Life doesn’t always go the way we think it is going to go. In 2016 I decided to rebuild my early '90s recording studio and synths to have something to do during my then upcoming retirement. I retired in 2018 and spent the next 1.5 years focused on VR. Then I discovered Rack in 2019 and all of my plans went out the window.
Bottom line is that I do nothing with the hardware these days and that includes my guitars. I rarely turn on my studio networks and play soft-synths from MIDI keyboards. When I need a break from VCV, I tend to do theoretical physics simulations in 12-D with VR and with GPU massively parallel computing.
I should take time to play the guitar But, I guess I am doing what I enjoy the most… at this point in time.
I would love to hear a lap steel through VCV processing, I think it’s a sound that works particularly well with ambient effects. The blaster beam looks interesting too!
@k-chaffin you’ve earnt the right do whatever you want once you’re retired! The physics simulations sound interesting. Seems a shame to have a MIDI guitar setup just lying around unused though
Well, my experiences with MIDI guitars goes back at least 30 years. Even with the best that was available, it was very difficult for me to play my MIDI electric guitars. There were tons of problems with tracking, triggering and latency that really required a totally different playing style And it still did not sound very good, to me. I put a lot of time into it, but that was many years ago now.
I did much more enjoy playing the Roland Guitar Synth with my Roland GK MIDI pickup, but I had more fun just using the guitar synth as a pedal board and modify the guitar’s analog signal. Hundreds of presets.
Along the same lines, my main guitar amp is a Fender Cyber-Twin. I also have dozens of presets with just about any type of guitar pedal effect I could want. The Cyber-Twin has MIDI in and out on the back panel, but I cannot remember ever hooking MIDI up to it. I forget what year I bought it.
I think your approach is much more playable than MIDI. Otherwise, I love MIDI for keyboards, sequencers and keyboards (and modular). My Eurorack system has 2 Moog Mother-32 semi-modulars in it, each with their own MIDI in. I also have a Doepfer CV/MIDI module and just about every MIDI interface, switch, router, etc. you can imagine. But, it is sure a lot easier to fire up VCV Rack and not even turn on my studio.
I love your approach.
Edit: I think my first MIDI guitar was the 1987 Casio DG-20. So, 36 years ago
In the 80’s I was talking to reggie lucas. I knew him as a) a nice guy, and b) they guy who produced madonna. he told me over the weekend he got a roland guitar synth. I asked him why he wanted to mess with that junk. he said “I’m a guitar player, man”. I said “shit! your aren’t THE reggie lucas, are you?”. He said “I don’t know, who is the reggie lucas?” I said “You know, all those Miles Davis albums that only came out in Japan in the 70’s?”. He said “Yeah, that’s me. I was just a teenager playing in bad jazz clubs and the next thing I know I’m playing to a huge crowd in central park!”.
There’s certainly some experience in this group. I’m inclined to agree with @k-chaffin, I like the idea of MIDI guitar but in practice triggering synth sounds from a guitar never seems to work that well. I also have a Boss SY-1 guitar synth pedal which I haven’t used for a while, I find it sounds slightly flat, and the synth sounds are kind of thin.
Using the natural guitar sound and exploring VCV as a processor seems to be the way forward at the moment. I still have a few ideas to finish with modular effects before I try and do something with guitar synths again.
Also, thanks for the encouragement!
Well I have put some steel guitar samples though Nysthi Stereophaser ---->Taps reverse delay + Luppolo3 and got some wonderful singing by playing around with the randomize on Quadsimpler.
Here’s the patch:
This morning I got the strat audio feeding into Rack and Rack out going to my sound system. Surprisingly, it took several hours to get this simple thing going. I ended up switching to the Focusrite Scarlett ASIO driver for Windows. Not sure how most people do external audio in, with one VCV Audio module or two. I decided to upgrade my Focusrite Scarlett driver for Windows and for a while I had no audio. As is often the case, I eventually got the sound back but do not know which thing I did fixed it. Typical.
Did you ever post any of your modular guitar effects patches? It would be fun to play with this now that I have my guitar working with Rack.
I plan to hook up the Roland GK-2A and GR-55 Guitar Synth, first as a effects unit prior to VCV and then by sending MIDI to VCV and see what all I can do with the MIDI inside of VCV.
Excellent, glad I’ve inspired at least one person to try Rack with guitar!
All the patches I’ve shared are here:
Ideally you need an ASIO driver that provides both inputs and outputs, otherwise you need to use two audio modules, which is a pain but does work with V2. I used to do this with v1 and it would occasionally hang or crash completely.
Looking forward to hearing what you do!
