Though I have limited time for modules in VCV Rack these days I’m starting again to play around with a few new and old ideas… so, I’d like to use this thread to discuss some of these ideas and add features before releasing the modules to the Libaray…
The first one is…
STROKE
Device for mapping custom hotkeys or key combination. Initially I developed this module for generating triggers and gates from keyboard, later on I added support for special commands which are not available anywhere else and added support for mice with more than three buttons:
Ability to learn any key combination (which is not already used in Rack)
Ability to learn mouse buttons if your mouse has more than three button, can also be combined with modifiers (Shift, Alt, etc.)
Can create triggers and gates for CV
Provides copy and paste for parameter values
Provides zooming features: zoom out for patch overview, zoom in on hovered module etc.
Provides cable commands: rotate the top-most cable of a port, switch to next color etc.
Provides access to a hidden framerate widget in Rack
If you have any other suggestions what could be useful on hotkeys please let me know. I will check if it can be done…
Development builds are available at my GitHub-repository. There are also some other new modules included which I will talk about later on but feel to try them out right now
A manual how to install these development builds can be found here:
So, here is another plugin I have been working on from time to time in the last months.
It includes purely experimental modules which make heavy usage of unstable API in Rack v1. These module work in Rack v1 but there is absolutely no guarantee that they will work in the upcoming Rack v2, so use them on your own risk. Because of that the plugin won’t ever be submitted to the VCV Library, at most a module might be moved to my primary plugin PackOne if I consider it future-proof.
That all been said, have fun while playing around!
MB: this module brings back the module browser from Rack v0.6 and features a modified version of the browser in Rack v1.0 with resizable preview images.
MX: this module allows mouse control by CV.
T7-series: a collection of modules for patching cables in Rack by MIDI messages. Jakub of Midilar did an amazing video using this build some time ago: https://youtu.be/xYqwjbRNN1M. There is no manual right now and it is almost certain that presets will be incompatible with future updates of these modules.
Not sure I dare suggest this but… there’s a module I have pined for, for a long time. I don’t know if it’s technically feasable but if you’re open for requests, here goes:
I would love a module which is a “MIDI auto-mapper”. Particularly when I’m investigating a new module, I would like to just map all it’s controls to my midi controller (currently MIDIMix) to use a physical device to play around with it. Manually mapping all the controls, one by one, using the existing MIDI mapper modules is a bit… cumbersome.
It would work something like this: You have a module you want to play around with, call it “module x”. You place the MIDI auto-mapper module just to the right of it. You hit the “auto-map” button. The auto-mapper has now mapped all the controls of module x. The first auto-mapped control on module x is now emphasized/highlighted in some way. You twiddle a control on your MIDI device. That control is now mapped to the highlighted control of module x. The second control is now highlighted. You twiddle another control on your MIDI device, and the second control is now mapped. The third control is now hightlighted, you twiddle… etc. etc.
This would be a very speedy way of mapping the controls of a module to a MIDI controller and would be highly useful, but I don’t know if it’s possible…
Hi Lars, this “automap” feature would be very usefull imho.
If this could be done in the way you described it, it would be the next giant step in VCV to make the workflow much easier.
What a great idea! I think this would be super popular. And it sounds very feasible. What I usually tell people is “if you can describe this accurately with words, then I can make it”. Or in this case, @stoermelder can make it
Yes, this is feasible, easy to understand I’ll think about it if I can add such functionality to MIDI-CAT without changing too much or if it is more clean to design a new module.
It might take some time though…
I didn’t think I was particularly looking for MB, but I gave it a try and it sure is nice how the module browser loads more quickly when the zoom is such that fewer modules appear at once. On my screen, a zoom setting of 113 fits exactly two rows of modules and a setting of 74.5 fits three. I’ll be keeping this in my default patch template now.
Nice Ben! What about having already prepared set of CCs in the midi cat and the do some automapping like in your gif? In terms of Novation Automap and Abletons rack as well you have to setup 8 banks of fixed CCs and then just click on the plugin you want and they would be automatically applied. In case of midi cat having separately saved preset of all CCs user want to use and the just applied them to any module seems to me super fast solution. But if not nevermind, your universal expanding method is already faster than everything in the Rack, thank you!
Hm, this is a different use-case. I could easily add an additional option: “Clear and map” (this is the current behavior) and a new “Keep MIDI assignments and map”.
Great addition Ben.
Just one more idea Codes to my mind. Would it be possible to make working when I put Midi-Cat just somewhere in my patch and just activate the “automap” and then click on any module to map ist parameters, and then acitvate the “automap” for the next module just by clicking the next module with the mouse or so.( without the need to put the midi-cat right beside the module I want to map)
This would make it even more comfortable to map a whole patch to a midi controller .
That’s amazing Ben! It works perfectly, both map-left and map-select. So speedy and versatile, and you can even pick which controls to map and which to ignore. Works both with buttons, sliders and knobs, and it even maps the “hidden controls” like the LPG control of Plaits - just perfect; thank you!
Two minor sub-requests:
Is there any way you could bind e.g. the ESC key to perform the “stop-mapping-now” action? Because that one can be a bit clunky. Alternatively something like shift-left-click or double-click or shift-right-click.
Saving and opening mapping-presets works great until the mapped module has been deleted, and then opening and applying the preset stops working. Is there any way you could slightly alter the saved preset, so that when a mapping has been performed with map-left, the ID is not saved in the preset but instead just indicates the module slug? In that way I could always place a new module-x to the left of MIDI-CAT, open the mapping preset for module-x and it would be instantly mapped again, just like I left it.
But the feature works great Ben; You’ve made me and quite a few others happier, more content, more productive human beings
I’ll think about it if I can add such functionality to MIDI-CAT without changing too much or if it is more clean to design a new module.