Hello VCV Community - Just discovered you tonight after running across a guy going by the pseudonym State Azure and being fascinated by what he is doing with Euro Rack amongst other synths. I thought I might persue the software version of what he is doing before I ever dipped my toes into hardware as I am reasonably familiar with DAWs like Ableton (Have 11 suite) and a number of VST platforms including Kontact and Reaktor. I know I won’t have any issues running VCV et al on my home system, but what about my Surface Pro 7? In the VCV online manual under system requirements it mentions something about non-dedicated graphics setups being not so good. Here are the specs: Intel(R) Core™ i7-1065G7 CPU @ 1.30GHz 1.50 GHz, 16GB Ram, 64 bit OS Win 10 Pro, 250 GB internal SSD and of course as many as I want outboard if that makes a difference - storing libraries etc. I’m in camp right now with limited internet access so downloading anything at the moment is not a great idea, but I can certainly ask about it. Thanks for any input. This looks like an amazing community!
Welcome! State Azure makes very cool music.
Years ago I used to run VCV Rack on an original Surface Pro; I couldn’t make as complex patches as on my full desktop, but I could experiment. I expect you’ll be able make some reasonable patches on the SP7, especially if you follow some of the performance tips mentioned many times in this forum (don’t add threads unless you really need to, turn down framerate etc). Some of those performance recommendations might get refined as the full release of Rack 2 is on the horizon.
Yep, should work. I have an older i5 Surface as my work laptop, as Paul said it won’t run a huge amount of modules but fine for learning rack and trying out ideas. On paper, it’s a decent spec but what you find is it’s basically crippled by the thermal management firmware/drivers. You can improve things if you have admin rights by changing the power settings for performance, although MS seem to insist on changing it all back every time it updates, which is annoying. I ended up uninstalling it and buying a gaming laptop, then a slightly monstrous desktop too. Also, you don’t need a huge amount of RAM or storage (unless you want all of the 2000+ modules, which is a bad idea when you’re starting out, but still only a few Gb).
I also watch too many State Azure vids on YouTube, and usually get slightly jealous of all his kit, even though I don’t particularly want to go down the hardware route. 
Great, thx very much for the reply! (From SuperMuppet as well!) I am certainly just looking for something I can experiment with ideas and learn the basics while I’m on the road with this thing. Very much appreciate the responses!
and in case you once want to get a bit larger with a patch, you can always reduce the sample rate in the vcvrack settings json file to 32000 or even 22050 - this gives some extra headroom by lowering the cpu usage (at the cost of the higher frequencies though). but often that is not that noticable and it at least gives you the opportunity to go a bit beyond the limits of your hardware
best wishes - hexdump
Thank you hexdump. I wasn’t going to do any downloads here in camp but tried the Rack and was surprised how small the file was. Now I’m working on downloading a few of the ones suggested in the getting started thread. Looking at the Befaco VCO (VCV Library - Befaco Even VCO) and I can’t quire figure out the download process. The Manual link just takes me to their website.
All you need to do is to subscribe to create on the library, and once you reopen vcvrack you will see the plugin menu with a red dot, open it and update if needed
Thx! I will now spend the next few days (aren’t I the optimist) reading and searching through the Manual, various posts, and YouTube tute’s so as not to be “that guy” who endlessly asks questions that are readily available to the inquisitive mind. Oh… except this one - is there a Reddit?
Yes https://www.reddit.com/r/vcvrack/
But a lot of the names you will see over there are here too, so feel free to ask here. For starters, just watch Omri Cohen’s Youtube Channel (there are other good channels on VCV out there, but I think we could all agree that he has the most beginner friendly stuff out there).
Also, use the search function to look for already asked stuff. And the FB group is by far the largest group of vcv people.
I have Omri cued up for tonight. Thx!
Yeahhhh… very much appreciate the heads up but I haven’t logged into FB for 8 years and I detest the way it takes up a third of the page insisting you do. Perhaps I’ll make an exception.
Thanks Paul, I have that book marked. Where do I go to understand the various reasons that might be causing VCV to crash? I haven’t been able to keep it open for more than a few minutes at a time. I have closed everything except Microsoft OneNote that I am using to journal my journey and I have downloaded a very lightweight pdf reader so I can read How to Rack. Still crashes. I have the crash logs handy but I’m a new user so apparently I can’t share that here.
Did you search for crash and one drive? I thought it is the most common cause.
If it’s a consistent time after starting that points to the autosave, and if that is using a remote drive (like onedrive) that can be a problem.
What is it that is auto saving? Windows? I just came back from supper and started VCV all by itself, no other programs running (nothing on task manager out in the open), and it crashed after about 5 minutes. Edit - It will run for about 2-3 minutes and then shuts down. Is the crash log of any value?
Rack autosaves the current patch to the Rack folder within your Documents folder, and loads this when you restart Rack. It’s called autosave-v1.vcv.
In the settings-v1.json file in that Rack folder, you’ll see “autosavePeriod”: 300.0, in other words 300 seconds or 5 minutes.
If your Documents is pointing to a remote drive like OneDrive, that could be the issue. You can change Rack’s system and user folders with command line parameters. Those can also be included in the properties of the link you click to start Rack. VCV Manual - Installing & Running (vcvrack.com)
Well now you’re getting a little deep on me Paul. I see the settings-v1.json file but it won’t open for me. I have restarted my Surface. Closed all programs. Played a bit with the standard VCV modules and the qwerty keyboard using the on board sound card. Because you mentioned the 300 seconds thing I started and timed the last episode at 244 seconds (4:04). Following your comment (and squinky.Labs) about the One Drive, I actually don’t have my One Drive operating properly on this new Surface and am trying to resolve that part right now. Perhaps my Documents is trying to save to nowhere… but no other file or program has given me grief about it.
It’s just a text file. You can open it with notepad
Where is your Documents folder?