You have 30 minutes: have a go with Bitwig or VCVrack?

Hadn’t even considered the idea of sharing patches with others as a teaching (or even collaborative?!) exercise.

My laptop might be my new radio at work if I can create some nice “music boxes” for myself!

Well said! it’s amazing, mind blowingly good.
The sound quality is just spectacular.

My faves are the mutable, the nsyth modules, and the vst host for my Buchla easel v. I can even bridge patches all into ableton live.

Next year vcv rack will be developed as a vst.

Also a new community vcv rack forum has opened.

This thread convinced me to go hybrid… :smile:

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Actually …

http://www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/fh2.html

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For those who are overwhelmed with choice and still learning modular, I’d recommend the Patch & Tweak book on modular synthesis that came out this year. It’s the single best introduction to the world of modular available right now, and explains everything in clear language. That book plus experimenting in VCV will take you very far. (The book is supposed to come with example patches in VCV, but those are still forthcoming.)

(btw it’s currently on sale at Perfect Circuit)

Oh, VCV Rack is just mindblowing:

Dunno if anybody pointed the out, but you wanna watch Omri Cohen’s tutorials to get what it’s all about.

The sheer mass of free modules makes your nose bleed just thinking about it, it’s more than a strict modular simulation either, cause if CPU permits it, you may and will go absolutely bonkers stacking the most outlandish types of soundmangling gear on top of more and more bizarre emulated hardware without going into debt. lol.

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I just was about to suggest the (tutorial) videos from Omri Cohen, too. It’s quite relaxing to watch him build VCVrack patches :slight_smile:

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Used it for the first time yesterday after being inspired by modular apps on iPad. I never really “got” it till the past couple of weeks but I totally get the attraction now. How cool is this shit, it’s made me want to build a hybrid modular. Im imagining how much I can save on utility modules, also patching in VSTs. My mind is blown. The rabbit hole deepens

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Not just utility modules. When I had my modular, which if i recall was 84 hp, I actually managed to snag an Elements. It was super fun, enormous and expensive. Now, if my computer can handle it, I can stack as many Elements as I want into a rack.

Of course you don’t get the tactile experience, but it’s spot on in every other way.

Glad you’ve discovered it too!

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elements was one of the first things I had to play with too.

just sat down to get back to it and I had a crash. now I cant get sound out of it for the life of me. its not that I don’t get what i’m supposed to be patching up, everything seems right, it was all working fine last night. but now even just putting an oscillator to an output isn’t putting any sound out. everything’s lighting up as if its working but its just not making any noise. i’ve checked my system settings output on mac, set the driver right, restarted my interface, tried different sound sources, restarted my mac. Using an alternative interface. i’ve tried everything and its driving me fucking mad to be honest. Closing VCV makes my mac freeze now unless I make it force quit. Starting to make time think it was a bit too good to be true. Just wasted shitloads of time and got nowhere. Eventually got some very crackly sounds which worked fine yesterday.

Certainly understand the appeal of having the real thing now too, very frustrating couple of hours

Don’t underestimate the shitloads of time searching and fixing problems with the “real thing”. One of my favorites are somewhat broken patchcables which interrupts the signal flow depending on their “mood” (which varies with temperature, getting touched the wrong way etc.pp.). I’m glad VCVrack doesn’t simulate all of that, too.

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Jesus i’d have a breakdown. Im having one of those days where you sit down ready to get going and nothing seems to work for pretty much no reason. Those ones where you end up unplugging and rewiring the whole bastard setup. Usually only happens when you invite a mate over to the studio though so at least I’m pissed off while there’s no one here. It’s been a while so I guess it’s due. Surely I’ll turn it on later and it’ll all work flawlessly :sad:

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Haha so true!

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I know that feeling too good. Yes, it almost always happens when you want to present something to someone (>=1).

Btw: when you are up to bug hunting again, in VCVrack there exists multiple oscilloscope modules. Use one of them to check if the audio reaches the audio output connectors or if it get lost already on the way there.

I’d have a nap.

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Nice one :thup: came back later and surprise surprise it all worked fine. Must’ve stumbled across some bug when the program crashed. It did take a reinstall. Headache but I forgive it after playing with it again. Hopefully a one off :crossed_fingers:

I just was about to suggest the (tutorial) videos from Omri Cohen, too. It’s quite relaxing to watch him build VCVrack patches :slight_smile:

Yah, often I’d have him on earphones when I went to bed. Soothing voice, superchilled bloke. deserves more subs for sure. (:

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A bit weird question, because they’re not either/or kind of alternatives. They work great together. If I were to choose one, I’d go with Bitwig because you can just do more with it - it’s a full fledged DAW, with awesome workflow, great native instruments & FX and couple innovative concepts. VCV is yet another modular environment, likely better than Softube but less convenient than e.g. Voltage Modular.

This topic just made me discover VCV and I lost 2 hours of work.

Edit: haha 2 more hours, this is bad, this is real bad, this is just like crack for me. Tell my family I loved them.

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Is it only me that finds VCV Rack unbearably dull? Wading through github pages, reading documentation, downloading updates, wondering why something doesn’t work and finding out some developer broke something and has submitted a “pull request” (I’ve got a pull request for you pal) Apple’s misery-inducing OS updates, and charmless Java-style user interfaces…

I respect anyone wanting to tinker with a kind of modular software thing, but I spent an afternoon with VCV Rack and never opened it again.