VCV Rack version 6 now with Bridge

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cheokeh3
Posts: 22
Joined: 08 Jun 2017

31 Mar 2018

SO VCV has been updated and very nice too, unfortunately the new feature "Bridge" which allows audio from Rack to be piped into your DAW appears to have some issues.......being Pops and Crackling......

Anyone else having similar issues and anyone have a work around until the next update to fix the issue?

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Carly(Poohbear)
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31 Mar 2018

you may want to see this thread here about the VCV stuff

viewtopic.php?p=384357#p384357

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chimp_spanner
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31 Mar 2018

cheokeh3 wrote:
31 Mar 2018
SO VCV has been updated and very nice too, unfortunately the new feature "Bridge" which allows audio from Rack to be piped into your DAW appears to have some issues.......being Pops and Crackling......

Anyone else having similar issues and anyone have a work around until the next update to fix the issue?
Same here. The main problem as far as I can tell is that its buffer size is locked at 64 regardless of the audio driver settings. I also had some issues getting the sample rate to lock correctly as well. By all accounts its fine in Logic, Ableton, Cubase, etc. I wonder if this in any way hints at an underlying difference between how Reason treats VSTs or if it's just a coding/optimisation thing? There's also supposed to be a plugin panel for setting some options in the bridge but there's no sliders/controls for VSTs without a GUI in Reason so those settings are inaccessible.

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cheokeh3
Posts: 22
Joined: 08 Jun 2017

02 Jun 2018

i am unable to use VCV Rack with Reason still.....such a shame...not tried it in Ableton.....it works ok there does it?

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Ahornberg
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02 Jun 2018

Have you tried disabling multi-core audio rendering in Reason? On some VSTs that usually need a lager buffer sice (like 2CAudio Kaleidoscope) surprisingly this helps (don't ask me why).

jimmyklane
Posts: 740
Joined: 16 Apr 2018

02 Jun 2018

It shows up as an Effect on my system, and I cannot get it to receive notes, or indeed to send sound over. I’ve experimented with which order I open them up in, etc.

Thing is, I swear I got it working the first day 0.6 came out, and despite crushing my CPU was able to utilize it for a part that I then had to bounce to audio to move on from!

Can anyone assist in helping me get it functioning once more? It works on its own without issue.
DAW: Reason 12

SAMPLERS: Akai MPC 2000, E-mu SP1200, E-Mu e5000Ultra, Ensoniq EPS 16+, Akai S950, Maschine

SYNTHS: Mostly classic Polysynths and more modern Monosynths. All are mostly food for my samplers!

www.soundcloud.com/jimmyklane

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Loque
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24 Jun 2018

OMG! I luv this sh!t. So amzing to connect everything with everything and it produces amazing sounds! And actually the must stuff is for free! If there is still someone that did not tried this rack in combination with Reason, go, and tried it ffs! Ok, the first start may be a bit weird to get all the modules sticked together, but its worth it!
Reason12, Win10

jimmyklane
Posts: 740
Joined: 16 Apr 2018

24 Jun 2018

Loque wrote:
24 Jun 2018
OMG! I luv this sh!t. So amzing to connect everything with everything and it produces amazing sounds! And actually the must stuff is for free! If there is still someone that did not tried this rack in combination with Reason, go, and tried it ffs! Ok, the first start may be a bit weird to get all the modules sticked together, but its worth it!
What are you doing to get it to work with Reason? Using a loopback? The bridge shows up as an effect for me.
DAW: Reason 12

SAMPLERS: Akai MPC 2000, E-mu SP1200, E-Mu e5000Ultra, Ensoniq EPS 16+, Akai S950, Maschine

SYNTHS: Mostly classic Polysynths and more modern Monosynths. All are mostly food for my samplers!

