In Eurorack land I’ve seen a lot of mouth watering effect modules that are delightfully complex; The Make Noise Mimeophone, Qu-Bit’s Data Bender, Folktek’s Alter to name a few. For as far as I’ve come across them, effects in VCV tend to be more straight forward. I know, you can build complex effect patches with many basic ones, but that usually requires knowing what you’re after, instead of 'hey, let’s see what happens if I feed sound X into that effect Y.
My specific setup is that I have a tiny hardware eurorack with some fully analog voices. I’ve got an ES-8 so I can modulate my eurorack from VCV, and I feed the result back into VCV. What I am looking for are some great modules that will help me push my (basic, subtractive, monosynth) analog sounds into new territories.
So: what are your go-to effect modules for sound design? Which complex effect modules tickle your creativity? Which modules can always be trusted upon to direct your original sounds into unknown directions?
Since Supercell came out a couple of months ago I’ve used it quite a bit. It’s basically Clouds with some convenience features but I use it in reverb mode a lot. As with everything else around here @Omri_Cohen has a tutorial on it:
The problem is there’s so many modules that I’ve forgotten the stuff that is either old or that I don’t really use. I’d forgotten Prism for example, even though I have a YT video featuring it. I’d echo the suggestion to look at Frequency Domain and add that Fehler Fabrick have some interesting modules. Nysthi have a ton of modules varying from simple stuff that we all use all the time to super complex things like Simplictor and JiraJiraecho.
The modules you mention are mostly delay line based. Supercell is the most obvious choice for you. The granular mode (for me) is the easiest to understand, but the looping delay and beat repeat seem like they will reward your experience with them. If you want stuff that will rearrange your input across time, I’d look there.
The other obvious choice is Portland Weather, which mimics Intellijel Rainmaker. (Hair Pick does the comb filter part of it.)
Another thing that links the modules you mention is that they all can color the sound. Aside from Sangster, which sounds great if you want that specific sound, delays in VCV Rack all tend to be very clean digital delays. However, you can get a lot of mileage by seeing what happens when you put different stuff inside the feedback loop of NYSTHI Clockable Delay. One thing that can add some nice lofi quality is a VCA or overdrive modulated by filtered noise. (I find the “red” noise from the fundamental Noise module to be especially nice for this application.) Another tip is to put a limiter inside the feedback loop to prevent screeching.
Finally, you can learn Simpliciter, which is similar to Morphagene but not as polished.
Also: Warps (does lots of cool, weird things), Sound Stage (not free but really cool for feedback), and Amalgam (which is like Warps after it got eaten by self-replicating nanobots).
I have made extensive use Rings as an effect for drone! You can get lots of interesting results rolling your own impulses for more conventional Rings sounds as well. (Likewise with Elements.) My latest discovery was that the one-shot sync mode in terrorform is ideal for making impulses with lots of musical CV control.
Thanks Guys!
Lots of interesting stuff to try out! Will definitely try our Portland Weather, Sangster, Nysthi’s clockable delay (i have a hardware distortion with a feedback loop and built in limiter from Reverse Landfill, so maybe they can do some cool stuff together), Amalgam, Sound Stage, Simiciter!
You’re right - one mode of Chronoblob allows you to put stuff in the FB loop. This mode is mono, and I am very often using a stereo signal path, so I don’t use The Blob for this. (AS Delay Plus Stereo is worth mentioning for having a much prettier, simpler panel than NYSTHI. It allows you to modulate the L and R delay times separately, which NYSTHI doesn’t. Less aligned with my preferences is the lack of CV attenuators. YMMV.)
If you’re looking for delay lines, Super Echo in my Potato Chips plugin might be of interest to you. I wouldn’t really call it “complex”, but it is pretty weird and can do some especially bizarre stuff when you modulate the FIR coefficients. Check out this clip of Super Echo being used with just an LFO to make a really harsh oscillator for instance https://www.instagram.com/p/CIYkKfanW1N/
I was messing about with this recently and it’s fun. I probably should have looked it up but i didn’t really get what the sliders were doing. Sounded good though.
Someone mentioned Frequency Domain and i would second that (shameless plug here ) But if you are into delay fx, then FD’s delayed reaction is a frequency dependent delay (inspired by Native Instrument’s old Spektral Delay). Grains of Wrath and Freudian Slip will also do very strange things to your sound
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