Hello all! I have been part of VCV for a while and honestly, have not used it much as I have hardware and have been playing around with that. Watching videos and trying to learn. I feel like I get i… but I do not. i want to use VCV rack to learn more and I am wondering if any of you have had the same experience?
Any advice or guidance is appreciated. Thank you
Only thing you can do is watch tutorials, read module manuals and practice patching.
Omri Cohen has some paid courses/videos that are a bit more elementary that explains the building blocks of modular pretty well. Those helped me.
But really, there is no handholding with eurorack in either hardware or software form.
That’s what I’ve learned in two years or so of messing about with it.
Thanks for the reply. Creating is so much fun, I love it! I am just trying to make it to that next level.
Your post makes me think of Sarah Belle Reid who has many resources, free and/or paid.
I will check it out. Thank you!
Some videos of hers that were helpful for me:
3 Ways to Get Started with Modular Synthesizers
Moog MAVIS Semi-Modular Synthesizer: A Beginner’s Guide + Demos ^(this was my gateway drug into modular)
How to synthesize complex sounds with SIMPLE tools
I was talking to her directly in an email thread last summer, and I found out she studied music at the art school I would go to parties at when I was a lad (which happened to be CalArts, where Morton Subotnick had been the Associate Dean in the days of the school’s founding, Serge Tcherepnin delveloped the Serge modular synth in the early 70’s, and eventually James Tenney was a professor and dean before he passed, which was when I was hanging out there in the early to mid 2000-aughts).
Great series on fundamentals.
the VCV tutorials from Jacub Ciupinski are really great imho
Thank you
Thank you
Not a video, but a classic read that explains fundamental concepts really well:
Also the Modular Cookbook vol. 1 by @Omri_Cohen is a nice ground to start exploring from.
another good one here
I would start by asking what you want to learn exactly. If it’s just the basics like how oscillators and VCAs work etc, there are plenty of resources online.
Maybe narrow it down slightly? What do you want to create, what type of music…do you play keyboards live, or do you prefer to program stuff and use sequences? Do you want to integrate modular bits with a DAW? Looping? Perform live or just making crazy sounds at home, etc etc.
There are a bunch of good resources for learning now in this thread, so if that’s what you want, you have plenty to work with.
But here’s a different point of view:
In the hardware world, there is a small but real chance that doing something non-standard could damage your, likely expensive, equipment. So learning some basics is probably a good idea.
In the VCV world there really is no danger and no wrong way to use the app.
Just get in there and do things, see what happens. Everything in a cable is just a signal, there is no difference between audio, envelopes, gates, pitch, random modulation. Its all just voltage, and in VCV, its all just digital numbers.
Yes you could learn the basics, create a very standard (potentially very boring) synth voice.
But you could also just use it, experiment and learn by doing things. You can discover what works and what doesn’t, according to your own tastes. You might even discover something new, the possibilities are endless.
In the age of the AI apocalypse, I say, think for yourself, make your own path, and in VCV, do whatever you want, don’t let anyone tell you how to be creative. Happy synth discoveries.
Amen to all of that. I mainly learnt by messing about, and that’s the best way!