind of ambient music: generative, subtle, spacious and never demanding your attention. Something you can leave playing for hours while working, reading, relaxing, or simply listening.

Built in VCV Rack, using generative modulation, evolving textures and a live nature radio stream.

​

Hi all. I'm the developer of RackDroid, an unofficial port of the VCV Rack 2 engine to Android. Version 0.1.3 came out today and it is the first one I feel comfortable showing around.

What it is

A modular synth on your phone or tablet: you drag cables between modules with a finger, pinch to zoom, long-press a knob to type a value. It opens the same `.vcv` patches as the desktop app.

- 66 modules built in (Core, Fundamental, and a set of 808-style drum voices)

- 21 optional packs you install on demand: Bogaudio, Valley, Befaco, Audible Instruments, Impromptu, Stoermelder and others, about 1000 modules in total

- USB and Bluetooth MIDI, an on-screen keyboard, WAV recording

- A "cable parking" bar on the edge of the screen, for patching two modules that never fit on screen together

What is new in 0.1.3

Most of the work went into audio. Phones are very different from each other, and crackling was the main complaint.

- The engine now picks how many cores to use for your phone and your patch, and remembers it

- Groups of modules with no cable between them are computed in parallel, so a rack made of several separate voices holds far more

- Square and saw edges now match the desktop

- A light theme, mouse support, saving patches anywhere on the device

What to expect, honestly

It is a phone, not a desktop. A patch where everything is connected tops out at around 90 Fundamental modules on a mid-range device. How low the latency goes depends on the manufacturer: some phones keep the fast audio path for their own apps.

Links

- Download and what is new: https://rackdroid.org

- Source (GPLv3): https://github.com/nowheel/RackDroid

It is free, with no ads and no accounts. It is not on the Play Store, you install the APK. Not affiliated with or endorsed by VCV.

If it crackles on your device, the app can export a log and I read every one. Feedback and bug reports are very welcome.

#psycore #236bpm
I let it run 13 times through my arrangement since every time it spills different sound, pattern and glitch combination, enjoy

Tinkering with generative phrases, new reverbs, and more fm radio