forsitan modulare
August 18, 2026 · View on GitHub
A collection of VCV Rack modules.
Modules
| module | description | doc |
|---|---|---|
| alea | Add a random module to your rack | doc/alea.md |
| interea | Chord generator from a V/Oct input, with quality, voicing and inversion | doc/interea.md |
| cumuli | Accumulator with up/down gates and rates | doc/cumuli.md |
| deinde | Quad cascading addressable attack-hold envelope | doc/deinde.md |
| pavo | Polyphonic stereo spreader (Splay UGen) | doc/pavo.md |
| limen | TCP+JSON control interface for VCV Rack | doc/limen.md |
| MMCCCXCIX | PT2399 delay chip emulation with feedback send/return loop | doc/mmcccxcix.md |
| scando | Scanned-synthesis oscillator (vibrating mass-spring string, scanned into a wavetable) | doc/scando.md |
| pellicula | Exploded 8-voice drum sampler: a knob + CV per voice for sample, pitch, decay and level | doc/pellicula.md |
| dræn | Drone synthesizer: two banks of 37 drones (the dronecaster set and an original hyf set), played from hz + amp | doc/draen.md |
| rete | Feedback integrator network: 8 nodes in a random mixing matrix, self-oscillating chaos | doc/rete.md |
| ululo | Feedback guitar: six comb strings against a saturating amp in a howling loop | doc/ululo.md |
| tabes | Disintegration looper: the tape loop degrades a little more on every pass | doc/tabes.md |
| lustro | Scanned filter: scando's mass-spring string plays the band gains of a 16-band resonant filterbank | doc/lustro.md |
| bulla | Inspired by Rob Hordijk's Blippoo Box: cross-modulating oscillators, runglers and a twin-peak filter | doc/bulla.md |
| perge | Stereo dynamic sampler and multi-effect: dynamics-driven repeats, freeze, glitch and layered dimension (AC noises CONTINUA homage) | doc/perge.md |
| vorax | Feedback drone synthesizer: a Karplus-Strong string self-excited by a feedback loop, with degrading tape echo (Audrey II port) | doc/vorax.md |
| textor | One-knob loop weaver: two seconds of sound rewoven into ever-new loops (Fieldtone Weaver clone) | doc/textor.md |
| imber | Generative rain: 8 sample players on a 2D field where position is routing, everything synthesized from nothing (Haiku-inspired) | doc/imber.md |
| sylla | Random sample generator/player: ever-new procedural samples from 27 selectable engines, in any root and scale (imber's little voice) | doc/sylla.md |
| guttur | Chaotic resonator drone: a Duffing oscillator coupled through two banks of 24 resonant filters (Gutter Synthesis port) | doc/guttur.md |
| vespae | Wasp filter: the EDP Wasp / Doepfer A-124, dirty because its state-variable core is built from CMOS inverters on one unipolar supply | doc/vespae.md |
| quadrare | Walsh-Hadamard codec: sixteen sliders and thirty-two jacks onto the transform domain itself, with the lossy stages of a real codec | doc/quadrare.md |
| vestigia | Stereo memory effect: an endless tape loop under three memory modes, with fragments that degrade each time they return | doc/vestigia.md |
| antrum | Feedback delay network reverb: a space that runs from a coffin to the heavens, every parameter voltage-controlled (Erbe-Verb clone) | doc/antrum.md |
| caligo | Greyhole: a long modulated echo inside a nested allpass diffuser, so every repeat comes back smeared further than the last, with the feedback loop broken out to jacks (Julian Parker's Greyhole) | doc/caligo.md |
| raucus | Big Muff Pi: four transistor stages, feedback diode clipping solved rather than limited, and the passive tone stack's notch where it belongs | doc/raucus.md |
| tundo | Parameterized digital drum voice: six additive oscillators, morphing waves, prime-series spread and an infinite folder (Basimilus Iteritas Alter clone) | doc/tundo.md |
| cartilago | Gristleizer: one LFO into a FET attenuator that never quite closes, or into a swept filter; ticks like the hardware and ring-modulates at audio rate | doc/cartilago.md |
| scrupea | Sixteen oscillators into tuned feedback combs, each modulated by whichever of them you point it at; one knob decides whether it drones or shatters (inspired by Reaktor's Skrewell) | doc/scrupea.md |
| viginti | MS-20 lowpass: the KORG35 Rev.2 circuit solved as the nonlinear system it is, so the resonance itself distorts and collapses with level | doc/viginti.md |
| gradus | Eight triggered steps into one CV: each row's knob steps the output up or down, or jumps it to plus or minus that value | doc/gradus.md |
| materiae | Percussion from two square waves and the relationship between them: logic operators, bidirectional feedback, a tuneable digital grid and a ringing filter for a body | doc/materiae.md |
Tools
| tool | description |
|---|---|
| limen-tools | limen clients (separate repo) — Go CLI and MCP server, plus a Python library; prebuilt binaries on releases |
| tools/panel-editor/ | Browser-based drag-and-drop panel layout editor |
Controlling Rack externally (limen)
The limen module runs a small TCP server speaking newline-delimited JSON, so external tools can drive Rack: list/add/remove modules and cables, get/set parameters, and control the window (fullscreen, zoom-to-fit, quit). It is built for automation and scripting, LLM tools that build patches programmatically, and alternative interfaces (such as a planned Emacs mode).
