In the editorial to the last issue I already mentioned that I am overwhelmed by the sheer amount of modules and that even the News of the Rack is not enough to keep me on top of things, because that was my original intention when I started this project over 2 years ago.
Nowadays that is the only thing I do with VCV-Rack and that is certainly not in the spirit of the inventor, because actually it’s about making music.
So the question is, how do I keep my creativity, use as many modules as possible and still not lose track of things?
A newspaper is rather unsuitable for this. The video version also doesn’t fulfill all criteria. But video is not that bad at all. My plan is to create every week a patch with all new and updated modules, as well as the beta versions. No more editorial, no other news, no challenges, no music and ideas, no videos and tutorials and no patches and presets. A moderated patch with the modules mentioned above. Basically a mixture of “what does this knob do?” and the News of the Rack entitled “Rack of the Week”. I will create a template for the peripheral modules like mixer and effects and add the new or revised modules to it. Planned release is on fridays.
Since it is quite possible that my voice will let me down again, I have been experimenting with speech synthesizers for some time now and these videos will also be in german and english if possible.
So much about my plans. Suggestions and criticism are of course always welcome. In any case, I am looking forward to your reactions on friday. Until then stay healthy and creative.
Keine News of the Rack mehr!
Im Vorwort der letzten Ausgabe habe ich ja bereits erwähnt, dass ich vom Angebot an Modulen schlicht überwältigt bin und dass mittlerweile nicht einmal die News of the Rack ausreichen um den Überblick zu behalten. Das war nämlich meine ursprüngliche Intention als ich vor über 2 Jahren das Projekt News of the Rack startete.
Heute ist das noch der einzige Zugang, den ich zu VCV-Rack habe und das ist sicherlich nicht im Sinne des Erfinders, denn eigentlich geht es ja ums Musik machen.
Die Frage lautet also, wie behalte ich meine Kreativität, nutze möglichst viele Module und verliere dennoch nicht den Überblick?
Eine Zeitung ist dafür eher ungeeignet. Auch die Video Version erfüllt nicht alle Kriterien. Aber Video ist an und für sich schon mal nicht schlecht. Mein Plan ist es, jede Woche ein Patch mit allen neuen und upgedateten Modulen, sowie den Beta-Versionen zu erstellen. Kein Vorwort mehr, keine sonstigen News, keine Herausforderungen, keine Musik und Ideen, keine Videos und Tutorials und keine Patches und Presets. Ein moderierter Patch mit den oben erwähnten Modulen. Im Prinzip eine Mischung aus „what does this knob do?“ und den News of the Rack mit dem Titel „Rack of the Week“. Ich werde ein Template für die Peripheriemodule wie Mixer und Effekte erstellen und dieses mit den neuen oder überarbeiteten Modulen ergänzen. Geplante Veröffentlichung ist freitags.
Da es durchaus sein kann, dass mich meine Stimme wieder einmal im Stich lässt, experimentiere ich schon seit einiger Zeit mit Sprachsynthesizern, und auch diese Videos werden nach Möglichkeit wieder in deutsch und englisch sein.
So viel zu meinen Plänen. Anregungen und Kritik sind natürlich immer willkommen. Ich freue mich jedenfalls auf Eure Reaktionen am Freitag. Bis dahin bleibt gesund und kreativ.
Sorry to hear no more “papers”, it was an easy way for me to catch up on new modules that might go unnoticed otherwise, even if I didn’t like the “dowloadable pdf” format.
A weekly patch with the new modules might be a good idea from the point of view that you are expressing: “wanting to spend more time making music” but from a user perspective I’m afraid it will stand out less, there are many patch videos around but there was only one newspaper! The existence of it definitely added to the “Rackworld” fantasy.
Keeping up with every aspect (news/modules/videos/music) as you’ve tried may be too much for any one person doing it as a hobby, but I feel creating a weekly voiceover patch video using all new module stuff sounds similarly (if not more) time-consuming.
Anyways, thanks for all your past work and do what works best for you!
I completely understand, feel free to do what you want, to have fun and make music! Thank you very much for what you did, it has been very helpful and appreciated
Thanks for the work you did, helped me stay sane (if I ever was ) during the flood of modules the past 2 years… Go forth and enjoy whatever you end up doing!
I wish you many hours of happy patching and cool sounds. Thanks for everything!
By the way, maybe it’s better to choose only one language instead of two. I guess that it will reduce the amount of work and will leave you with more time for patching than editing.
Anyway, I can’t wait to see and hear your results.
Thanks again!
While I was not a long-time reader, I read NOTR for a notion of what was coming down the pipe. It gave me an idea of which repos i needed to pull and rebuild and what blobs I needed to download. I appreciate the hard work you did putting this together. I hope someone out there will track the VCV Rack ecosystem tightly; important repo changes are all too easy to ignore, and those things sometimes take a while to get to the library. Good luck with your future endeavors. Be well!
thanks Norbert, the NotR were way better than my daily breakfast paper. Looking forward to your videos, I think they’ll be a good if not better replacement
I will miss the news.
About the speech synthesis, I recommend you Google cloud. In my tutorials I use an Indian accent, but you have more options. The key is to use Wavenet voices that are trained AI.
Wish you look!
Thanks for the recommendation, I work on the one hand with iPad and there are a few of interesting reading voices, on the other is my desktop system Linux (mostly ubuntu studio) and here are also a few options. But my first choice is off corse my own voice, as long as it works…
) during the flood of modules the past 2 years… Go forth and enjoy whatever you end up doing!