www.soundcloud.com/jimmyklane

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Loque
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24 Jun 2018

jimmyklane wrote:
24 Jun 2018
Loque wrote:
24 Jun 2018
OMG! I luv this sh!t. So amzing to connect everything with everything and it produces amazing sounds! And actually the must stuff is for free! If there is still someone that did not tried this rack in combination with Reason, go, and tried it ffs! Ok, the first start may be a bit weird to get all the modules sticked together, but its worth it!
What are you doing to get it to work with Reason? Using a loopback? The bridge shows up as an effect for me.
For me the Bridge now shows up as instrument (latest version), but you can also "play" it when it was a fx . And in VCV configure as follow.
vcvbridge.jpg
vcvbridge.jpg (96.26 KiB) Viewed 22752 times
Here is a test VCV patch and a reson song that also holds a generated sound in Grain.
vcvtest.zip
(166.14 KiB) Downloaded 495 times
Reason12, Win10

jimmyklane
Posts: 740
Joined: 16 Apr 2018

24 Jun 2018

Loque wrote:
24 Jun 2018
jimmyklane wrote:
24 Jun 2018


What are you doing to get it to work with Reason? Using a loopback? The bridge shows up as an effect for me.
For me the Bridge now shows up as instrument (latest version), but you can also "play" it when it was a fx . And in VCV configure as follow.

vcvbridge.jpg

Here is a test VCV patch and a reson song that also holds a generated sound in Grain.
vcvtest.zip
That was exactly how I was configuring it. Even though I don’t personally own a modular, I am pretty familiar with using one as my close friend has half a wall of modules (its excessive to say the least!)....thank you so much for the Reason file.

I’ll update Rack, then attempt it again. Are you launching Reason and then Rack or vice versa? I’d love to get this working reliably, as VCV makes for really awesome additional capabilities. It’s like a modular synth inside a modular synth!!!
DAW: Reason 12

SAMPLERS: Akai MPC 2000, E-mu SP1200, E-Mu e5000Ultra, Ensoniq EPS 16+, Akai S950, Maschine

SYNTHS: Mostly classic Polysynths and more modern Monosynths. All are mostly food for my samplers!

www.soundcloud.com/jimmyklane

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Loque
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24 Jun 2018

jimmyklane wrote:
24 Jun 2018
Loque wrote:
24 Jun 2018


For me the Bridge now shows up as instrument (latest version), but you can also "play" it when it was a fx . And in VCV configure as follow.

vcvbridge.jpg

Here is a test VCV patch and a reson song that also holds a generated sound in Grain.
vcvtest.zip
That was exactly how I was configuring it. Even though I don’t personally own a modular, I am pretty familiar with using one as my close friend has half a wall of modules (its excessive to say the least!)....thank you so much for the Reason file.

I’ll update Rack, then attempt it again. Are you launching Reason and then Rack or vice versa? I’d love to get this working reliably, as VCV makes for really awesome additional capabilities. It’s like a modular synth inside a modular synth!!!
Yes, i first lounch rReason, than VCV. Should also work the other way around, but you need to free the audio driver in VCV.

GL and if we can help to get it work, please ask.
Reason12, Win10

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bsp
Posts: 214
Joined: 18 Jan 2015

24 Jun 2018

chimp_spanner wrote:
31 Mar 2018
cheokeh3 wrote:
31 Mar 2018
[..]unfortunately the new feature "Bridge" which allows audio from Rack to be piped into your DAW appears to have some issues.......being Pops and Crackling......[..]
[..]I wonder if this in any way hints at an underlying difference between how Reason treats VSTs or if it's just a coding/optimisation thing? [..]
Earlier this year I wrote one of those inter-process bridge plugins myself ("databridge") and from what I've witnessed, Reason apparently uses a ring buffer that pulls in multiple 64-frame chunks from a VST plugin.
I had to increase the total bridge latency to 4x64=256 frames to reduce underruns to a minimum.

While working on my VST host, I came to the conclusion that there is no way around that kind of ringbuffer since the (ASIO) buffer-fill callback has to return ASAP or micro-underruns can (will) occur (i.e. any heavy lifting in that callback is an absolute no-go).

