VCV Drums

I’ll take this one step further, @modlfo–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: “beginner” meaning comfortable with JOS 1 and 2. I’d file the @modlfo hardware modeling book next to JOS 3 (physical) and 4 (spectral) as peers.

I don’t know if I’m completely comfortable with all of Mr. Smiths papers! So basically you mean graduate student in dsp?

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Vega glares at Oppenheim’s “Signals & Systems” and shudders as he recalls many difficult quizzes

I’m taking a DSP course right now, and while it’s more into level (we’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. Smith’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 Matlab… god I hate MatLab’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 I’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 I’ll probably link in that page you published about efficient DSP, but if you want to contribute to any of these pages directly that’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 don’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, I’m definitely not! I guess all I’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 I’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, there’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, that’s why I expanded my sample library in the past.

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Now we’ve got the drum machine you would have made in the 80s, can you think about the drum machine you would make in the 2020’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 “perfect” 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 don’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, it’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 don’t really go deep into the most complicated parts.

Lastly…

I have already started making it, piece by piece. Among my modules you can find Knock and Trummor 2. I’m creating more drum modules, but I’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 I’d enjoy the latter :stuck_out_tongue: )

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

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

I wanted to use V/Octave on the pitch inputs but it doesn’t track pitch like an oscillator.

It’s not a volt per octave? It just says it is?

The kick has a range of about two octaves. That would map to about 5V/Oct.

edited

I was wrong. The 909 model only covers one octave. If you input 0V (with the Tune knob full CCW) you’ll get C1. With 10V you’ll get C2.

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