Share your experience running VCV on Linux

I’ll attest to your modules working well under Linux. I use you mixer modules a lot for quick patches (not using Ardour), and EV3 is a go-to oscillator!

[I still haven’t cracked Chebyshev yet, but one day I will…]

Thanks. Just fixed a few bugs in EV-3. From videos I’ve watched, the “secret” to cheby is to feed a bunch of CVs into the individual harmonics. Then you need to got a lot of independent CV so they are all driven differently. Bogaudio 8 phase LFO is popular, and our own Grey Code is good. I would think Caudal would be good.

That’s a good idea, I’ll have to try it. I haven’t used Grey Code yet (Caudal and Walk 2 are my default entropy sources), but I’ll give it a spin

Yep, Caudal is a great match with the Chebyshev module.

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Oh, those are good choices, no worries. Grey code is a funny thing. It’s not actually random at all, but in one of its two modes is seems random. The idea with grey codes is that only one output bit changes for each input clock, so it can be kind of cool if you don’t want everything to change all at once. But, as I say, there are a lot of excellent modules out there to do this kind of thing. As you already know :wink:

Welcome to VCV Community @markcwirt!!! :smiley:

Arch user here (and Manjaro on my working notebook), everything works like a charm. Multitrack recording via ardour6, further tools zynaddsubfx, helm-synthsizer, qjackctl (if needed) with patchage. Hardware: Akai MPK mini (saving for something better/larger) and I will build a midi-controller board with some more potentiometer on it. Loving vcv rack, I’m still a beginner but I learn every day, thanks to Omri Cohen’s videos. They’re awesome IMO.

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Helm is one of my favorite Vsts ! Discovered it while looking for Vsts for my Linux laptop, and loved it so much i got myself the Windows version on my main production computer :smiley:

people, quick question, do you use Skjack or the VCV audio? (do you use Jack? )

are you using a patch bay beside the vcv rack?

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Hi @David I personally use Skjack and Qjackctrl as I find this easiest and it works for me.

@David I also use carla to do everything outside of VCV Rack. For example: adding effects with plugins outside of VCV and so on.

Hello! Solus Linux user for 2 years. As main OS at home, don’t use Windows at all. As second OS at work.

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I’ve recently switched to using the SkJack 4x4 module. It makes quite a difference to the module load my patches can bear before xruns appear. However, I’ve noticed that its connections are not persistent in saved patches, and when Rack closes it reports a segfault and core dump. Maybe a Jack API problem ?

re: patchbay: Just what’s available in QJackCtl.

I used / attempted to use Jack (but not SKjack) until a few weeks ago, with suboptimal results. Since then, I’ve stopped using Jack at all, and relied on Alsa alone, and VCV performances improved very noticeably. I still have to be careful and avoid the most CPU-hungry modules like Valley, but I can add to my patches many more modules than before.

I haven’t used Skjack since I don’t expect it to allow radically better performances than just using Jack (am I wrong?)

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Aw yeah, Helm was the first VST synth I ever used and I still come back to it 5 years later or however long it’s been.

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That’s a bit problematic for performance, so you really want to get jack working if you can.

If you can keep your entire audio/MIDI chain in jack-land, you gain the ability of rendering your audio, as opposed to recording it. Rendering your audio has two benefits: ti’s faster, and there are no XRUNs, no matter how complex the patch. Everything will come out sample-perfect.

Of course this only works if there is no live/performance aspect of the patch, so it may not be applicable to what you do. But if you make music that could be rendered, you’ll benefit from creating a work-flow that allows you to render. (Of course, there can be hybrid approaches too, where you render your base track and layer human tracks over top.)

Another benefit of jack rendering is that you don’t have to run in real-time mode. When you’re working on a patch the occasional glitch won’t matter, and when you render there will not be any glitches.

I actually create my workflows with that as the primary requirement (I’m not a performer, so loosing the ability to perform live isn’t a big thing for me).

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i’m mainly linux user too and i can confirm that jack is working perfectly fine once you get it setup correctly (which might take some time and effort) … even on absolute low end hardware like the sonaremin (i.e. arm cpu single board computers with much less cpu power than a normal pc) i got it working really well …

best wishes - hexdump

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If you need low cpu modules, most of mine are.

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Not to raise the dead, but I am considering running rack under Linux, but I am curious about performance. Realistically speaking, am I going to get better performance under Windows 10 or is Linux comparable for rack?

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