That being said, bridge plugins in general are a bad solution since it is virtually impossible to implement a low latency, glitch-free audio stream due to occasional OS "hickups".
You either have to live with the occasional clicks'n'pops or use a really large ringbuffer, which will result in very bad I/O latencies.

In terms of VCV Rack: The best course of action would be to wrap it in a VST plugin. I'm surprised nobody's done that, yet (even _if_ they used static vars (which would prevent multi-instancing), a single VST instance would still be better than this bridge crutch).

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Loque
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24 Jun 2018

bsp wrote:
24 Jun 2018
chimp_spanner wrote:
31 Mar 2018


[..]I wonder if this in any way hints at an underlying difference between how Reason treats VSTs or if it's just a coding/optimisation thing? [..]
Earlier this year I wrote one of those inter-process bridge plugins myself ("databridge") and from what I've witnessed, Reason apparently uses a ring buffer that pulls in multiple 64-frame chunks from a VST plugin.
I had to increase the total bridge latency to 4x64=256 frames to reduce underruns to a minimum.

While working on my VST host, I came to the conclusion that there is no way around that kind of ringbuffer since the (ASIO) buffer-fill callback has to return ASAP or micro-underruns can (will) occur (i.e. any heavy lifting in that callback is an absolute no-go).

That being said, bridge plugins in general are a bad solution since it is virtually impossible to implement a low latency, glitch-free audio stream due to occasional OS "hickups".
You either have to live with the occasional clicks'n'pops or use a really large ringbuffer, which will result in very bad I/O latencies.

In terms of VCV Rack: The best course of action would be to wrap it in a VST plugin. I'm surprised nobody's done that, yet (even _if_ they used static vars (which would prevent multi-instancing), a single VST instance would still be better than this bridge crutch).
I guess they never had a VST plugin in mind when they started to develope so the bridge is a pretty fast solution. It would be uber awsome to have a VCV VST to host every single VCV plugin or combinations of them. That would also allow easy using the VCV controls with CV from Reason - which is neccessary in some cases, because the devs thought: "hey, i do not need to modulate that, i do not add a modulation input". So stupid...
Reason12, Win10

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bsp
Posts: 214
Joined: 18 Jan 2015

24 Jun 2018

Loque wrote:
24 Jun 2018
I guess they never had a VST plugin in mind when they started to develope so the bridge is a pretty fast solution.
I just had a look at the source -- and just as I thought, there are indeed a couple of global/static variables that would prevent multiple instantiation.
On the other hand, it does not look too bad, and maybe those globals could be eliminated with a bit of effort (needs further investigation, though).
(the source in general looks "nice", btw).
Loque wrote:
24 Jun 2018
It would be uber awsome to have a VCV VST to host every single VCV plugin or combinations of them.
Recently I bought Softube Modular (it's currently on on sale). It does sound good but it's *very* CPU heavy and worst of all, plugin instantiations take ages (b/c of copy protection!?).
So, while I already have a ton of plugins, the thought of having this open source modular as a VST plugin is quite appealing, indeed
(in my host, you can polyphonize every plugin easily but that ain't no fun when it takes several seconds to create a new (voice) instance!).

Maybe I'll give it a shot (starting with a single-instance plugin).

..currently listening to some VCV demos..:

^^ this one is really cute, I can listen to stuff like that for hours ;)
Loque wrote:
24 Jun 2018
That would also allow easy using the VCV controls with CV from Reason - which is neccessary in some cases, because the devs thought: "hey, i do not need to modulate that, i do not add a modulation input". So stupid...
It's probably not going to be that easy since you can only automate parameters in a VST host if the plugin reports parameter changes via audioMasterBeginEdit / audioMasterAutomate / audioMasterEndEdit, i.e. there needs to be some kind of parameter change notification mechanism in the first place.
Each VCV plugin has a list of "models", and each model has a list "params, inputs, outputs, and lights" but I don't see any notifications.

Last but not least, automating a modular synth also poses the problem that you have a huge amount of parameters that can change at any time (when modules are added / removed).
IIRC, Zebra for example has a limited number of cells, and each cell has a maximum number of params, i.e. the VST parameter indices are an enumeration of all the cells and their params.

