Ah, shiny, new, free modules for the free VCV Rack. They’re a perfect solution to starting new tracks and playing with new toys. Of course, that’s not a problem most of us have. Starting is easy; finishing is hard. Enter JW Arrange. Let’s have a look.
The great Omri Cohen has a wonderful overview of what’s new for this month, so I’ll let him take it away. Featured:
Octa – 00:05 Word Generator – 04:21 Logical Audio – 06:37 Venom – 09:17 Cella and JW
I want to focus on Jeremy Wentworth’s Arrange module. I was bugging Jeremy earlier this year about arranging some jams we were working on together. Now I suggested going to the DAW to do that – sacrilege! But that’s partly because I didn’t have a concept in mind for how to make arrangements while staying in the modular domain. From the JW modules:
Jeremy has devised something unlike anything I’ve seen before. It’s a kind of meta-sequencer, complete with lanes and scribble strips so you can label what each is. Just as in arrangement features in some DAWs, the sequencer spaces can be used to switch various parts on or off. This being the modular environment, there are some twists. You can clock the sequencer input however you want, and use CV (or the knob) for starting position, length, and so on. But you also get randomization with amount, a position output, and even a layer count voltage output that’s determined by how many layers are triggered on at the current position. You can also output triggers when you hit end of cycle, which could be used in some clever ways.
You can’t store per-lane CV amount for each – everything is off and on – but I imagine you could do that with another module (possibly triggered by these gates). All in all, it opens up all kinds of possibilities, from quick-and-dirty, stupid-simple solutions to making your musical structure and finishing things, up to more creative applications.
Here’s a demo of the module in action:
There’s also an Arrange16 version.
And it’s definitely been helping Jeremy to make arrangements of his patches – as it has other folks, some of whom are even using this on the 4ms MetaModule hardware (see the last example):
There are other ways to create arrangements in the modular domain, but having this kind of simple on/off trigger capability is a great way to centralize your efforts. You could always wire up fancier stuff from there.
Finishing tracks is a beautiful thing. Godspeed.