this donation system is basically what chris from airwindows is using
i really like this idea
This is exactly what Reason does with Rack Extensions. I second the idea above that this would help encourage people to share patches (even with paid modules) and would likely bring an increase of revenue to 3rd party developers.
VCV Rack seems to be echoing Reason in many regards. It is easy to justify paying for modules in VCV for me since VCV is still free… not the case with Reason. However, it seems that VCV will cost something someday (soon), that is, to get a fully functional version with VST, Host, and whatever else (supposed non-essentials) can be monetized while leaving VCV Rack still relatively functional and ‘free’. This is of course, not a critique of VCV Rack’s profit platform: coding takes time and money and hey, the cost/value ratio is (still) amazing!
In very dry terms, Andrew has said the following:
- Rack will always be Open Source (so, free).
- The VST version of Rack, planned for after 2.0 will be $99 (so, not free).
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Yes that is clear. I doubt, however that VST will be the final sorta ‘upgrade’ or essential aspect of the VCV project. ‘Rack Lite’ if and that’s not meant to be demeaning, will be free but a full DAW of Rack after a few more years let’s say, not so sure. It’s the nature of the beast I suppose.
I am not nay-saying since I am perfectly content with my VCV and need little more (thank you to all developers!! my dream machine)
I’m a little bit late for the discussion but here’s my point of view.
The current model of some plugins free some paid seems to me very easy. If a person decides to support my work (and get something special as reward) they can do it. In Rack you have that freedom. Selling through the VCV store gives a small (but direct) contribution to VCV that hopefully will help to pay some of the bills. If I used Patreon, Bandcamp or Gumroad there’s no way for me to contribute to VCV, apart from buying the comercial plugins, which I do anyway.
One of the great things about Rack is that it attracted lots of small (or starting) developers. Vult was born with Rack and it wouldn’t exist without it. Without Rack, Vult would be mathematical models running only in my computer.
With the DRM system the big developers may enter the game. That’s very good for Rack but may not be very good for small developers that sell modules like me. There are many aspects in which we cannot compete with the big names. I think that my models have professional quality, but my development time is too slow compared to what a team of people working full time can achieve. And of course, a stablished brand name is what it is.
Everything is up to the users to decide. I don’t know the numbers, but I would guess that a large number of users do not get any of the comercial stuff. If new developers enter the game with the pure intention of making money, the users will decide if they stick around or not.
Meanwhile I will keep slowly developing stuff that I like, because I like the community here and I like to model stuff. Vult is about 95% my own research and every line of code is mine.
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First of all, let me say hi to all, as this is my first post on the forum. And haven’t I picked ripe plum of a subject as my first interaction!
The reason that I’ve chosen this as my first post is that I am approaching VCV from the perspective of being a relatively successful music producer (disco scene) that has been keeping an eye on VCV from afar for 12 months or so; who also owns a Eurack modular system and the Softube Modular plugin (Ableton Live is my host of choice as I’ve used Cycling '74 Max for many years - mainly for midi/CV trickery rather than DSP).
I recently took the plunge into VCV and have committed most of my working hours over the last week or so digging through the modules to ascertain the strengths and weaknesses of each. And as a result, have purchased the premium Vult plugins for a number of reasons. In the main, they were as follows:
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They sound great considering how light they are on CPU resources in comparison to the ‘best in class’ options in the DAW/Plugin world (Softube Modular, U-He, Native Instruments, Cytomic etc).
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I could see that Leonardo is committed to the project, uses social media channels very effectively to both promote and document his efforts; and most importantly updates his creations on a regular basis.
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Leonardo involves those customers with a passionate commitment to his output as ‘partners’ that help shape his products.
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I like that Vult plugins go beyond mere emulation.
I’ve also been impressed by certain modules within the packages from the following vendors:
21Khz, Amalgamated Harmonics, Arable Instruments, AS, Andrew’s Mutual Instruments clones (I have 4 Shruti’s that I built myself as well as various MI Eurorack modules), Befaco (I don’t own any Befaco modules but have decided to purchase a hardware Rampage off the back of my VCV testing), Bidoo, Bogaudio, cf, dBiz, E-Series, Geodesics, Gratrix, Greyscale, HetrickCV, Impromptu Modular, JW, Lindberg Research, ML Modules, mscHack, MSM, NYSTHI, Sonus Modular, Southpole, Squinky Labs, Stellare Modular and Valley.
