RackNES: NES Module for VCV Rack | Hacker News Reader

RackNES: NES Module for VCV Rack

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104 pointsgregsadetsky25 comments

It drives me nuts how VCV Rack has such a cool technical architecture, but such an insidious license and community moderation. (You can't even discuss it on the forums, they simply delete the post.)

Background: https://aria.dog/barks/why-i-will-never-create-modules-for-v...

Honestly I tried to read as much of that as I could (starting after the long descriptions of their projects) and I struggled to understand the issue. Is it that the development team of VCV are bad as maintaining the online platform for VCV modules. Does one have to host them there or can they host them elsewhere? I’m confused!

Are there no other implementations of the VCV backend that these Modules could run in? I thought there was a fork (cardinal?).

I’ve used a bit of VCV (though more of a reaktor and bitwig grid user myself) and had a great time! I have never looked at the online communities though.

As I understand it, the prime underlying issue is that the VCV Rack project is licensed, developed & community managed in a way that leaves at least some contributors feeling (at a minimum) unappreciated, unwelcome and/or exploited.

The VCV "development team" is a single individual and it seems there are no project governance structures in place to manage risks around accountability. Dissent appears to be suppressed/hidden which leads people to enter the ecosystem/community unaware of pre-existing issues.

The VCV project does not accept outside contributions--presumably because this approach enables the developer to use both a GPL3 license (for source releases) and a commercial fee-based license (along with additional proprietary code).

The argument with regard to "exploitation" of third party developers is that it is presumed that some non-zero portion of the value which justifies the price of commercially licensed product(s) is due to the wide ecosystem of (mostly uncompensated/volunteer) third party developers who develop modules.

Then there are specific problematic actions/events which are described in this section onward: https://aria.dog/barks/why-i-will-never-create-modules-for-v...

With regard to modules/hosting: https://vcvrack.com/manual/PluginLicensing

As far as I can tell the Cardinal project was not publicly released at the time this post was written thus its existence is not mentioned.

Editorializing: My perspective is that it seems the project is intentionally using the GPL license as a tool to create a power imbalance between the main developer & other developers which leads to the usual issues around power dynamics that occur in such situations. (As opposed to using the GPL license to protect the [combined] work produced by a community of developers who work together.)

Obviously it is the main developer's "prerogative" to act in this manner but it's reasonable for current or former community members to want to advise prospective community members of the reality of the situation so they're able to decide whether to participate in the VCV Rack community from a position of informed consent.

The introductory and concluding sections serve as context & examples of the harm that can occur to talented, passionate & creative individuals who aren't able/permitted to see the power dynamics in play until after they have already invested/participated in the community.

I really appreciate the response. Seems like such a shame.

You know about Cardinal? https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal

For additional context, it seems the post in the "Background" link was published sometime in 2021 or 2020 and the first release of Cardinal seems to have been in February 2022: https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/releases/tag/22.02

So that is presumably why it wasn't mentioned in the post itself.

There are also a couple of other more recent projects I'm aware of that relate to the issues discussed in the "No Perfect Alternative" section[0]:

* CLAP Audio Plugin ABI standard[1] as alternative to single company controlled VST.

* Bespoke software modular synthesizer[2] which includes a Python live-coding feature.

In case anyone else is also interested in exploring this space. :)

[0] https://aria.dog/barks/why-i-will-never-create-modules-for-v...

[1] https://cleveraudio.org

[2] https://www.bespokesynth.com

Whoah! I did not know about that, thank you.

I'm sorry, I really tried to read this, but it's.. hard. The author seems to live in a very different reality from mine and I'm having a hard time understanding her (?).

I do not think the author is wrong or anything, but the signal to noise ratio IMO is ridiculous.

> I really tried to read this, but it's.. hard.

It's definitely dense & long and not a light read.

> her (?).

Yes, given "she" as stated here: https://fedi.aria.dog/woof

> The author seems to live in a very different reality from mine

That seems likely.

> the signal to noise ratio IMO is ridiculous.

While I appreciate that you don't conflate signal-to-noise ratio with correctness, the post uses an intentionally thorough & dense writing style choice which obviously won't appeal to all tastes. But I'd invite you to reconsider dismissing it as merely "ridiculous".

The author does specifically acknowledge the length of the article & provides a Table of Contents while explicitly accommodating those who wish to get the "short version" with: "This article is pretty long, so feel free to skip to the relevant sections using the table of contents if you only care to know what’s the deal with VCV alienating third-party developers."

(And also visibly highlights key points within the article.)

From my perspective the post serves to both effectively provide specific details about the situation and the human context/story around those details which explain why it matters.

It's both a personal story about an artistic & technical journey and a warning to potential members of a community.

And, poetically, given the domain, what is signal and what is noise is in the ear of the beholder. :)

Primarily I mention this not to push back against your opinion--to which you're entitled--but to provide an alternate perspective so that those who might appreciate the "long version" aren't dissuaded from reading.

(And, you know, not at all because I've ever been accused of being unnecessarily verbose. :) )

To be clear, the word "ridiculous" is targeted at the signal-to-noise ratio, which is indeed in the ear of the beholder, not the article or the experience(s) of the author herself. Also, the "hard" part is not because it is dense or thorough. I just think it's messy and all over the place, but it's her blog. She gets to do whatever she wants.

Thanks for your perspective though. I don't wish to dig into this and turn extremely pedantic - I have a knack for that - because the author seems like an incredibly nice and talented person. I hope she moved on and forgot about this whole issue.

> [...] turn extremely pedantic - I have a knack for that

You and me both. :)

Thanks for your reply.

Here's a video showing it in action

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8Cq5xuSC5k

Nice, that’s my video. Thanks for sharing it here. I intend to make a proper screen captured video at some point, if I can find the time.

It’s a really fun module. Glad to see it getting some attention on HN.

Cool!! I was thinking they'd be using Nanoloop (https://nanoloop.com) but TIL that's for GameBoy not NES (I only ever used the Android version).

Wasn't sure what this project was for at first, but that video is great. Very cool concept.

Reminds me of the Ming Mecca modules by Special Stage Systems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63ay74S34XI

Similar idea, but I think the MM was a bit less focused on emulation and more on interesting control. Also it was a real group of modules. :)

this is the coolest thing i've seen all week. major props!

Additional meaning to the phrase "NES controller."

Very nice.

I'd love to have a physical version of this: an NES with CV and gate outputs to drive a modular synthesizer, instead of using the onboard sound generator.

What would drive the CV and gate? It should be fairly easy to implement with a Raspberry Pi and emulation.

The NES has, if I remember right, a triangle oscillator, a square wave oscillator, a noise source, and a digitally-controlled mixer. It might also have a saw wave oscillator too.

In place of those, I'm imagining something that takes the instructions for the sound chip (or whatever the NES has) and instead output control voltage using the eurorack modular standard of 1v/octave for pitch, and another control voltage signal that goes from 0 to, say, 5 volts depending on volume that can be fed into the conrol signal on a VCA/mixer.

Gate outputs could be similar to the volume outputs, but digital: off when volume is zero, on when volume is non-zero. This could be used to trigger an envelope generator.

It might be doable with an R-pi doing all the audio generation digitally. If you want to output real CV to drive a modular synthesizer, though, you'd need some kind of multi-channel precision DAC. Or maybe just a usb-to-midi adapter and a midi-to-cv module.

perhaps of interest https://cdm.link/2023/09/4ms-explains-meta-module/

I love this thanks for sharing

Closure and Clojure are different, as you say, but, to confuse matters further, ClojureSCRIPT uses the Google Closure compiler.

Wrong post.

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