Jamuary #28 - Together we rock (ft. VCVRack, Eurorack,Soundplane)

video by TheTechnobear

"Today was all about trying to bring everything together....

The idea is simple, using the power of the computer (my little mac mini m1) to use the wonderful vcvrack, yet have it behave like an instrument with full hands on control.

Ive used vcvrack a bit in the past, but never really tried to integrate it fully..
the basics of the patch are simple.
- a couple of voices using instruo and vult oscillators and filters
- pianoteq (vst host) using a vult filter
- aalto (vst host)
- a mixer with a couple of sends to 2 vahalla vst reverbs (vst host)
- audio recorder to record the output
- midi to cv, to connect to hardware

the the bit thats Ive not done before... using midi mapping to map a controller.

on the hardware side.
the aim here was about hands on control...

the pyramid is used as the main sequencer and clock

the hermod is really the brains.
its sending the cv to the eurorack, midi to vcvrack, and its also taking cv/gate from the USTA to sequence vcvrack voices.

usta is a nice hands-on sequencer, quite different from the pyramid, more like an analog sequencer.

electra one [additional posts], lovely controller with encoders and is touch screen too - its easy to customise, so here I created a quick patch that controls vcvrack, things like levels, fx, and filters. once setup, I use midi map in vcvrack to assign controls.

the soiundplane again comes into play as the main playing surface :)

its was quite a lot of setup, but really just because it was the first time... so I had to decide how it was best to connect things, what role they would play.

its the first time my little mac mini struggle a little bit.
in fairness, it was fine whilst I was playing...no audio glitches at all.

but of course, as soon as I turned on the camera issues started appearing :)
the issue is I also had to run OBS to record the webcam, and quicktime to do a screen capture of vcvrack... that seem to just take it a bit over the top.

... which was. a bit frustrating, as I was getting tired by this point, and just wanted to finish... but I got there.

I might give it another go tommorow, now its all setup - so I can focus more on the music side , rather than cables and midi ;)


hope you enjoy

tech note: I should say VCVRack, plugins , OBS are all Rosetta , so I think we can expect them to improve. also honestly, Id have not even tried this on my old mac - its also possible the issue was related to usb traffic, given I have audio interface, webcam, monitor, soundplane, hermod, electra one ... alll sending a lot of data over usb ;)"