It’s time again for that trip-to-the-candy-store feeling with VCV Rack: the Eurorack rush without spending anything at all. Since our last episode, we’ve gotten new 4ms Roland-style drums, some unique stuff from Venom, a trio of chaotic oscillators, and a sequencer inspired by the legendary HP 8006A Word Generator. Hands-on with these open-source creations — let’s go!
EucQuant Booga Word Generator v2
License: MIT
Brian Ng built this free and open-source sequencing module inspired by the HP 8006A Word Generator. Hainbach revealed the grooves you could make with this vintage test equipment a few years back:
It winds up being a really powerful and intuitive sequencer. You get two channels’ worth of gate and CV output, plus a lot of “groove” controls by setting the probability (PRN) and word length, swapping 16- and 32-bit modes, and flipping (inverting) the triggers, which is perfect for breaks. You can set each to internal or external clock mode, as well as send triggers on first or last bit (beginning or end of the sequence). The single cycle triggers also lend themselves well to live performance.
I’m going to use the hell out of this thing; it’s reason enough to boot up VCV Rack or load the Pro plug-in version.
Hainbach wrote at the time that he’d buy this as a Eurorack module, so if anyone wants to reimagine the software rendition here in gear, welp…
(Developer Brian writes, “Personally, I also really like putting the internal clock at audio rate and making it a noisy oscillator :0”)
TeknoLogical TL-Drum 5
License: GPLv3
You don’t really need another drum module, but it’s handy having this nice-sounding 5-voice rhythm engine ready-to-go, including filters for each part and a “push” switch to give each a harder sound.
It’s also great that it has stereo output and per-part pan controls, so this is going to come in handy as a space-saver, which even on-screen is not a terrible thing. Thanks to AgostoSound for this one.
Julio Argudo Chaotic Oscillators
License: BSD-3
Enough vanilla oscillators. You need oscillators built on solving differential equations using Euler’s method. Integral calculus. Well… actually, if someone had shown me this in the 1990s when I was studying calculus, I might actually recall how it works, as I definitely had to do this and completely forgot about it.
But if you don’t remember integral calculus, you may have come across strange attractors, chaotic non-linear systems with non-periodic results. That means these oscillators, while they are deterministic and not “random,” don’t repeat. The result is beautifully organic timbres, whether you want some life in your synth patches or you’re creating long drones and soundscapes. You’ll hear a more “conventional” oscillator patch in the bass part using the Lorentz oscillator; the other two produce more complex and changing sounds.
Here’s how they can sound. The X, Y, and Z outputs were a natural match for the new 3D cross-fader by Venom. And yes, you can run Airwindows amazing free stuff in VCV Rack, too, as Airwindows Suite for Rack. That also got a big refresh in June.
It’s fun to dig into the math on the original site, but your best bet for using these is to hook up a visualizer and start tweaking. Beautiful work by Julio Argudo:
4ms Drums and Duck
License: GPLv3
4ms has been steadily updating its free module library, including the all-important MetaModule which allows you to run VCV Rack patches in actual Eurorack hardware. This time, you get a bunch of x0x (think Roland-style) modules, including Tom, Snare, Kick, Rimshot, Maraca, HiHat, Cowbell, Clap, Clave, and the very fun Congabongo. Congobongo is one you probably don’t already have in your arsenal. There’s also an Accent module for adding dynamics.
Those are cool, but maybe the one you’ll use more than any of them is a convenient Duck sidechain module. It’s dead-simple: add an input, add a trigger, duck away.
And despite these being available as 4ms hardware, the whole set is GPL-licensed. Quack!
Venom Goodies
Venom has a new paid complex formant oscillator inspired by the XAOC Sofia. But while I wait to try that, they also dropped a ton of fantastic freebies:
- Wave Multiplier is a polyphonic wave shaper with built-in modulation, inspired by the Doepfer module of the same name
- Sphere to XYZ converts spherical to Cartesian coordinates
- Pan 3D takes 1 input and pans to 8 outputs
- Cross Fade 3D, which you see me using a lot her,e crossfades 8 inputs to 1 output — map this to a hardware joystick input and you’ll really have fun
And they updated their other stuff, including their handy mouse pad controller. Check the full list:
Great work by David Benham:
https://library.vcvrack.com/?brand=Venom
In action
Let’s play with that Booga Word Generator, including a bassline with the Lorentz oscillator. The glitchy sounds come from the Venom Wave Multiplier:
And here’s a bonus round using the 4ms drum modules with Booga Word Generator, plus the Duck module (and the existing 4ms “experimental” reverb):
More free modules
Find more free-to-play modules from my recent installments in this series. And remember that if you do have a little extra cash, most of these devs accept donations, plus you can support VCV’s development by buying a Pro license. That unlocks the ability to run as a plug-in, plus a bunch of great modules.