VCV Rack for iPad - 2025 ?

VCV Rack
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Hi @Vortico and VCV Rack community, I am curious if we could get an iPad version soon?

I am not naive nor ignorant, read most threads here on this topic over ~5 years. Frustrating: lots of tech legal stuff, VCV vs MI, little customer & musician focus.

Opportunity: Personally (after years of nearly giving up iPad music apps) I recently moved Mac DAWs from Bitwig to Logic mainly because of the game-changing Logic iPad/Mac workflow. And create so much more music with it, especially automation and knob loaded producing. That made me think of VCV…

Problem: I am a full version VCV customer but rarely use it as the desktop version is „too mouse centric“ for “creating“ music - touch would be so much more intuitive. I tested the The MI version but it lacks great features of paid VCV version 2…

So, time to put yesterdays problems aside: is there a VCV Rack iPad future?

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Any thoughts @Vortico ?

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Too mouse-centric for you to create music - touch would be so much more intuitive for you. Normally I wouldn’t nitpick like this (it’s of course implied by merely posting that, that the comment is from a subjective perspective :smile: ), but it’s an important distinction when suggesting something as work-intensive as this.

Given that touch interfaces do have their strengths, personally I’d much rather see that aspect of VCV happen on any device, in its primary version, first. That is, if touch interactions are more intuitive, and desirable in VCV, then progress that aspect in the actual desktop version, for anyone with a touch display to use. (More and more laptops have touchscreens these days, and they work nicely even in Linux and so on.)

So, regarding those interface aspects, I’d much rather see something like that, instead of a lot of development for a separate version in a closed ecosystem like the iPad, its app store, and so forth. (This is coming from someone who has used a ton of music/audio apps on an iPad, also professionally, heh.)

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as has been said over and over. It will never happen.

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Thanks for your feedback @Guenon, I also hoped for the platform agnostic touch approach for many years.

But did you actually play with Logic iPad - and compared it to something PC/Linux touch like Bitwig? IMO a major difference for musicians between a touch-first vs touch-addon experience.

And the MI fork shows iPad VCV is doable - so if only the two projects would find a way to unite… Instead of current loose loose separation…

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Believe :sweat_smile:

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I mean, there’s miRack for iOS. No clue how well it works… It’s not free, and therefore I didn’t want to play with it. It has only a fraction of the VCV library, like only about 700 modules out of like 3000+ in the VCV library. It features @Squinky Squinky Labs FM Kitchen Sink apparently, and the latest update now supports 8-channel polyphony. So it’s at least in development at some level. I’m not sure why it’s so underpowered, the new iPads have a more powerful CPU than my current computer does.

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Doesn’t iOS forbid plugins? That makes open-ended modular like VCV impossible on that platform.

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but the most important thing is…how can a touchscreeen be better than a mouse + keyboard in such an environment?

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My experience with Logic iPad/Mac round-robin flow: yes, touch can be better for VCV, too. More intuitive and fluent cable plugging, sequencer clicking, sliding, zoom in/out in complex yet visually playful and pleasing environments

Maybe do an initial complex template setup on PC, get into flow playing on iPad or other touch device.

See some examples later in this user video

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miRack on an iPad Pro (12.9-inch), 2nd generation with an Apple Bluetooth digital pencil is very usable, in my personal experienced opinion. The pencil makes all of the difference for me.

That does not mean that VCV Rack will ever run on iOS though, but not for technical or UX reasons.

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The technical reason is that VCV runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. It would be very difficult to cross platform touch support.

But, yes, for just ios (not a supported VCV platform) there is no technical reason you couldn’t do it.

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The reason is not technical but licensing. There are tons of VSTs with the same UIs and code that run across Mac, PC, iOS, and Linux by major software companies: Eventide, UVI, along with lots of smaller independent developers with fully functional multi touch support. JUCE is a framework used by many for cross compatibility.

VCV’s licensing was changed when 2.0 was released, same applies to Surge. And also why Mirack was forked from VCV 0.6, prior to the licensing change. There are old threads on this. The new licensing is not compatible with the licensing of the Appstore.

I’ve used iOS for music making for over a decade, there are no restrictions on plugins on iOS, except that they have to be in Apple’s AUv3 format vs AUv2 on Mac desktop, but that does not apply standalone apps. So for example, the VSTs by Eventide are available as AUv3 on iOS.

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There are no licensing issues. VCV controls full rights to their source, which is why the proprietary Pro/plugin version exists. They could just as well make a proprietary iOS version …

… except the way Rack works is it loads its own external plugins/modules, which afaik is not allowed on iOS.

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That’s inaccurate. VCV is GPLv3 licensed which is not allowed on iOS. Again there are old threads in this board which mention when this was changed. VCV would need to modify itself with a different license to make it compatible with Apple’s policies, since derivative works have to be GPLv3 too.

Plugins like VSTs are allowed on iOS. Eventide’s plugins are AUV3 and work in a music hosts like AUM, Drambo, and others.

Plugins in VCV are not the same as VSTs/AUv3, they are essentially extensions of the core product similar to modules in Audulus or Max. There wouldn’t be an issue running them on iOS. Many iOS music apps also have in-app plugins and downloads like Steinberg’s Cubasis DAW has its own in-app purchase downloads like compressors, etc

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I think the distinction is that since VCV owns the copyright, they could themselves release an iOS version. But others could not.

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That 's inaccurate. VCV can relicense Rack2 however they want, since they have full control over the source.

What you are talking about is the old v0.6 to v1.0 change. We are on v2.0 which doesn’t fall under the same license restrictions.

There is the public GPLv3.0 code of the standalone Rack2, and then their private proprietary version (used for ie. Pro/plugin builds). They “could” release a proprietary AUv3 version, but the logistics for this are really not favorable.

I do not blame them from not wanting to tread these waters.

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That’s correct. It’s up to VCV how / if they decide to change their approach which is related more licensing decisions vs technical, since that would be possible. But agreed, there are economic and philosophical considerations.

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really, there are cross platforms VST that support touch? I believe you, but what not until now aware of that.