Great. I will give the patches a try. Good to know that my arrival at using a single ASIO audio module is the way it is typically done. I have successfully reinvented the wheel!
Before I get any deeper into your most recent patch, is the Buxom Betty amp emulator VST the only commercial VST required for this patch? I’m running out of VCV and my audio interface to my Fender CyberTwin. It can do just about anything, but it probably makes sense to set it to a clean sound preset and do all of the amp simulations in the VST in Rack. Does that sound reasonable?
Yeah, it’s not that obvious really and depends on your interface. When I first started doing this, I had a Boss Multi-FX with a USB output. I used the USB driver for audio in, which got a signal into Rack, and the laptop’s built-in Realtek speaker/headphone driver for audio output (both with WASAPI) to monitor on, running under a second Audio-8 module. That was a challenge! You needed a bit of luck to record a take.
V2 with an interface that has decent ASIO drivers is an absolute dream!
Ah sorry was offline just now. Yes, I generally try to upload a version of the patch that doesn’t use any Host-FX plugins, so that everyone can run it, even if they don’t have the host module. Also, it makes it more difficult for other people to get the same result unless they have the same VST plugins, and I’m not sure if it saves the settings outside of my system.
For the last patch I may have left that in, but any amp sim will do if it still has the Host-FX module. You’re correct to use a clean sound on the amp, and run a sim within VCV if you want any overdrive, otherwise you’ll get distortion on the all the delay/reverb which probably isn’t what you want!
I got you latest patch working with the Buxom Betty amp modeller VST. Then I realized as in the video title, you are using two MIDI pedals for feedback control. I will have to see if I have a MIDI pedal other than on my GR-55 guitar synth pedal board. I probably should have selected another of your modular guitar patches that does not rely on a MIDI pedal board. Is there one you would recommend?
Thanks.
Also, I switched to my Peavey KB-300 keyboard amp for a clean amp rather than using my Fender Cyber-Twin which was distorting badly no matter what I did. Sounds fine through the KB-300.
Great, I think some of the earlier patches would probably be easier to play around with. This one is fairly simple, but still one of my favourite sounds:
Or maybe the ring modulation patch:
As I’ve got more into this, the patches have got increasingly complicated. I quite often use a few mixer channels and mute or solo parts on the video, just to make a demo that’s more interesting to listen to. There’s also usually at least one channel of looping and a few things mapped to a MIDI controller, which would need re-mapping unless you happen to have the same controller (the cheaper Beatstep, not the pro version).
If any of this stuff is useful, I’ll maybe do a series of simpler effects using fewer modules. I’ve also bought a decent podcast mic, so I can make a few tutorials if I get time, with a bit more explanation of what’s going on.
My age is probably showing through this question, but, what is the best way to output out of VCV Rack and the audio interface that has levels compatible with my guitar and keyboard amps? Right now I use the monitor outputs on my Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 I run the guitar into the 6i6 inst/pad attenuator port.
On my amps, I just use the instrument inputs and never mess with line level inputs, etc. I.E., I only use the front panel INPUTs and don’t mess with rear panel ports.
Is there a simple method in Rack to rescale the output back to instrument levels, or some such?
Hmm, that’s a good question. I don’t use hardware guitar amps, so I usually run software sims and monitor on headphones out of my audio interface. I do have speakers set up, but not a proper monitoring solution really, it’s a hi-fi amp which takes the phono outputs and that’s the right level.
Do any of your amps have an fx loop? I’m wondering if you could use VCV like a pedal/outboard hardware processor. So basically plug straight into the amp, but connect the fx send into your computer interface?
Yes, but I am trying to avoid using those. My physical amp “stack” is a Fender Cyber Twin stacked on top of a Peavey KB300 and up against a wall due to limited open space in my studio. I cannot get to the rear ports on the amps in this configuration. For the time being, I am just putting 2 -6dB or -12db attenuator (BGA VCAMP) modules before the AUDIO 8 “TO DEVICE” outputs.
Probably. But I was trying for a clean preset on my CyberTwin so that I could do all FX in Rack and then send to my various powered amps and monitors in the studio. I need to re-read my CyberTwin manual to see how to override all of the digital effects. Ah, found the manual, copyright 2000. ~ 128 presets.
If I had it to do over, I would rather have a classic Twin Reverb.
Anyway, I have my Strat with Rack playing through all of my amps and monitors without overdriving. Now what was I doing… Ah, FX bypass foot switch… Yeah, where did I put that? Surely I can bypass from the Cyber Twin front panel…
But, I guess I am doing what I enjoy the most… at this point in time.
