Rack VST can resize. It’s weird, I’m sure I tried before but somehow now I can do it.
A certain competitor’s VST has both a maximise toolbar button (like any other app) and its size and position is remembered (just tested in Bitwig on Mac).
This suggests that this is something that can be addressed.
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I know what you mean - I have minimal experience with any kind of DAW and I didn’t get on with it. I am watching all the videos I can find about VCV Rack + Daw in case I see something that lights up an idea in me, but so far I haven’t seen anything I can’t do better in VCV Rack with Shapemaster or Squinky’s piano roll Seq++ (and Entrian’s modules when they pass into v2).
I suspect (for now at least) the people who use DAWs all the time are going to be a lot more impressed with VCV Rack than I ever will be with a DAW.
I remain hopeful that I will be convinced otherwise.
while the entrian sequencer modules are great, there are some limitations with working with them. for example, there’s obvious boilerplate patching work that comes with vcv that is abstracted away with a daw. also entrian sequencers does not have swing quantization, which is one thing i like using in reaper. and also while the live recording in entrian is good, it doesnt let you record multiple takes. and also syncing audio clips is a lot easier in a daw than using simpliciter or whatever. not to mention the obscene cpu costs when doing polyphony. that said, there are multiple benefits of using entrian with vcv over a daw, like arbitrary subdivisions, which most daws don’t support, and probability and flam and so on.
Cubase (any flavour)
cubase artist 11 works so fine
in cubase > F11 > vcv rack full screen
I installed a copy of Tracktion Waveform Free just to get my feet wet. It actually looks quite nice, like a good first DAW. It has the added benefit of being free and also supporting my oldish macOS Sierra, which nothing else relevant does. Yeah, I’m going to upgrade to Catalina one of these days.
Personally I couldn’t live with doing that SO many times and so often. I’m a keyboard person and actually hate the mouse, old damage, so this would infuriate me.
Doesn’t work in the DAW’s I’ve tried so far.
Yes. I just tried “a certain other competitor” in Waveform Free and indeed it remembers it’s size and position which is highly useful, but Rack VST does not. I do not get a chanche to maximize the window though. I definately need to file a VCV feature request for this. In Rack standalone the window size is saved in settings but obviously not for the VST which is puzzling. It needs a settings-vst.json to write VST specific settings in I think, or something.
For me there’s fundamentally two things missing that would make Rack a full fledged DAW, enough to fullfil my needs: A multitrack CV recorder with a UI for recording and playback, like the MIDI tracks in a DAW. And a multitrack audio recorder that does not alter the sound, with a UI that lets you do basic trimming, and allows for both recording and playback, like the audio tracks in a DAW. That would do it for me.
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Be sure to give Renoise a try then
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Well well, wadda you know. I just started Rack 2 by accident and noticed a new 2.0.2 release is ready. And lookie here what it says in the changelog:
Rack Pro
- Save/restore plugin window size in patch.
Speak of the devil eh? Looking forward to try this.
I did, couldn’t live with the UI on Mac and it seemed generally cryptic. Waveform Free definately looks and feels nicer and more approachable.
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working as expected…
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I agree 100%. Those are the only 2 reasons I would run Rack as a plugin inside a DAW. If Rack ever includes these features in future releases, I’m sure I’ll ditch the DAW. Except for final mixing/mastering. Which anyways gets done once all the completed tracks are bounced. But that is just the way I work. Others have different workflows.
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Well damn… In Waveform Free, with Rack Pro 2.0.2, the Rack VST window is still always set to a certain size, which doesn’t happen with “a certain other competitor”. It’s weird though - if I resize the plugin window, then close it, then open it, for a split second it starts at the size I left it and then it resizes back to a smaller size, always the same size. But it remembers the placement of upper left corner of the window. Weird… I did however manage to unbind F11 in macOS and the DAW so now F11 actually gives me a fullscreen Rack window which is workable for spending some time there.
Same in Reaper. But in another topic @Nik confirmed that this only works on Windows (and Linux?), doesn’t work on Mac.
Hmm… so appearently in 2.0.3 or 2.0.3b today, F11/fullscreen was removed when running as a VST. That’s not so nice and seems like a step back. However it still works when running standalone. Also I discovered that zoom-level is reset to 100% each time you open the VST window again, which is annoying, unlike when running standalone. This all feels somehow connected and a bit unfinished, and I think the VST needs a seperate “overlay” config file.
But the good news is that as of 2.0.3b the VST now has a seperate template from the standalone, so that’s progress 
Looks like it’s only a sequencer, not for recording audio and so not really a DAW.
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Zoom is persistent for me in 2.0.3b and bitwig.
Still works here (2.0.3b, Bitwig, W10)
It’s never been ideal though - always goes to fullscreen on the primary monitor, which isn’t necessarily where the floating plugin window is…
I only passed the request on to Andrew - he gets all the credit!
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