Module Creation Kit
Okay …technically this is not really a module. But those of us who get lost in writing a “Print” routine in Basic could use a system that would allow us to design our own modules. This could be something similar to Audulus which allows the user to create and modify modules using the high-level “language” of a graphic design system. Admittedly this would be a massive undertaking.
But Volt Modular does it. Audulus does it REALLY well. Perhaps VCV Rack could do something similar
Saw ants somewhere else in the forum, made me think Boids, Reynolds bird flocking algorithms. Could be interesting for polyphony. Launch a bunch of boids, more than the amount of channels. Track the movement of up to 16 boids. Their movements will be similar, differentiated by the location in the flock. Sometimes flocks split and merge. One could track location, velocity, acceleration, direction. One could even make boids that have a slightly different maximum speed or weight that influences the acceleration. Put obstacles in the flight path to force the boids in a direction or to split.
Edit: Lots of recources (if not dead links) https://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/
Edit2: C++ code http://www.behaviorworks.com/people/ckline/boids
Edit3: boids & predators & c++ code http://michaeljwatts.co.uk/boids/
In the previous thread about this subject, I posted a few things, which I’m reposting here almost verbatim, save for two ideas: one was implemented by stoermelder, and the other by myself (it should hit the library soon if all goes well).
All the simpler ideas are things I might implement myself. I am not experienced with C++ or DSP so I won’t touch some of the more complex ideas.
If you choose to adopt an idea here, I’d appreciate a ping so I de-prioritize working on it.
Quick reference expander
Blank panel that provides quick references about things you’d look up often in VCV, such as which Braids abbreviation means what, so you can look up stuff while you jam without ruining your flow.
Place it next to a supported module to get the relevant page via the expander systerm, or use right click to select the page.
It should be done by an author who’s open to receive new SVG faceplate pull requests so it can all be bundled in a single convenient place.
Pitchbend Helper
Figures out the math to do a standard pitch bend, with advanced features: scale-aware, quantized glissando. For example, dial in the scale and make it so that pushing the bend to the max makes you end up 3 scale degrees above the starting position. Or make the pitch bend 24 semitones, quantized to F# Minor notes. [Note: I am currently working on this one. If you adopt the idea, please ping me.]
Sound Test
A visualizer that looks like old videogames’ sound test modes, with many piani on top of each other. Getting the aesthetics right is crucial here. It needs the many keys closely stacked on top of each other. Good visual references: Knuckles’ Chaotix, FMDSP, Hoot Player, Vanbasco’s Karaoke Player, TMIDI Player.
Text Chat to CV
The module offers a few triggers and continuous -10/+10v CV outputs. When connected to an internet chatroom, such as Twitch chat, viewers can send commands such as !trig1 or !signal2 6.4. While it might be better implemented outside of VCV (as a separate program sending data over a virtual MIDI device), it’d be fun for viewers to see their input given a physical presence in the streamer’s patch, and hear the performance react to their choices.
Mario Paint
A sound module taking V/OCT and gates for each of the 15 original instruments (meticulously sampled from real hardware or Higan). That’s it.
Sampling those sounds is a gray area. Ethically, they are single notes meant to be used in music composition in software meant to foster creativity, so I will argue it’s no different from sampling a classic synth. Pragmatically, Nintendo has never sent their lawyers after Mario Paint Composer, a PC program that takes graphics and sounds directly from the SNES software. Using the “Mario” trademark is what they’d be the most likely to object to. A fun module name suggestion I received when mentioning it was “Bowsette Paint” (a fan-made character, so Nintendo can’t object on trademark grounds).
Web Radio
Grab a live webradio stream to infringe copyrights in real time. I think antN already can do that, and modular80’s Radio Music lets you load files, but I’d like instead to have built-in URLs curated for quick operation. Just dial in CLASSIC ROCK, ANIME, POLITICS, DEATH METAL, DAD RAP, ITALIANO, DOO WOP, etc., and let the DJ spin the good jams for you.
Rubato Orchestra Conductor
Interpolate beats to turn them into a clock.
Send a trig to signify a beat, have the module interpolate and serve as a clock. This is not a “set and forget” BPM detector nor a system for sudden changes in tempo (tapping on the beat has too low a level of granularity), this is to humanize the energy of a sequenced song.
You could also use the velocity at which you tap with a slew limiter to alter the intensity of the performance, but this probably shouldn’t be that module’s concern.
Progression-aware magic chord dispenser
Grids, but for chords. Set the key, move knobs, send a trig, and the black box picks evolving chord progressions that sound good on a polyphonic V/OCT jack. You can then patch it to a poly oscillator, but the real fun happens if you also split the channels and generate melodies from chord notes. Progressions should not be crafted at random, but chosen and repeated in ways that would please intellectual theory nerds. But I don’t know aout those ways, I’m a theory illiterate idiot who barely understands what a “scale” even is.
EDIT: This is pretty much what Meander does!
Sticker Box
How about messing up your super expensive modular rig by slapping a bunch of stickers all over it? Think how Reason places a bit of console tape on every rack device for you to name them, for example. I have zero clue how feasible it is, but since I saw examples of modules drawing outside their boundaries, maybe it can work, I have not looked up the API details yet. The module could be modal, switching the current sticker being edited, comprised of an input box to edit the text, navigation buttons (Previous, New, Edit, Delete, Next), and knobs to change the X/Y offset, rotation, scale, opacity, and template.
