It’s “yo dawg“/Inception time to the max. Not to be outdone by 4ms MetaModule, Autodafe has put all of VCV Rack (specifically its Cardinal fork) into a Eurorack module. Along the way, you’ll learn how to set up Cardinal on Raspberry Pi for any hardware project you might imagine.
Synthtopia got the scoop on this video, but some readers asked why you would want to do this. I mean, why wouldn’t you want to do this? Why is “why” even a question? We’re electronic musicians!
Uh, seriously, I’ve run VCV Rack on a MacBook Pro next to my modular on more than one occasion. I always assign something to hardware control. In the end, I don’t know that it particularly matters whether you’re using hardware or software. I just had the experience of pulling out a live recording from 2022, and I had to go back to my photo library to even recognize that it was VCV Rack and not the hardware modular, especially as I tend to do some of the same things.
Cardinal is pretty close to VCV Rack builds – both are free and open source and run on Linux. The advantage of Cardinal is, you get a single script that builds the environment and a bunch of modules. If you’re curious to build VCV Rack yourself, there are some resources to do that – here’s a promising GitHub repo that seems to have the latest. What you’ll get is something pretty close to Cardinal, though, so that’s mainly for people curious about trying their own builds or wanting to build their own modules. (There are some subtle differences with how each accesses audio on Linux, too, though I would have to look at this again.)
This isn’t limited to Rack/Cardinal, either; the instructions here apply to any use of Raspberry Pi S with Linux and any software you want to run.
Find more details in the description (and support Autodafe’s affiliate links), but the basic formula here is:
- Rasberry Pi 5 (which is pretty darned powerful now)
- Audio Hat shield
- Touchscreen
- Heatsink
- KXStudio Linux scripts for easy installation (your best bet for audio-friendly distro apart from Ubuntu Studio)
Check Cardinal, too; it’s part of KXStudio:
Have an HDMI connection to a monitor handy and you’re basically good to go here.
But it’s a really practical setup, because not only do you get CV and audio connectivity, but two USB host ports. So, to anyone thinking this looks like a pain with a touchscreen, figure that’s really there just for simple last-minute tweaks – you’re likely to patch on a computer, plug in a USB MIDI controller, and just play.
The use cases here are immediate, though, and especially convenient in RasPi form:
- easy loading of larger samples, etc. (or even backing tracks)
- use of software patches from your productions
- low-cost modular in a small, portable skiff (since you can encapsulate materials into your Rack/Cardinal patch)
- … and still the option to throw in a SuperCollider or Csound or Pd patch, etc., if you choose
I love it. And if Eurorack isn’t your thing, you could take the same instructions and build this as a desktop unit (which might be a better idea for some, too, as it would avoid burning HP and means you can access the touchscreen from the top down easily).
Maker Monday is an exciting new CDM series I expect I will forget by next week when DIY projects appear on Tamales Tuesdays.