Quickstart:
- Launch Rack straight into a controllable state with the bundled patch — it contains a single limen module with the server already enabled:
./Rack patches/limen.vcv. (Or add a limen module to any patch and enable its server from the right-click menu.) - Talk to it with the limen-cli client:
limen-cli hello(orlist_modules,set 0 0 0.5, …). - Or from anything that opens a socket:
echo '{"cmd":"hello"}' | nc localhost 7000.
Security: the server binds loopback only (127.0.0.1) and has no authentication by design, so it is reachable only from your own machine. Do not expose the port to untrusted networks. See doc/limen.md for the full protocol and command reference.
Changelog
See CHANGELOG.md. Releases follow RELEASING.md.
About the names
Being Italian, giving the modules English names felt off, but Italian names would have been less accessible to most users. Latin seemed like a natural middle ground: familiar enough, international, and with a certain character.
| module | Latin meaning |
|---|---|
| alea | dice, chance (as in alea iacta est, the die is cast) |
| interea | meanwhile, in the meantime |
| cumuli | heaps, piles (plural of cumulus) |
| deinde | then, next, afterwards |
| pavo | peacock (whose spreading tail mirrors the stereo spread) |
| limen | threshold, doorway |
| MMCCCXCIX | 2399 in Roman numerals — the PT2399 chip this module emulates |
| scando | I climb / I scan — scandere is also the Latin for scanning verse, the root of "scan" |
| pellicula | little skin, thin membrane (diminutive of pellis, skin/hide) — the drumhead, and an echo of "pico" (small) |
| dræn | not Latin — Old English for bee, the etymological root of "drone" (a port of the dronecaster norns instrument) |
| rete | net, network (the 8×8 feedback web at the module's heart) |
| ululo | I howl (guitar feedback, the Larsen effect as an instrument) |
| tabes | wasting away, decay, consumption (the tape loop dying pass by pass) |
| lustro | I traverse, I survey (the string surveyed into a filterbank; scando's sibling) |
| bulla | bubble, blip — also the amulet worn by Roman children (Hordijk's Blippoo Box) |
| perge | carry on!, keep going! (imperative of pergere) — a nod to the AC noises CONTINUA pedal it pays homage to, whose name is the Italian for the same exhortation |
| vorax | voracious, all-devouring — the ever-hungry feedback plant (Synthux Academy's Audrey II) |
| textor | weaver — reweaves two seconds of sound into ever-new cloth (the Fieldtone Weaver) |
| imber | rain shower, downpour (a generative rain of samples, inspired by Giorgio Sancristoforo's Haiku) |
| sylla | almost Latin — a clipped syllaba, syllable: haiku are counted in syllables, and sylla speaks one small sound at a time |
| guttur | throat — the guttural voice, punning on Tom Mudd's Gutter Synthesis it ports |
| vespae | of the wasp (genitive of vespa) — Chris Huggett's EDP Wasp filter |
| quadrare | to square, to make fit: Walsh functions are square waves, and the transform squares the signal into them |
| vestigia | traces, footprints — what sound leaves behind, recalled from an endless tape loop |
| antrum | cave, grotto — the resonant space, real or imagined (Tom Erbe's Erbe-Verb) |
| caligo | mist, gloom, murk — the grey fog an echo dissolves into (Julian Parker's Greyhole) |
| raucus | hoarse, harsh — the root of "raucous" (Electro-Harmonix's Big Muff Pi) |
| tundo | I beat, I pound — tundere, to strike repeatedly, whose repetition winks at the iteritas of the Basimilus Iteritas Alter it is built after |
| cartilago | gristle, cartilage — Roy Gwinn's Gristleizer, by way of Throbbing Gristle |
| scrupea | jagged, made of sharp stones (Virgil's scrupea saxa); the root scrupus is also the stone in the shoe. Chosen to sound like Skrewell, which it is after |
| viginti | twenty, for the MS-20 whose Rev. 2 lowpass this is (its diodes clip inside the resonance loop) |
| gradus | a step, a stair, a degree (the output climbs and falls in steps you set, and a jump row sends it straight to a given degree) |
| materiae | of matter, of raw material — materia is stuff, timber, the substance a thing is made from; here two of the simplest signals there are, and nothing else |
Author
Giampaolo Guiducci giampaolo.guiducci@gmail.com