The Rack 2 plugin ABI should not yet be considered stable, but this build presents a “release candidate” for the stable ABI.
We will soon announce to plugin developers via email and this thread when we begin accepting plugin updates to the VCV Library.
We are happy to announce that the Rack 2 ABI is now stable after 2 years of development.
Rack 2 will be available in two variants:
Pro ($149 regular price, $99 launch sale until 2022): Standalone, VST2
Free (open-source, GPLv3+): Standalone
You can download beta builds and the SDK below.
If you have installed a development (git) build before, remember to delete your plugins folder, or your entire Rack2 user folder before attempting to run.
Note: After installing a beta or git build of Rack, if you wish to update to a newer version of Rack, you must delete the old installation folder and user folder. (See Where is the “Rack user folder”?)
In-place updates from beta or git builds of Rack are not supported by VCV and will likely cause crashes or bugs if the above suggestion is not followed.
Before Rack 2 was released, we planned to release bleeding-edge updates to Rack Free as soon as they were ready, and 1-2 weeks later release these stable, tested updates to Rack Pro.
However, this plan prevents Rack Pro customers from trying new features when Rack Free users can, so instead we will be posting “preview” builds here before both variants become available at VCV Rack 2 - Virtual Eurorack Studio a few days later.
The official release will be these exact files (not re-builds), and if a build is rejected due to a regression, its version number is skipped.
VCV Rack 2.2.0 has been released, including VST3, Audio Unit, and CLAP plugins for Rack Pro.
Builds of Rack for Mac ARM are available for developers to build and test their plugins on Mac ARM.
This is in “beta” stage, so some features or plugin adapters might not work correctly.
Deprecating “deprecated” module property, replacing with “hidden”
Sometimes it is useful to hide modules in a plugin to discourage their use, while allowing them to be used when loading old patches, to avoid breaking patch compatibility.
Plugin developers can do this by setting "hidden": true in a module’s manifest. VCV Manual - Plugin Manifest
Effective now, VCV Library hides all modules with the “hidden” property (or the deprecated “deprecated” or “disabled” aliases) from its index and search results, while showing a “Hidden” tag on module pages. Example: VCV Library - VCV VCA-2
In the next version of VCV Rack, modules with this property will be hidden from the module browser but can still be loaded by patches and selections.
Please send bug reports to VCV Support so we can fix them in the next release.
We will begin distributing Mac ARM64 plugin builds on the VCV Library. Plugin developers submitting binaries to VCV Support must build with Rack SDK 2.4.0 or higher.
All open-source plugins on the library repo will be built by us in the next few weeks.
We have updated rack-plugin-toolchain to build plugins using Rack SDK 2.4 for all 4 architectures, including Mac ARM64.
If you are a plugin developer who submits plugin binaries to the VCV Library, this is a convenient tool to build all 4 packages from a single OS with one command.
To update, open a terminal in your rack-plugin-toolchain directory and run
git pull
make rack-sdk-clean
make toolchain-clean
Then follow the building instructions to build either a Docker container or a native toolchain.
Once your plugins are compiled, submit the packages to VCV Support and users will be able to download your plugin on Mac ARM64!
Plugin development tip: Instead of creating plugin settings files at <Rack user folder>/<plugin slug>.json, simply implement these two functions in your plugin.cpp file to store data in settings.json.