EDIT: Implemented as Glue
Auto-Tune
I imagine the basic algorithm behind autotune and melodyne is well documented by now, and it might be easy to re-implement the basic concept, especially if you’re not after studio quality natural-sounding correction but after the very artificial “autotune effect”, making the attack very fast to obtain a vocoder-like choppy glissando.
Turntable
Fun skeuomorphic multi-module turntable sampler system, meant for scratching. The main module is a turntable with a spinning record that you can grab and scratch. It could sound realistic, and also enable creative uses that are impractical on real turntables. Similar to things you can already do with Nysthi’s Jira Jira echo & Complex Simpler but with live sampling & time travel.
Here’s a very very very naïve first draft how it could work:
- You can load a sample or record a rolling buffer from the audio in.
- You can use a rolling buffer of arbitrary length. There is a small crossfade at the point the buffer rolls back to the start. If you’re sending it sounds perfectly synced to the beat, then scratching bidirectionally will probably sound natural.
- You can also activate a delay: by sending sound to the rolling buffer one or two bars before you want it played, you can time travel, scratching both directions, and cue back to the present.
- You can use a mouse or midi controller to grab and scratch.
- The turntable could be represented as follows:
- Torque: Sawtooth LFO with acceleration & deceleration.
- Hand pressure: How much force is applied by the scratching hand vs. torque.
- Hand direction: If any pressure is applied, it interprets movement in CV as relative motion applied to the disk.
- Cue: Send it a value + a trig to send the needle to that position. The value is absolute relative to the length of the buffer.
Most features could be split off to smaller modules. A possible system:
- Single turntable, placed vertically, the record taking most of the space on the module.
- Motor (dual sawtooth LFO powering two turntables, with acceleration/deceleration when powered on/off, taking hand pressure input)
- Crossfader
- Cue point memory
- Hand movement memory, with pre-loaded bank of common turntable motions
- An interally hardwired module containing the full system ready to go, both in single turntable and dual turntable configuration
TBH, I don’t think this idea has much of an audience, with the modular synths and hip-hop worlds having so little overlap, so it would have no success as a paid module, and is a crazy amount of effort to do for free unless it’s a true labor of love.
[NOTE: I intend to work on one piece of the puzzle eventually: rotational motion to CV. It won’t be a full system but will be usable as a turntable to send a ramp to something like PdArray]]
Voice cloning as a module
That one seems really hard to implement, I haven’t looked into details.
MIDI recorder with Drag & Drop file out
Because of my interest for semi-aleatoric composition, I’d like to use my modular environment as a pure composition tool: if I get it to generate a composition I like, I want to be able to record it to MIDI, rather than to audio.
It’d be great if it were possible to drag and drop a MIDI clip from the module directly into a DAW, without an intermediary cable or loopback device, in the same way that some drum VSTs allow you to craft drum parts and drop the clips directly in the host’s timeline. I have no idea about the feasibility of it, probably depends whether the VCV API exposes enough to plug in a library abstracting out file drag and drop for each OS.
good ideas!
So much yes. Moire is a pain sometimes. Just want to hook up CVs and midi, jam around and keep snapshotting when you’ve got something nice.
Clockable morph time and curve control.
Do you mean like Spherical Harmonics and Spherical Harmonics Study Page 1? If so that could be generalised to something that turns 2-3D parametric equations into voltages. Here’s a function parser that can be useful for such a module.
Contour oscillator
z = E sin(A sin(I x) + B cos(J y)) + F cos(C cos (K x) + D sin(L y))
http://www.physics.emory.edu/faculty/weeks//ideas/tplot.html
The images on the site above are high contrast. When I render them in POV_Ray there are gradients.
One could pick x for time and select one y value for the “scan line”. This way a waveform can be generated.
And the best, with 10 parameters there’s lots of knobs to fiddle with.
Do you mean like http://paulbourke.net/geometry/sphericalh/
Yep. Basically, you could scan the distance of those surfaces from the origin as a function of the angle, or you could scan the modulus at fixed radius, or something, and use that as an oscillator.
Cool beans.
I like the way you think. Lots of cool ideas here 
Washboard manually create gate or pulse sequences by going over a b&w pattern with the mouse. User definable / loadable svg’s with patterns. Gates or pulses as outputs, on/off switch and a record/playback/live scratch function.
I thought of something like that trying to figure how a VCV version of Ears by Mutable Instrument could be.
Automatic Counterpoint Module
Takes a melody and automatically harmonises with counterpoint. Harmonisation is easy in VCV already run into Stack and then a quantiser to stay in the key, but up down detection is a little trickier. I guess you could rise/fall detect on your main melody but that never seems to work when I try it. The problem here may well exist between the chair and the keyboard.
Guitar Amp
A module capable to simulate Amplifiers, I think it is not much a traditional eurorack module, but could be great bring this coloration to the rack without a vst, external software or pedal (or an Amplifier of course).
agree this one would be great as i often use my guitar in Vcv !
Yes of course there are many ways to build it yourself! Blamsoft overdrives are also very good for guitar tones 