Sending CV from VCV directly to The Grid (Bitwig)

So yeah… Teleport seems to work accurately for CV between instances too:

Unfortunately the effectiveness is dependent on the particular DAW, and possibly some configuration. In Cubase, the communication between Teleport/Rack instances gets buffered and leads to some bit crushing like this:

Wow, I just noticed that the scope color changes based on the cable color. That’s great.

Bitwig users who might be interested:

I created a draft FR on Bitwish (a BW feature request community) to address the 4-channel input limitation. It can now be voted up to try and get some exposure and momentum for making this improvement. Drop by and lend some support to it, if you want!

Also, it’s worth contacting BW support to ask about implementing this. I’m sure most BW Rackers would find getting rid of this problem very useful…

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Good job - Voted!

A question on the side regarding your Stereo SPLIT method. When using the VCV VST with a16ch Audio Interface of VCV, can you route a MONO channel to the VST instead of only STEREO ones?

For example a Kick on Channel 01 and a Clap on Channel 2 will have the Kick left and Clap right now. Any chance of having a single channel return to VST?

Thanks in advance.

interesting, how is this working? are vcv rack instances sharing same address space? … a quick look at the code, makes me raise questions about thread safety ?! its pretty common for daws to place different ‘tracks’ on different cores, so this would be more important than for example using in standalone vcv with one processing thread.

side chains the method I employ, are of course a daw feature so are guaranteed to work :slight_smile:

thats just feature of having 16 midi channels :wink:

whilst I like having midi output for generative features… I really don’t want to modulate via it… thats kind of what we have CV… thats why I love modular. I cannot really see lots of people using a lot of midi cc for this purpose…beyond a few its going to get a bit laborious. also consider that to get midi cc into ‘the grid’ you have to use modulators… Im not every sure you can create 128 modulators, and if even if you can, it take you a long while to actually do it, and make use of it;)

generally, I think the amount of communication between different instances of Poly Grid and VCV instances will be limited…

but hey, we all have different needs at different times. I wasn’t saying Live or Bitwig was better… just they are different.

in terms of M4L/The Grid, they aren’t even really comparable… The Grid is much easier to use, really possible for end-users to use. but M4L can do a ton, that just isn’t possible … eg. I can create my own M4L (binary) objects.

so you pick whatever tool works for you the best for the project you are working on…

so vcv rate vst is declaring these as stereo channels, which is why all hosts are seeing them as stereo rather than mono pairs. (this is not unusual, whist the vst standard supports strereo/mono channels and ‘speaker layout’ its not widely used)

but you can treat them as mono.

(its not really an issue since the daw is throwing around stereo buffers anyway ;))

one interesting point, is that of course you can reuse these outputs across multiple grid instances. you can also of course in one grid access multiple vcv rack instances :slight_smile:

EDIT: I noticed there was another topic talking about the use of Teleport … so Ive posted on that (more specific) topic , why i think its not safe… and Id not recommend it see my post here

Yes, exactly my solution as well. Split up the Patch! Cheers mate.

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cool…

I think the wider topic of how to use these different modular environments is absolutely fascinating :slight_smile:

when do we use VCV Rack , vs using The Grid (or even Max 4 Live), they all have their pros and cons. … and Rack VST has made it so much easier to combine.

Im also interfacing all this to my eurorack (via a Percussa SSP), so my head is spinning with ideas and possiblities at the moment !

I know Omri says ‘Reverb is Life’ … but I say ‘CV is the Life Blood of modular’

so how do I isolate all those mid cc so that i can use them once sent out of bitwogs midi cc device? how can I visualize them as midi cc in bitwigm

Really cool!

I was watching this yesterday. The problem he had was that the midi wasn’t being passed through Rack, similar to how if you put Rack FX on an audio channel and don’t route the input to output in Rack you get no sound, it’s the same with midi. Another way would be to just route the midi through, then you can use the sidechaining as Omri was expecting/hoping to:

yeah, only midi fx plugins pass thru midi… so we need a new vst for that.

however, I thought from my memory of the video… the underlying thing Omri was trying to do in the video was duck the audio on the 2nd vcv rack instance from the first, and he chose to use midi automation to do this - whereas he could have used an audio output from vcvrack #1 , and then side chained that into vcvrack 2… (or something like that , its been a while since I watched that video :slight_smile: )

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Rackheads, be careful!

By using VCV Rack 2 VST3 plugin, the CV > MIDI CC module, out messages are… filtered!

Prefer VST 2.4, instead (it’s valid for any plugin).

The culprit is VST3 (decidely I hate the VST3) :roll_eyes:

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Thanks for the tip! How are the messages filtered?

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You’re welcome.

The messages are filtered in internal by any VST3 plugin (even instruments), and the “filter” can’t be disabled (unfortunately).

It’s a Steinberg specification for VST3 (implentation into VST3 SDK).

Ah I see. What is the result of the filtering? Do fewer CC messages get through?

In plugin chain, any plugin/device behind any VST3 doesn’t receive MIDI CC. Perhaps CC#1 (modulation wheel) isn’t filtered, but other CCs are blocked. I don’t have tested all, however… :wink:

If you’re using Bitwig maybe try the new CLAP version?

Windows 10.

The CLAP plugin isn’t detected by Bitwig Studio (I’m using lastest 4.4.3).

Not sure, but the development team know about this issue (I think I have read this info somewhere in community).

ah ok, must admit I’ve yet to try it. I’ve not done much with VCV last week or so, too busy at work. :frowning:

I just got the release notes for the latest Reaper and 6.7.1 is supposed to have CLAP support too.

Edit: nvm, tried to load it in Reaper and it failed.

That’s on Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 9 5900X

I appreciate that VCV Rack is a way more complex plugin than my other CLAP plugins, but it’s the only one that has failed to install, 6 others work fine.

FWIW I tried it both in the default CLAP path and a bespoke one and no joy with either.

VCV Rack CLAP crashes on REAPER 6.71 (during launch / plugins scan process) - other CLAP plugins I’m using seems okay (Dexed 0.9.7 Beta Nightly, Vital, Filterjam, TAL Reverb 4, Odin2, Surge XT, Diva demo).

Can be translated as: Process entry point … can’t be found in link dynamic library C:\Program Files\Common Files…

Notice the VCV Rack CLAP plugin is automatically discarded by Bitwig Studio (either 4.4.3 or 4.4.4), no error message, but VCV Rack isn’t visible from CLAP plugin browser.