VCV Manual
Rack
Plugin Development
- Tutorial
- API Guide
- Panels
- Manifest
- Presets
- Voltage Standards
- Digital Signal Processing
- Migrating v1 Plugins to v2
- Licensing
Rack Development
Appendix
Menu Bar
File
New
Clears the patch and loads the template patch (<Rack user folder>/template.vcv).
Open/Save/Save as
Opens/saves the patch from/to a .vcv file.
Save template
Saves the patch as <Rack user folder>/template.vcv so it is loaded when creating new patches.
Revert
Restores the patch from the last saved state.
Quit
Autosaves the patch to <Rack user folder>/autosave.vcv and closes Rack.
Rack also autosaves every 15 seconds to prevent losing work due to a crash, power failure, etc.
Edit
Undo/Redo
Rewinds and plays back all actions that edit the patch.
Clear cables
Removes all cables from the patch.
View
Show tooltips
Enables/disables tooltips when hovering over parameters (knobs, sliders, buttons, etc), ports, and lights which display useful information like the name, value, and description.
Zoom
Adjusts the zoom level for the rack from 25-400%. Double-click to reset to 100%.
You can also use Ctrl-- and Ctrl-= (or Cmd on Mac) to zoom, or Ctrl-scroll, or mouse buttons #4 and #5 for multi-button mice.
Cable opacity
Sets the transparency level for patch cables. Double-click to reset to 50%.
Cable tension
Sets the relative length of patch cables. Double-click to reset to 50%.
Frame rate
Sets Rack’s screen refresh frequency.
Rack re-draws its screen every monitor v-sync, or once every
Fullscreen
Expands Rack to fill the screen with no window borders.
Lock cursor when dragging params
Documentation coming soon
Knob mode
Documentation coming soon
Scroll wheel knob control
Documentation coming soon
Lock module positions
Locks/unlocks modules from being moved by the mouse. Prevents accidentally dragging modules.
Engine
Performance meters
Enables/disables the measurement of time for each module to generate each sample (see Sample rate). This displays a meter on each module with the percentage of time spent in the module’s assigned thread (see Threads).
The CPU meter consumes engine CPU time itself, so it is recommended to disable it when it is not needed for best performance.
Sample rate
Sets Rack’s engine sample rate.
Rack’s engine works by repeatedly stepping the state of each module by 1 / sampleRate seconds, producing 1 new sample for each output.
A higher sample rate decreases the timestep, resulting in more accurate analog circuit modeling and digital algorithms, while a lower sample rate decreases engine CPU usage.
Engine CPU usage is almost exactly proportional to its sample rate.
Threads
Sets the number of cores to be used in Rack’s multithreaded engine.
To minimize power usage and CPU resources for other programs to use, disable multithreading by selecting 1 thread. Using more threads increases CPU usage but increases the maximum number of modules you can use in the rack.
It is recommended to begin with 1 thread, and if you experience audio hiccups, try increasing the thread count by 1. Continue adding threads until no hiccups occur. The maximum recommended number of threads is the number of physical cores in your machine. For example, a quad-core machine would likely maximize the number of modules by using 4 threads.
Due to simultaneous multithreading such as Intel Hyper-Threading, you may attempt to use up to twice as many threads as physical cores in your machine, but typically this results in worse performance with higher power usage.
Library
Login
Logs into your VCV account registered at vcvrack.com. Email support@vcvrack.com for account assistance.
Update all
Updates and downloads all new plugins and plugin versions added to your VCV account. Rack must be restarted to load new plugin updates.
Help
Tips
Displays the tip window with several useful tips for learning VCV Rack.
By default, the tip window displays at launch but can be disabled by unchecking “Show tips at startup”.
User manual
Opens this manual.
Open user folder
Opens the Rack user folder in Windows Explorer, Apple Finder, etc.