Over time I can see myself donating to many within that list of developers (if they only develop free modules) and/or purchasing commercial options. I’ll be compelled towards that decision if those developers display similar qualities to those I’ve highlighted regarding Vult. I’ll also be purchasing some of Andrew’s commercial offerings as it seems somewhat unfair to only support third-party developers! 
With V1 and tighter DAW integration via the dedicated plugin options, Andrew will get a raft of new users producing all colors and flavours of electronic music. There will also be many like me that won’t in general attempt to create single modular patches in VCV as final compositions but rather, are more interested in VCV as ‘just another’ sound source, albeit one that takes advantage of the freedoms of modular patching.
I think it’s vital that VCV remains a free product (with a great library of free third-party modules) as it will be for many their first introduction to the wonderful world of modular synthesis. I also think that Vult has come up with a very fair mix of free and commercial offerings. That mix of free and commercial modules allows those on a learning path to benefit from the majority of his output at no cost, and at the same time provides significant advantages with his paid products for those who want to benefit from his portfolio more deeply.
To be balanced, I want to highlight some of the negatives I’ve encountered too (there are only a few).
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Some of the commercial offerings are IMO too highly priced and I believe those products would be far more successful if they were priced closer to the ‘hobbyist developer’ products that are freely available as Max4Live or Reaktor add-ons ($1-$15). It has to be remembered that great modules for Softube Modular, which are best in class (Eurorack emulations) can be purchased for under $30 and at sale time for significantly less. Those modules can also be demoed before purchase. One of the reasons that commercial third-party Max4Live add-ons (and Reaktor ensembles) are priced so keenly is that there’s no way to demo them before purchase. Currently, some third party VCV commercial options are blind purchases too. Over the years I’ve found that I’m happy to purchase blindly if it’s priced at ‘impulse purchase’ levels but less so once the pricing increases.
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It’s unfair to compare the VCV Mutable Instruments clones to the hardware or Softube versions (Braids and Clouds) but the VCV versions are a fair distance behind the Softube emulations both from an audio quality and UX perspective. The audio quality difference I put down to Softube ‘component modeling’ the complete unit and Softubes militant stance of oversampling everything within their modular emulation (this, in turn, makes Softube Modular far more processor intensive than VCV). The only reason I highlight these differences is that I believe there will be many like me, that begin their VCV exploration through the modules they know most and in the case of the Mutable Instruments clones, this doesn’t necessarily show the best that VCV has to offer. Once VCV allows the artist to choose oversampling levels within the plugin version (Bridge works at the global DAW sampling rate) this will hopefully close the gap with regards to audio quality (at the expense of increased CPU load).
These minor negatives haven’t clouded my overall impression of VCV. In a very short space of time, VCV has become a compelling software modular emulation on so many different levels. But most of all for me as a music producer, it’s capable of producing a gobsmackingly almighty range of timbre’s that ‘none’ in the traditional DAW plugin world are capable of, not even the mighty Softube Modular or Reaktor Blocks (it’s two nearest software ‘modular’ compatriots). Much like a hardware modular, it’s the vast variety of available modules that makes VCV a compelling alternative to the very best non-modular VA emulation(U-He’s Diva, Repro-1/5, Bazille, and Korg’s Odyssey being my personal plugin favorites - some of which are semi-modular). VCV may not quite pip Blocks or Softube Modular in terms of its audio quality (yet!) but it spanks them both in terms of the variety of high-quality sound generating/mangling options and with regard to its comparatively CPU friendly nature (which will be appreciated by those with more humble computer hardware). It must also be said that the slight difference in audio quality is a very reasonable compromise considering how much more accessible it makes VCV with regard to hardware platforms.
All-in-all, I’m really looking forward to continuing my journey with VCV and it’s a wonderful range of third-party modules.
jm
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Your words made me remind of the Homebrew Computer Club @modlfo, in that all of their members freely shared source code and ideas about how computers and operating systems had to be … Until some discovered that they could do money with all that … So free sharing ended, and what previously had been open code, became all of a sudden closed code, and a mere business.
It would be a pity that all that would happen again, now in the “Homebrew VCV Rack Club” and that eventually VCV Rack became merely a comercial business, and that all of a sudden became a closed code based on licenses for which anyone would have to pay.
