Little Utils is a small collection of minimalistic modules for the VCV Rack virtual modular synthesizer, with a focus on usefulness and simplicity instead of faithful analog emulation. Here's all of them:
These modules are small utilities that I would have liked to see in the Fundamental plugin when starting out with Rack. Much of the functionality is available in other plugin packs, but I didn't want to download 30 modules just to add two numbers together. I also tried to make them look nice.
All modules except for Button have polyphonic support.
This module has a button. When you press it, TRG outputs a 1ms 10V trigger, GAT outputs 10V while the button is being held and TGL toggles between 0V and 10V on each button press.
There was some space left at the bottom so I added a constant voltage source for good measure. You can toggle the voltage by pressing the button. Sending a gate signal to the trigger input TRG IN is the same as pressing the button.
Generate simple gate pulses with a given duration by sending a trigger to TRG IN. Use the big knob to control the base pulse duration and the small knob to adjust the CV amount. The pulse duration or CV amount are shown on the bottom display. The output of GAT is high while the pulse is on, and FIN outputs a trigger when the pulse finishes.
You can chain several of these together by wiring the FIN output to the TRG IN of another Pulse Generator. This way, you can create interesting drum patterns, or even make a really clunky PWM oscillator by creating a loop!
By default, sending a trigger to the input while the pulse is on resets the timer and starts the pulse from the beginning. You can change this behavior from the right-click menu.
When the trigger is polyphonic, the output will be polyphonic with one gate signal for each trigger. Note, however, that the gate duration is the same for all of them.
The Bias/Semitone module can offset incoming signals, or it can act as a constant voltage source. Use the button at the bottom to switch between whether the offset is in volts or semitones. It can be used to create e.g. chords.
If an input is disconnected but an input above it is connected, the input signal is propagated downwards, much like with 8Vert from Fundamental. The LED color of an output indicates which input it is receiving.
This is a module that does some simple maths, as the name suggests. Use the switches to scale an input in e.g. the range -5..5V to the range -1..1, so that the output is sensible. There's also a button clip the output to +/-10V, just in case.
If A is disconnected, A×B will output 1×B and A/B will output 1/B. If B is disconnected, both A×B and A/B will output A.
Create wireless links between a pair of inputs/outputs. Click on the label of an input and type any 4-letter case-sensitive label, and click on the label of an output to list the available inputs and select one.
The LEDs indicate which inputs are active on the other end. Multiple outputs can read signals from a single input, but each input must have an unique label. Note that if you have multithreading enabled, you might run into audio glitches since there's no thread synchronization between the inputs and outputs, but I haven't come across this myself.
If you have suggestions or feedback or find a bug or whatever, feel free to open an issue or a pull request in this repository!
Building the modules follows the standard procedure:
export RACK_DIR=/path/to/Rack_SDK/
make install
The source code and panel artwork are copyright 2021 Márton Gunyhó. Licensed under the EUPL (see LICENSE). This repo also contains the fonts used for creating the panels: Cooper Hewitt and Overpass are licensed under the Open Font License (see here) and Roboto is licensed under the Apache 2 License (see here).
Thanks to Torinbob and Filipe Coelho for help with the v2 port.