VCV Prototype

Vortico · October 29, 2019, 12:47pm

GIL isn’t really the blocker here. Various crashes with Numpy, and the build system on Mac/Windows is. See https://github.com/VCVRack/VCV-Prototype/blob/master/src/PythonEngine.cpp#L13 and propose patches in the issue tracker if you want to push this along.

skybrian · January 11, 2020, 2:06am

Any plans to support polyphony? After writing my script I realized that Prototype isn’t polyphonic so I will try switching to Formula.

Vortico · January 11, 2020, 2:11am

How would that work? outputs[i][blockIndex][channel]? What about backwards compatibility? What about performance being 16x worse?

jerrysv · January 11, 2020, 3:40am

in the case of javascript, it wouldn’t be 16x worse, given that the transition between c++ and javascript is still fairly expensive, even with quickjs (though not as expensive as v8). if I had to make an educated guess, I’d say 4x worse. I can’t make those guesses for other languages though.

that said, for backward compatibility, it could be a configuration option:

config.polyphonic = true

where default would be false. someone could make a proposal and if it made sense across enough languages and were performant enough, it might be doable.

skybrian · January 11, 2020, 4:27am

What I’m doing is inexpensive and isn’t audio rate (calculations based on the notes being played on a keyboard), so I’m not too concerned about performance.

But presumably there would a config variable with the number of channels currently in use, so you wouldn’t pay the cost for computing channels you’re not using?

modlfo · April 17, 2020, 7:35pm

I have added support for Vult language. If anyone wants to test it, you can find it in my fork https://github.com/modlfo/VCV-Prototype

rorywalsh · January 10, 2021, 9:59am

I’ve added preliminary support for Csound, but there is an issue. Csound is LGPL licensed. As far as I know this means it can’t be statically linked. Does that mean Csound support is a no-no in this case or is there some way we can make it work?

carbon14 · January 10, 2021, 11:28am

I am not an expert. As far as I can see this is not a complete no-no in general terms. Your specific circumstances might have additional constraints.

you can statically link an LGPL library into a GPL compatible project.
you can statically link an LGPL library into a more restrictive project, but you would have to also make your project available in an object file format, so that someone could swap out the LGPL library for a replacement and relink it.

But IANAL; do you own research before you take my word for it.

dizzy · January 10, 2021, 2:45pm

That’s what it looks like they say here: Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU Licenses - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (though I have to admit that licensing terms are an obscure matter to me).
Anyway, do dynamic linking with pre-installed runtimes shouldn’t go fine? Isn’t it the case as with libpd/Pure Data, that spans with a modified BSD license, if I am not wrong?

rorywalsh · January 10, 2021, 7:18pm

Thanks for the feedback @carbon14 and @dizzy

I assume all the script engines in the official VCV-Prototype package are statically linked?

carbon14 · January 10, 2021, 9:40pm

I’m afraid I don’t know.

rorywalsh · January 11, 2021, 3:42pm

Hmm. I’d rather not sink lots of time and energy into making an official PR until I know if dynamic linking is Ok for the official Prototype package. Maybe I should file a github issue.

dizzy · January 11, 2021, 4:37pm

I realize that every bit of information about licensing terms that I read about, puts some more noise in my head… but I was looking again at the GNU compatibility matrix, and doesn’t it looks like things could actually work?
Here’s the link, where I’m assessing VCVRack licensed under GPLv3, and the formula “I want to use a library under:” LGPLv2.1 only. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AllCompatibility Sure, probably a definitive help about this dilemma can be given only by @Vortico (sorry Andrew for shouting out).

EDIT: Nice, I see now that Andrew already summed it up, clearing all our doubts LGPL scripting engines? · Issue #48 · VCVRack/VCV-Prototype · GitHub Thanks!

rorywalsh · January 11, 2021, 6:51pm

Great. I’m happy to take Andrew’s word on it. I’ll take a look now and how the deps are taken care off. Building them is simple on Linux but I think it’s easier on Windows and MacOS to simple grab the pre-built libraries. It might take a while before it’s production ready, but at least I can follow up with it now.

brianlheim · March 1, 2021, 10:13pm

Heads up to people interested in this module, I just pushed the last bit of work needed to enable the SuperCollider engine, so it should be ready to use.

amkee · March 9, 2021, 9:56am

Hi Brian, very interested over here!

I tried using it but when I load a .scd script in the prototype module I get the following error: No engine for .scd extension. I have supercollider installed on my laptop which is working fine. I tried saving the script in different locations. Am I doing something wrong?

Prototype version: v1.3.0; rack version: v1.1.6; SuperCollider version 3.11.2.

Very excited about this!

jml · April 16, 2021, 8:28am

Just stopping by to say thanks for developing VCV Prototype. Made it super easy to get started!

FiroLFO · August 8, 2021, 6:37am

Thanks for this wonderful toy! I can hardly remember having this much fun for a long time. Is there a way to change the knobs range from 0-1 to 0-16?

Squinky · August 8, 2021, 6:40am

multiply the values by 16?

FiroLFO · August 9, 2021, 6:46am

That’s what I’m doing to get the values I need. But with right-click onto the knobs it still offers 0-1 range. I’m wondering if there’s a (insanely easy) way to change that.