It would be a pity also, that our “Club” could lose “small” GREAT developers like you, who enjoy sharing their knowledge with other users, asking for a fair small fee for some GREAT modules, from time to time.
Sincerely, it would be truly a pitty that this great community would be lost just because greed 
So i hope VCV Rack (and module developersrs) stand firmly against the temptation of any easy business … And this, of course, needs the support of the whole commmunity, buying from time to time some of their cheap GREAT modules … Otherwise, any complaining/lamentation later, will be absolutely futile.
Any user should be aware that it is not enough to download free modules and give thanks for them, and then download the paying modules in the “black market” (yes some modules are already there) …
This great community is in the hand of ALL OF US, and not only in the hands of Andrew and the developers … If we don’t see this, then we’'ll have no right to complain when we have to pay for everything (including VCV Rack itself)
My two cents! … Thanks for listening! 
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No comparisson posible (as @modlfo has explained really well in his post), between a fully dedicated team and a solitary developer that has to devote him/herself to develop modules in his/her spare time after work or after personal family affairs … And 15/20 bucks/euros is not that much at least once a month (surely we spend that money, or even more, in things that we can easily do without)
Not really true, there’s always a video out there that uses them so you can see them in action and how to use it.
There’s people who make music with objects found in the trash, you know … and they sound quite well … Sure they do not sound like an orchestra in any classical music concert, but they are happy with what they do, being themselves able to get that sound from their “trashy” instruments …
So in the end, what really matters, you know, is to enjoy oneself doing music … And one don’t need to spend hundred or thousand dollars to make music, because by just tying a cord to a wood stick one can make music, even if it don’t sound like a real guitar or bass … So i am (and probably some hundred or thousand VCV Rack users) really happy to have a tool like VCV Rack with which to enjoy myself doing music … no matter if it is the Rolls Royce of Modular Synthesis or not.
My two cents!
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I’m stealing this quote. Every day I want to say to someone:
There are people who sold out tickets to a concert hall making music with objects found in the trash, but here you are shaming the sound of a truly innovative product, based on discrepancies you see on your oscilloscope or your (usually 99% placebo-influenced) opinion on “audiophile” grade equipment, yet you’ve sold like 5 copies yet on your pretentious Bandcamp page in the last 4 years.
Anyway…
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Well, that pretty much feels like you have just said that to me. Thanks for the warm welcome to your community.
By the way, my studio near-fields are SE Munro Eggs, and my headphones are Sennheiser HD 650’s, used via a Graham Slee headphone amp (and calibrated via Sonarworks), so you’ll have to forgive my placebo influenced opinions. 
I said pretty much nothing but nice things about VCV and it’s community of developers but did highlight some significant differences in the behaviour with regard to your emulations of Braids and Clouds in comparison to both the Softube Modular emulation and the hardware modules. But I did also mention that some of that behaviour difference could possibly be derived from the fact that everything is x4 oversampled in Softube Modular whereas I was listening back to VCV via my DAW’s standard sampling rate of 48k. Plus the Softube emulation is component modeled throughout and the interaction of Doepher EG’s, VCA’s and the really great Doepher VCF (that’s a near-perfect facsimile of Bob Moogs ladder designs across 1, 2, and 4 poles) is going to have a massive bearing of the final timbre produced. Having said all that Vult’s Lateralus running the TH model at 18 dB is a wonder to behold and delivers a fantastic range of liquid sounds to go far further than that certain silver box famous for its (not) 18 dB filter (in reality, it’s a 4 pole design but one pole behaves in an errant manner). The 18dB Vult with a modulated notch on the Braids CSAW is glorious and provides a tone and timbre that would be difficult to achieve in Softube Modular.
