I m currently working with a friend in collaborative songs online , he is a bass player , I m using the rack to make some generative sequences and I ll share to him a record of the patch and he will give back to me bass lines and so on , everything is ok at this point.
but I was thinking what if I want to share to him the patch?
it contain couple of premium plugins that is the Spine of the patch, and it will be broken if my friend try to open since he is not a rack user
then I can give to him my rack account or simply give to him the plugging in a zip , but I m sure both are not legal (or at least the second one)
could be possible for this cases , enable a kind of āDemosā for the missing modules with all the features disables but capable to produce and process the sound?
I know it is not an option for mostly of the software for music, is not there this kind of demo for the DAWs and vsts (demos for DAWs or vsts allway add noises and shit) but the VCV Rack is not a common DAW
I will give to you a sample, In my work , I use to share my files with a lots of people, I receive a file, I work with it, using some times payed and free plugging and then I give the file to other person, they will have not the plugging that I have but the functionality added are not losing since it depend of the software, not of the plugging
perhaps add modules with locked knobs that not allow reconnect and unable to be added directly from the menu ?
The normal way to collaborate is to give people the stems, stereo mixdowns of tracks and in VCV Rack terms this would probably be each stereo audio track from a mixer.
If you use a DAW like Ableton Live or Reaper you could send from discrete audio outputs in the AUDIO-8 or 16 modules to record as tracks in the DAW.
By sticking to audio tracks you are pretty much guaranteeing compatibility at the other end.
The āEntrian sequencers freeā do have such a mode, when the premium version is saved as player-patch.
The patch containing the Entrian modules can then be opened by anyone that has the free version installed. But they can not be edited.
Could be an idea for existing premium modules to be loaded in a locked mode, however that will need many developers to be onboard to such and idea.
I donāt even know if it is technically possible or would create too much of a chaos in the downloaded plugins between free and premium versions of the same plugin.
A sequencer makes sense if the locked version produces only the saved MIDI sequence, but I donāt see how locked modules would work with, for example, an oscillator or synth sound source module that needs to have a number of modulated LFO outputs sent to its inputs to replicate a sound. If you allow those to operate then what exactly could you lock down and still call it locked?
Not that anyone would bother to make this, but why couldnāt a ālocked downā module have all its features working so existing patches would play, but you canāt adjust the knobs or re-patch the cables if you donāt own the āpaidā version.
Oh, but for a real answer, just use free modules for collaboration. Thereās tons or great ones (not just mine!). Surely being limited to free modules isnāt too terrible for collaborating?