I'm not sure that this would work with VCV (more "cells", and apparently an unlimited amount of parameters per module), i.e. you would probably need some kind of automation mapper inside VCV.
(if the number of automatable params per module was limited to say 100, and the maximum number of modules to 100 as well, you would end up with 10.000 VST parameters. the patch in the video above uses >40 modules, for example).

(on a side note: it's quite amazing what you can get away with these days: the entire processing is based on step() calls that "Advance(s) the module by 1 audio frame with duration 1.0 / gSampleRate" :shock: I remember the time when I wrote a modular softsynth in the late 90ies in a similar fashion and it was so slow that I abandonded the project :cry: )

lakinlakin
Posts: 121
Joined: 07 Jan 2016
Location: Scotland

25 Jun 2018

Thought I'd give this a spin. It is brilliant.
Set the zoom level to 130% and my eyes breathed a sigh of relief - so to speak. Can't wait for Reason to have a similar feature.

tarmoog
Posts: 9
Joined: 23 Apr 2015

25 Jun 2018

I was experienced quite a lot of glitches and extra clicks and pops when using bridge as a audio module.

Workaround solution I found if you have an extra audio interface and use midi bridge only to sync(and send midi) vcv rack with reason and use different audio interfaces for audio in vcv rack and reason.

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bsp
Posts: 214
Joined: 18 Jan 2015

25 Jun 2018

Okay, here we go: VCVRack 0.6 as a VST plugin: vcvrack_0.6_vst2_bin-25Jun2018.7z

This is just a quick and dirty hack I created this evening but it's already useable I guess.

Here's a short demo video (yeah, that patch is horrible :roll:):


  • Multichannel input + output should be working (8 ins, 8 outs) but is untested
  • MIDI might be working but is untested (via external MIDI input, not VST MIDI input, which is not implemented, yet)
  • Program / Bank chunks have not been implemented, yet (=> you need to load / save the project manually)
  • 3rd party VCV plugins have not been tested, yet (just the "Fundamentals" plugin that comes with VCV Rack itself)

If anyone manages to get this working in Reason, please let me know how.
I think the problem is that the libwinpthread-1.dll, libstdc++-6.dll, libgcc_s_seh-1.dll dependencies cannot be found (I tried copying them to the windows system32 dir but that did not work).
My host temporarily changes the current working directory when loading the plugin so that's probably the reason why it works there. Haven't tested any other hosts, yet.
Anyhow, it's a first step ;)

EDIT (1h later): here's an alternative plugin build which I managed to get running in Reason via a metahost plugin (i.e. a VST plugin that loads other VST plugins): vcvrack_0.6_vst2_bin_static-25Jun2018.7z


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Loque
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26 Jun 2018

bsp wrote:
25 Jun 2018
Okay, here we go: VCVRack 0.6 as a VST plugin: vcvrack_0.6_vst2_bin-25Jun2018.7z

This is just a quick and dirty hack I created this evening but it's already useable I guess.

Here's a short demo video (yeah, that patch is horrible :roll:):


  • Multichannel input + output should be working (8 ins, 8 outs) but is untested
  • MIDI might be working but is untested (via external MIDI input, not VST MIDI input, which is not implemented, yet)
  • Program / Bank chunks have not been implemented, yet (=> you need to load / save the project manually)
  • 3rd party VCV plugins have not been tested, yet (just the "Fundamentals" plugin that comes with VCV Rack itself)

If anyone manages to get this working in Reason, please let me know how.
I think the problem is that the libwinpthread-1.dll, libstdc++-6.dll, libgcc_s_seh-1.dll dependencies cannot be found (I tried copying them to the windows system32 dir but that did not work).
My host temporarily changes the current working directory when loading the plugin so that's probably the reason why it works there. Haven't tested any other hosts, yet.
Anyhow, it's a first step ;)

EDIT (1h later): here's an alternative plugin build which I managed to get running in Reason via a metahost plugin (i.e. a VST plugin that loads other VST plugins): vcvrack_0.6_vst2_bin_static-25Jun2018.7z

Erm.... :o :shock: :? :lightbulb:
Reason12, Win10

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Ahornberg
Posts: 1904
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Location: Vienna, Austria
Contact:

26 Jun 2018

bsp wrote:
25 Jun 2018
Okay, here we go: VCVRack 0.6 as a VST plugin: vcvrack_0.6_vst2_bin-25Jun2018.7z

This is just a quick and dirty hack I created this evening but it's already useable I guess.