The reason I highlighted the differences wasn’t to be negative about the VCV versions of Braids and Clouds per sé but simply to mention that the sonic response is different to both Softube Modular and the hardware but that’s not necessarily a bad thing as VCV is capable of things that Softube can’t; the sonic response isn’t bad, it’s just different but that difference can colour someone’s impressions; in other words, it can create a cognitive bias in a particular direction. As for the UX, this is of course subjective, but the Softube version of Braids includes a set of < > navigation buttons to traverse the waveforms as well as the jog wheel. I personally find the jog wheel on the VCV version of Braids overly sensitive (this may be because I use a Kensington trackball, but nonetheless I find that I often skip two or three programmes instead of a single one).
https://www.softube.com/images/mutable-instruments-braids-2000x1200.png
I’m nearly 51 and have made a living from music production for 30 plus years and regularly work for major artists such as Bryan Ferry (his solo output as well as a special set of remixes of Ladytron and 2HB, which will be released on Record Store Day (13th April this year - to quote " Record Store Day is the one day of the year when over 200 independent record shops all across the UK come together to celebrate their unique culture). I’m hardly in the situation of having “sold like 5 copies yet on your pretentious Bandcamp page in the last 4 years”
I’ve reread my post twice attempting to work out where I was in any way disrespectful of VCV. and certainly said nothing that could be considered “shaming the sound” of what I repeatedly called “a truly innovative product”.
Lesson learned. I’ll obviously stay away from posting any constructive criticism for fear that it will yet again be misconstrued to such a great extent and be met with such a juvenile response.
One last thing whilst I’m here. I noticed a bug in the CVC version of Braids today. I can modulate ‘Color’ with an LFO but ‘Timbre’ won’t respond to the LFO. I’ve attempted with many different LFO’s both directly and via a VCA. I noticed this whilst creating the CSAW patch I mention earlier and didn’t get a chance to see if it’s one of those weird ones that only affects a single programme.
System: Dual XEON E5-2690v2 @ 3.4Ghz (40 core), Windows 10 (latest patches), dual GTX 1080 Ti’s.
jm
That comment was not directed toward you, since you can either 1) make music/sounds other people enjoy or 2) make music/sounds that you enjoy, regardless of what a certain subculture tells you that you should enjoy. I agree with your entire post from On long term sustainability for third party plugin devs, and that is not what I am commenting about. I brought this up because of what an excellent example this is.
What I am commenting about is people who are unable to enjoy themselves while using a musical instrument, or any artistic tool, because a certain subculture (e.g. certain audiophile subcultures) has told them there are certain properties about tools that prevent you from having enjoyment when using them. Happens every day. These people are perpetually unhappy with music production (or any artistic hobby) regardless of what they create because they are constantly trying to create works within some culture’s narrow definition of what is “good”. This causes them to never create creative music at all, thus their empty Bandcamp.
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Thanks for clearing that up Andrew. I’m so glad as I really am a massive fan of your creation!
Because you quoted @Josep’s comment to me, I took your comment as being directed at me too. You’d of thought that I’d have grown used to the distortion field of forum posts by now.
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You need to open the Modulation attuvenator 
(attenuverter)
You said many good things about Vult so it would be a shame if you stop commenting in the forum
Regarding the sound quality, probably both Braids and Clouds are bad examples to compare. These two modules are mostly DSP based. The only analog parts are the DAC and the antialiasing filters. Those parts should be as transparent as possible. In the case of Clouds, the internals run at 32 kHz sampling rate. Most probably Softube used exactly the same code as VCV to create the modules (the original Mutable Instruments code). If you think Softube version sounds better, my guess is that they added some filtering and distortion to make the sound more appealing.
Sound quality is something I think a lot about when I’m modeling some electronics. Often times the more accurate the model is, the “worst” it sounds and the more CPU it consumes. I quote “worst” because it’s completely subjective; analog electronics has lots of quirks. I always try to strike a good balance between something that sounds good and it’s useful by not eating all the CPU.
In Rack you can find plugins that go from the most primitive sound sources and processors (with aliasing or very digital-like) to very complex and carefully crafted. In Softube you can find fewer but more developed modules. If one would want to compare the sound quality of VCV vs Softube it’s necessary to compare only the very best… and still it’s not clear what should be the criteria used to evaluate.
One realm in which Rack is a clear winner is in the number of people it makes happy.
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From the original Mutable Instruments’ Braids manual, @jonathan.moore1:
F : Modulation attenuverter. This knob controls the amount and polarity of modulation applied to the TIMBRE parameter, from the TIMBRE CV input jack.
So you’re comparing Softube Braids with VCV Rack Braids, and you did not know that? 
Absolutely! 
Agreed entirely. Much of what I like about Softube products is their modeling of nonlinearities. It’s the various places where saturation and clipping occur that gives both hardware and software emulations their character - it is of course completely subjective as to whether that character is sonically pleasing.
