Cardinal VCV is a great FREE VCV2 plugin that runs on a ton of platforms. I personally use it in Ableton and Reaper. It’s an awesome introduction to VCV and contains (at the time of writing this) over 900 modules that you can kick a lot of ass with. Being that it’s free, it’s a really great learning tool and gateway into using VCV for exploring modular patching techniques and ideas.
To get the free Cardinal VCV head over to the Cardinal releases github page:
https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/releases – scroll down to the “Assets” section and click on the link (i.e. Cardinal-win64-22.05-installer.exe) to download the latest version for whatever platform you are on (linux, windows, mac) and run the installer to get the plugin into your plugin directory then load it up in your favorite daw and go to town!
Note: I recommend using the Vst2 as the Vst3 still has a few kinks/bugs that are being worked out.
Patch notes: This particular patch I’ve create is just an introduction demo beat/synth sequencer meant to run on it’s own “self oscillation”. However you can swap out the Clock module with a “Host Time” module (in the DISTHRO module brand category). I put some notes/instructions in the patch.
This patch is a bit bloated and uses about 40% on my 2011 Macbook pro (via Windows bootcamp). When making patches using Cardinal, honestly the best technique is to keep them each small and use more instances of the plugin (instead of cramming a bunch in each patch) since each track in (most all) DAWs get a dedicated cpu core. So you will be able to run way more patches by splitting them out to many Cardinal plugin instances. For example: the kick drum in one instance of the Cardinal plugin, the Hihat in another track of your DAW, you get the idea. But honestly, you can do whatever the heck you like! Thats the beauty of the VCV/virtual modular world – build a dream patch that would cost otherwise $100k in the real world. Or otherwise create a simulation of a real world modular rig using the modules based off real life modules (such as Audible and Befaco) and then build it in real life! Test drive it before hand so to speak. Anyway, happy patching!