Here's a short demo video (yeah, that patch is horrible :roll:):


  • Multichannel input + output should be working (8 ins, 8 outs) but is untested
  • MIDI might be working but is untested (via external MIDI input, not VST MIDI input, which is not implemented, yet)
  • Program / Bank chunks have not been implemented, yet (=> you need to load / save the project manually)
  • 3rd party VCV plugins have not been tested, yet (just the "Fundamentals" plugin that comes with VCV Rack itself)

If anyone manages to get this working in Reason, please let me know how.
I think the problem is that the libwinpthread-1.dll, libstdc++-6.dll, libgcc_s_seh-1.dll dependencies cannot be found (I tried copying them to the windows system32 dir but that did not work).
My host temporarily changes the current working directory when loading the plugin so that's probably the reason why it works there. Haven't tested any other hosts, yet.
Anyhow, it's a first step ;)

EDIT (1h later): here's an alternative plugin build which I managed to get running in Reason via a metahost plugin (i.e. a VST plugin that loads other VST plugins): vcvrack_0.6_vst2_bin_static-25Jun2018.7z

I think you're on the right way.

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geronimo
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Location: France

26 Jun 2018

It's a VST version for Windows ?

sdst
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Joined: 14 Jun 2015

26 Jun 2018

VCV Rack look nice, but the sound

I can do all that sound easy in Reason, and not need to worry by crashes

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Loque
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26 Jun 2018

sdst wrote:
26 Jun 2018
VCV Rack look nice, but the sound

I can do all that sound easy in Reason, and not need to worry by crashes
Whats wrong with the sound? The sound is awesome imo! If your CPU has enough power, just increase the sampling rate and you can hear an immense boost in sound quality. Reason does not support audio rate modulations and alone THIS is a reason why it cannot reach the quality. And you can NOT do everything in Reason that you can do in VCV and ofc vice versa.

Reason and VCV crash both on my side, depending on what i do and what i use. Mabye you should consider, that VCV is actually NOT released for production, still in development and for this it is incredible stable IMO. I have seen worse RE with more bugs.
Reason12, Win10

sdst
Competition Winner
Posts: 896
Joined: 14 Jun 2015

26 Jun 2018

Loque wrote:
26 Jun 2018
Whats wrong with the sound?
I don't say that the sound is bad

I say that I can do this in Reason

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Loque
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Posts: 11175
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26 Jun 2018

sdst wrote:
26 Jun 2018
Loque wrote:
26 Jun 2018
Whats wrong with the sound?
I don't say that the sound is bad

I say that I can do this in Reason
I dont think this a the best example of sound design in VCV, rather a demo of how to create a song or sequence. But if THAT is what you normally do, you better stick with Reason only and forget about the hassle with VCV.
Reason12, Win10

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Re8et
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Posts: 1512
Joined: 14 Nov 2016

26 Jun 2018

Uh, great, now accepts direct cv/gate!

I found some patches on the website, if you haven't found already :
Pseudopoly Synth, just an idea, try to drive it with a PSQ or anything up to 4 voices

I don't know if I'm doing it right, the poly notes comes from the midi4.... It does not seem to accept poly other ways....
I might be wrong/// If cares to get a look here is Pseudopoly Synth:

QUADRASYNTH 4POLY V2.zip
(1.58 KiB) Downloaded 446 times
QUADRASYNTH 4POLY V3.zip
(1.73 KiB) Downloaded 431 times

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