Something I really enjoy with the Vult filter modeling is the way that underdriving the signal in the filter and overdriving at the VCA (the Bogaudio VCAMP is great for this) or post VCA, in the DAW produces very different results (my preferred route is post-VCV, using the Sly-Fi AXIS (DSP modeled by UBK) as it’s saturation behaviour also changes in a very nonlinear manner depending on whether it’s slightly or massively overdriven). The TH model of Lateralus has a wonderfully liquid quality with the drive around 10’o’clock and the AXIS both compresses and saturates it’s output in a very complimentary fashion. The reason I love working in Live more than any other DAW is that I can make plugins behave like CV controlled devices (via Max4Live) that act as natural extensions of hardware or software emulations of hardware.
With regard to aliasing, I love it’s sonic qualities with certain digital kit/emulations, especially when paired with a decently saturated signal path. I’m not a purist who oversamples everything x16 at render-time. Sometimes its the gnarly nature of aliasing that provides the core sonic signature to a production.
I’m very open with regard to sonic sources and even use iOS devices as sound sources. The performance of the A12X surpasses most common i7’s and i9’s on the market and it seems to be especially performant with DSP. The Korg Odyssey emulation brings my workstation to it’s knees whereas I can run numerous instances via Gadget on my iOS devices (it’s so annoying that Korg do everything in a walled garden manner rather than releasing AU3 versions). One of the major differences of the performance is that Odyssey is multi-core when polyphony is used on iOS but remains single core in both Windows and OS X. The code is exactly the same on iOS and desktop versions, the only difference is that the iOS version is maxed at 8 notes of polyphony/unison whereas the desktop versions default to 16 voices.
I’m really hoping that the introduction of polyphony to VCV is matched with multi-core capabilities in those modules that form the building blocks for polyphonic patches.
Outside of virtual modulars, I’m a long term user of U-He Diva and Bazille and have used Repro 1/5 since they were in beta (IMO Repro 5 is the current benchmark for polyphonic virtual analog emulation). These are only able to provide polyphonic performance as each note is effectively handled by a separate core (the programmatic reasoning is that each note is a separate signal path according to the U-He developer). Attempting anything of merit polyphonically in Softube Modular is always a challenge as you’re always held back by the single core performance of your workstation. In my case I have 40 core’s on my main Windows workstation (16 faster cores on my Mac) but they have a maximum single core performance of 3.4 Ghz. I find with VCV I manage comfortably in most occasions on my PC as my 1080 Ti GPU is more than capable of driving all my system needs and I’ve found that even though my Mac has faster single core performance, it croaks more easily due to Apples weird and wonderful ways with graphics drivers/hardware.
Hopefully, it’s clear now that what I was highlighting with regard to the differences with the sonic response of the Mutable Instruments emulations was more the possible false perceptions it could lead to with VCV triallists who are familiar with either or both the hardware modules and the Softube emulations. Reading it back I could have been clearer about that intent.
As I mentioned before, I think that VCV in general and the Vult modules provide a decent compromise between CPU and sonic performance (I’m very intrigued by your bespoke VULT development platform as this on the surface would seem less performant than native C++ but your plugins are impressively lean).
If you’re totally uncompromising with the modeling of the signal path that limits the usefulness of a virtual modular with today’s hardware. With Softube Modular you hit far more brick walls than you do with VCV, especially when using modules such as the Buchla 259e - but considering the Buchla hardware retails at $1600, I’m happy to put up with it’s software brethren occasionally crippling my poor overworked workstation… The joy of VCV is that you’re hard pushed to enter the realm of coughs and splutters and the vast range of options keeps your creativity flowing - as long as your not crippled by the paradox of choice - but that’s a whole different discussion!
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That’s some pretty hot kit you have in the hyperdrive of your spaceship Jonathan 
Yes, as you mention, is hard to talk about quality when even the defects like distortion or aliasing can be sonically pleasing.
The Vult language is exactly as fast as C++. This is because The Vult compiler generates C++ that is very easy to optimize for the C++ compiler. The Vult compiler does a many extra task to simplify writing the code and also impose restrictions that avoid me writing unnecessary complex code.
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Very well said Jonathan, I largely agree.