This week VCV Rack 1.0 was released. This is great news for anybody who is into modular synthesis. VCV is mostly free, and there are literally hundreds of modules in the repository. And because one of them is a VST host, your favorite VST synths will play happily in the rack.
I love modular synthesis, and I’m awed by VCV Rack. Yet I have an uneasy relationship with it as a creative tool for music composition. I’m sure this is partly because I’m an old guy. I remember all too vividly the scorn heaped on rock music in the ’60s by jazz musicians who had been the bee’s knees in the ’30s. The old guys don’t always get it.
The trouble I run into when I work with VCV Rack is due to one simple factor: Unlike a standard DAW such as Reason, Cubase, or Live, VCV has no timeline. It has step sequencers with pattern memory, so you can rather easily switch from pattern A to pattern B and then to pattern C by sending the sequencer a command signal at the appropriate moment. But that’s not how I think about music. I tend to want to organize my materials in more complex ways.
In addition, the methods by which one controls the timing of the switching from one pattern to the next are not straightforward. One way to do it is manually — either by clicking with the mouse or by sending an external MIDI signal into the rack at the precise moment when it’s needed. Another way, if you want to automate the structure of the composition, is to use a second step sequencer to send commands to the first one. Or you can run several step sequencers in the background and use a router to choose which sequencer output(s) will be sent on to the oscillators and envelope generators.
All this is doable … but it’s not a timeline. It’s a gawky, cumbersome mess. As a result, VCV Rack seems to be best suited for creating music in which there are changes in tone color (subtle or sweeping, your choice) but no big-picture structural changes. Post-minimalist drones, in other words.
I love a good post-minimalist drone. I’ve done a few. But I’m an old guy. As a practical matter, I find myself wanting to focus on music in which I can record a chord progression and then overdub a melody on a timeline. Having to arm-wrestle the software into approximating that creative flow just isn’t fun.
oscillations & tunemania 