falktx @falktx@mastodon.falktx.com
In order to avoid any potential issues I removed the "even a little slightly problematic" modules from Cardinal temporarily, so any new patches done with it now are safe to use from now on (so no modules-were-removed surprises possible)
Meanwhile the core modules, due to VCV branding and CC-ND restriction, are being slowly replaced by Cardinal counterparts.
Still WIP and yeah they look boring, but should be good enough for a first release. Getting things moving is the first step.
VST3 handling in hosts continues to amaze me.
Seems FLStudio doesn't support VST3 plugins without custom GUI. The GUI ends up fully empty [pic1]
That arrow down is not to show/hide the GUI, but to access some options. some trickery then allows to change parameters on the sidebar panel. [pic2]
[pic3] shows how it is supposed to look like, using VST2 format.
Have we reach the point where nobody cares about plugins without GUIs, so much they wont even implement support for it? wow
Cardinal inside Cardinal inside Cardinal inside Cardinal.
How many levels deep is that? Yes.
Aria Salvatrice has given the green light for the use of the previously-archived-but-now-revived-for-cardinal-modules! 🎉
Let's go dark/night mode!
Supposedly Rack v2 will be out this month, but there is not much left of that... 😅
Anytime now...
In the mean time we can do more experiments with dark mode. The new Fundamental modules look nice in this way. 🌔
Don't mind me, just testing how big of an image I can upload here...
Does it get scaled down?
Now that Cardinal runs more or less stable, I started some attempts at creating background soundscapes.
I am not that good at this CV/modular stuff yet, but does not seem too bad either.
The modular part is only doing sequencing for now, creating synths from scratch is something that is going to take quite some days to learn still...
Already happy with the results so far, and that is what counts in the end 😀
Since many modules in Cardinal are CC-NC, let's just go with CC-NC artwork then...
Go Miku for that UwU feeling inside your modular environment 😊
S'more news.
The menu bar is now adapted/custom for cardinal.
I tried to do it by keeping the old menu bar from VCV, but there is no way to reach some elements, so the whole thing needs to be overridden.
The file->quit menu is hidden if running as plugin (as otherwise would do nothing) and file->open now uses dpf file browser stuff. So at least this action should not block the even loop (making the plugin unusable).
Automated builds in https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/actions/workflows/build.yml (requires GitHub account)
Experimenting with parameters for Cardinal.
Idea being that the plugin exposes parameters that the host can control and automate, and inside the VCV environment they appear as regular CV sources.
Some little filtering to reduce stepping and it produces nice results.
Here you see Carla converting MIDI notes from a file into parameter changes that automate Cardinal's parameters.
The result is (sorta) playing the chocobo song purely out of plugin parameter automation 🎉 😂 🚀
With plugins, we are typically supposed to save state in the current session/host instead of files in the user dir.
So, with trying to preserve state for the upcoming Cardinal thing I am placing a few VCV related things as plugin parameters, so we can save&restore their values through the plugin host.
What ends up happening is sorta amazing, exposing the "room brightness" as a parameter means the host can automated it...
What a show 😂
287 modules so far.
(from Core + 10 collections)
Sadly there is a lot of stuff out there that is not ready for VCVRack v2, Valley being a very famous one.
Not even Befaco is fully ready, the branch where the new/main plugins live is not yet updated for v2.
Makes me doubtful that VCVRack v2 will be out in the short-term.. If they do release it, it is going to miss a LOT of modules.
Now with audio too!
It is at this point I realize I don't understand these CV concepts at all 😂
Anyone can share cool patches that only use open-source plugins?
The VCV as plugin saga continues.
Now with plugins being setup for building. Added AudibleInstruments, Befaco and Fundamental so far.
Still need to get the actual engine to work, so it receives audio/midi from host and sends it back as needed.
But if we got so far already, that last piece should be quite doable too.
PS: if you know a must-have opensource VCV plugin, let me know! Shouldnt be too difficult to get more plugins in at this point.
Did you know, if separating the plugin into a different process, the toolkit issues go away?
1. Add "Run in bridge mode" option
2. ???
3. Profit!
The secret sauce is Carla, as usual 😊
But you won't even notice it is there.
The generic plugin view looks ok enough, making the gui-less plugins usable too.
Now it is just deciding if this is good enough as-is, or if something critical is missing before a release..
(not counting with final polishing/fixing of course, just the feature-set)
Tempted to just go with it as-is, if I wait for things to be perfect we are going to be here a very long time... 🤔
Just doing a test for the mini-plugin host thingy, this upload has audio, right?
The main plugin controls remain at the top now where they belong.
