VCV Drums

You can send the feature request to Andrew. He is in charge of the UI.

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should make it hardware too pls!

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Could you provide some insight on this by chance? Iā€™m working on a hardware analog drum machine for my capstone project at my university, and most simulation software weā€™ve used is really not reproducing the same signals as the circuits built in hardware - for example, most noise gen circuits simulate to a DC offset.

Iā€™ll take this one step further, @modlfoā€“can you write a beginner-to-advanced book on hardware modeling and DSP? If funds would yield time to do so I think a Kickstarter/Patreon/whatever could raise a substantial amount of money for that up front.

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Would this beginner have a solid foundation in differential equations, the z transform, linear algebra, etc? Ok, joking a bit, but this would be a series of books, I think.

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This is a good point :slight_smile:

Off-the-cuff: ā€œbeginnerā€ meaning comfortable with JOS 1 and 2. Iā€™d file the @modlfo hardware modeling book next to JOS 3 (physical) and 4 (spectral) as peers.

I donā€™t know if Iā€™m completely comfortable with all of Mr. Smiths papers! So basically you mean graduate student in dsp?

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Vega glares at Oppenheimā€™s ā€œSignals & Systemsā€ and shudders as he recalls many difficult quizzes

Iā€™m taking a DSP course right now, and while itā€™s more into level (weā€™re still going over basics- playing around with how discrete convolution and Fourier transforms work) I do have prior experience that means I get these concepts really well while still finding the math difficult. While Mr. Smithā€™s pages are fantastic, I think largely my problem is so many textbooks (and most lectures) lack demonstartion along side the content. I want to hear things. I want to experiment with parameter changes. (and not in Matlabā€¦ god I hate MatLabā€™s syntax) I think VCV and PD have taught me a lot about signal processing just by messing around.

To some extent, I think a DSP course that had the student develop modules for VCV would actually be quite successful at meeting these goals.

EDIT: I like being the change I want to see and putting action behind my words, so I think as my DSP, Comm Systems, and Linear Control Systems classes pick up Iā€™ll do what I can to get notes from them transcribed into my website. I already have the barest start of a signals & systems chapter at Sigandsys | Opinionated Guides and some DSP resources linked in Other Resources, Music | Opinionated Guides but both are a mess. @Squinky.Labs Iā€™ll probably link in that page you published about efficient DSP, but if you want to contribute to any of these pages directly thatā€™d be awesome!


Back to the topic though, listening to any demos of these drums I can find, and they quite definitely have a character all their own. I tried to convince myself I donā€™t need it last night by making a track using some nice acoustic drum samples instead of the Hora drums that end up in basically all the VCV stuff I normally do, but I think all I did was convince myself I need it even more. My Digitakt is going to be jealous :stuck_out_tongue:

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For my part, Iā€™m definitely not! I guess all Iā€™m pointing to is what I perceive as a lack of resources around current-generation hardware modeling (not that HW is the be-all and end-all anyway, I love pure digital wizardry as much as anyone). @modlfo seems to have a really interesting approach dialed in, with some strong technical foundation and a lot of praxis, and Iā€™d love to see more about it in a studyable form.

Totally agree. The thinness of the wrapper around the DSP kernel (and the scantness of the ceremony) for Rack plugins is a really phenomenal feature of the platform. Speaking of JOS, thereā€™s nothing in Music 320C that would stop a student from using Faust => VCV. I wonder if @jatinchowdhury18 has any insight into how Rack development is appearing at CCRMA or in other grad programs; @vega, does it show up at your uni at all?

You all are REALLY off topic now :joy: who is Faust and what have he done to Jos?

Thanks for the VCV Drums, imho there are still not enough drums in the library, thatā€™s why I expanded my sample library in the past.

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Now weā€™ve got the drum machine you would have made in the 80s, can you think about the drum machine you would make in the 2020ā€™s please? :slight_smile:

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@Vega @gc3 I have some resources available that you can check, see the links below. In those I show, with simple examples part of my approach.

I use Wolfram System Modeler, which is the simulator I develop. It is general simulation environment where you can create your own models.

As I mentioned before, variability of the components, in some circuits can have a large impact on a real circuit, and when comparing to a ā€œperfectā€ simulated circuit the results may differ. I usually follow the inverse approach, which is creating the models in order to reproduce the observed behavior. In my latest blog post in vult-dsp.com (see the links) I mention a case where the hardware oscillators behave different from each other, and different from the simulation. By understanding the behavior I could extend my model to match the results.

I have thought about it but I really donā€™t have the time. As @Squinky mentions, there are a lot of things that the beginner would need to know beforehand. In addition to the traditional requirements for DSP, itā€™s necessary to have a good background on electronics. For that reason, in the resources that I have published, I try to make them easy to understand and I donā€™t really go deep into the most complicated parts.

Lastlyā€¦

I have already started making it, piece by piece. Among my modules you can find Knock and Trummor 2. Iā€™m creating more drum modules, but Iā€™m not sure when I will have them ready for release.

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WOW! Hat-tip and major respect Leonardo!

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Faust is supported in VCV Prototype and using the faust2vcvrack tool. See also 2020-11-21 Faust & VCV Rack - Faust Documentation

VCV Drums sounds great and is on my purchase list, so I would love to see this if you can find the time to release it!

Knock and Trummor 2 are both firm favourites already. Look forward to seeing what you come up with next :slight_smile:

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@modlfo, this is beyond awesome. I had missed most of this stuff and am looking forward to digging in to it.

Totally understand about time constraints. And if I had to choose between a fully build out ultramodern Vult drum machine and a book on analog modeling by Dr. Ruiz I would pick the former (as much as Iā€™d enjoy the latter :stuck_out_tongue: )

I am in love with the sound of VCV Drums! ā€¦ and I hate the 909 :slight_smile:

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Leonardo I love all your kicks. I use others like ProkModular just so Iā€™m not using the same one in every patch.

I wanted to use V/Octave on the pitch inputs but it doesnā€™t track pitch like an oscillator.

Itā€™s not a volt per octave? It just says it is?