Cardinal – Virtual modular synthesizer plugin
cardinal.kx.studio
cardinal.kx.studio
firmware? so for the modules you are talking about, what you are saying is that they're virtual analog software synths anyway, and the "hardware" aspect simply provides some jacks for patching?
Think the Mutable Instruments modules, many of these are based around STM32 microcontrollers. The firmware is MIT licensed and has simply been ported into Rack modules.
There are a number of Rack modules that started out as pure hardware that now have virtual counter-parts.
I'm using it myself in combination with Ardour, now at the beginning of my learning curve - it is great!
I think in the video you linked, what's being shown is an instance of VCV Rack representing the modules running within the MetaModule, and there's a non-interactive MetaModule faceplate in that rack that you can use to map from the real MetaModule's controls to the virtual knobs of the modules it's running. Which is a pretty cool interface.
But I reckon what the GP is asking is for a real interactive MetaModule within VCV Rack, running the real firmware - i.e. VCV Rack hosts the MetaModule, which hosts VCV Rack, which could presumably host another MetaModule, which could host another VCV Rack ... etc etc.
There are some technical issues with VCV Rack, and the lead developer is ... gently resistant to accepting patches/fixes from anyone else.
Cardinal started as an attempt to do some things better than VCV Rack does. Most people involved think it would probably have been better if those changes had been upstreamed, but that's not VCV Rack's development model.
I recently switched to VCV Rack 2 as my main creative tool, and it has been very stable and performant with frequent updates[0]. My experience led me to pay for Pro just to support this work (even though the free feature set is more than enough).
[0] My only beef, I suppose, is that those frequent updates can alter the sound in case of long-running projects; it never happened with the rack itself, but it did happen with some modules. That said, regular copies of the app and the plugins directory is a sufficient workaround for my purposes, it’s less than 50 MB after all.
There is no information publicly disclosed about how much money is generated, but the sponsorship button is there and that is the point.
it works fine, but it can work better.
cardinal also provides some of its own modules to provide better integration with host provided time.
cardinal also, of course, is now compilable to wasm allowing it to run in-browser. the fact that Rack itself can't be used that way is not, however, an issue or flaw, just a choice.
Things like “Core only” vs. “Everything is internal” make perfect sense to me as a developer, but this doesn’t answer my question. In fact, “everything is internal” is a downside since no one really uses all modules.
It also appears outdated, since Rack 2 supports ARM (that’s how I use it).
It is also clearly disingenuous in quite a few places, such as by:
a) providing an uncritical generous excuse for every downside of its own (e.g., lack of multi-threaded engine), but never for VCV Rack’s (an opportunity to pay for an open-source project’s development so that it can sustain itself as a proper business is a feature that benefits both the project and OSS ecosystem as a whole), or
b) pointlessly comparing to VCV Rack Pro. I, like many, am not using any of the Pro features—just one of the amazing things about the base version of VCV Rack is its completeness, combined with generous licensing. The VCV Rack 2 I use is open-source, and is free (though I paid for Pro to support the project I don’t use any of the Pro features, I literally never needed them yet), and is supported (it receives updates regularly).
You say it's pointless to compare to VCV Rack Pro where the whole point of the Cardinal project is to create a plugin version.
I think your commentary is disingenuous.
Their main model is based around having a "limitless" store where users can buy "premium" modules. And having a plugin-version that allows loading these dynamic modules. This is not something that Cardinal allows and goes straight into the philosophy of a "self-contained" audio plugin.
If anything it's an easy (and free) stepping-stone for users to try a plugin version of Rack and then buy "the real deal" when they want the full-on VCV Rack experience.
The two can easily co-exist. They can even load each other as plugins.
Cardinal also contains MIT, BSD and CC0 modules. As long as all the code is compatible to GPL3.0-or-later since everything is built into a single static binary.
A lot of work has gone into due diligence in order to vet all the resources that have gone into the project: https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/blob/main/docs/LICENSES....
The value proposition that Cardinal offers by being self-contained is one of stability, backwards-compatibility and being able to easily share patches with other users without having to download or buy anything additional.
See the differences document to better understand how the projects compare: https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/blob/main/docs/DIFFERENC...
Definitely enough for endless hours of modular patching.
We also have several modules that are missing from VCV Rack because they were never ported to 2.0 Some of our own modules are missing from the VCV Library because of their commercial restrictions.
And while the idea of an "infinite" rack of modules is really cool, that is also not the goal of Cardinal or how we feel it is best used. Quality of quantity first.
There is still a big list of potential modules to include: https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/wiki/Possible-modules-to... However we are somewhat limited by what we can even build in a single CI job on github. Our current builds are already quite stretching of what is possible. And again quality over quantity.
I will leave it more experienced musicians :). Looks like great project
ReBirth was amazing though and would love if someone brings it back. They had an iPad version that worked pretty well but apparently Roland forced them to take it down.
One could argue that a plugin version is more than a minor feature.
Cardinal is not affiliated with VCV in any way. We use the upstream Rack source-code as a base so any support towards VCV will ultimately "trickle down" (in the form of code) back to Cardinal as well.
You can also use any VST plugin inside of Cardinal using the Carla and Ildaeil modules.
Cardinal is based on open-source modules (compatible with GPL3.0-or-later license) that are all compiled into a single static binary.
This is not possible with proprietary binaries.
There is an LV2/VST2/3/CLAP/JSFX plugin loader (Carla or Ildaeil) that can load audio plugins, but these don't sit directly in the Rack DSP graph and do not modify the Rack runtime like its modules do. You could load the VCV-Pro plugin and run it inside one of these if needed ;)