Your Memory modules along with @andreya.ek.frisk example above:
Have opened up a whole new world for me. Thank you, thank you!
I currently draw the Phasor Ramp in my DAW to control the playback position, and it works perfectly. I’ve been trying to do this for ages using different samplers and delay modules, but this is the best method so far for me.
Cool to hear!
I’ve been using that same strategy for DAW syncronization for a long while now. Work great for sequencing things and many other purposes, but running modulators based on those synced sources may get zipper noise. I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a little plugin to output (as audio) some tempo/timeline synced phasors for sample-accurate DAW sync. I’ll let you know if I actually get around to it.
Oh yes, I’ve noticed a zipper noise sometimes, couldn’t quite figure out why though, but it makes sense now, thanks!
…that’s why. 
Using an audio signal into rack for the phasor solves the problem, but generating those in a sample-accurate timeline-aware way takes some thought. Hence the idea.
This is a real bummer. I was really hoping to be able to control the playhead position with an automation, but it doesn’t seem possible. Is this because of 7bit midi resolution (even if it is an automation from the DAW)? Sorry Im dumb with these things.
It is possible but not in a sample-accurate manner.
It has nothing to do with MIDI if you’re using DAW automation, it’s just that DAWs don’t process everything per-sample like VCV does, rather things update over blocks of samples. The stair stepping you see in my screenshot above comes from the param value (offset on the Bogaudio in my case) getting updated at the start of each DAW block, and held there until the next.
This isn’t VCV’s fault entirely, in the AU and VST plugin formats you cant have sample-accurate DAW automation of parameters. You can in VST3 (though it’s tricky) and CLAP (a bit easier) but I’ve compared and seen the same results in every format of VCV plugin. Somewhat understandable, it’s tricky to maintain this multi-platform stuff.
Audio signals are sample accurate and high precision however. Hence my thinking of writing a little plugin to generate phasors you could send into VCV. Say one that goes over a beat, one over a bar, and one over some number of bars.
Thank you so much for the explanation. I understand now what its doing (with sample blocks).
Its easy to match a specific bpm with a phasor(ramp) and reset it every bar or beat (although I think that might also need to be sample accurate 
). (Something like Shapemaster will then come in handy) But what happens with gradual tempo changes? A dedicated plugin will help.
Anyway I’ll keep experimenting. Thanks again for the info. Really appreciate it.
Yeah there’s two primary frustrations with clock-based workflows that led me to explore these options: sync when starting playback at an arbitrary point on the DAW timeline, and dealing with gradual tempo changes. If neither of those is important there’s much less reason to care but both of those are indispensible to me.
I am hoping in Rack 3 Andrew and friends will want to expose the timeline info from the plugin API’s in the Rack API. That way you could write a module that outputs phasors with perfectly reliable timeline sync, and all the sample-accuracy benefits of a phasor. But as of now that’s not easy to do. But the Audio solution can work really well I’m sure. Just you know, there’s a lot of projects.
