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# RACK VS CARDINAL DIFFERENCES |
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This document describes the differences between VCV Rack official plugin and Cardinal. |
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It is not possible to know all the internal details of the official plugin due to it not being open-source, |
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so more technical details are best-guesses based on its behaviour. |
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The obvious big difference is that the official plugin is a commercial, closed-source product while Cardinal is free and open-source. |
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Also, the official plugin works pretty much like the free standalone where you login and download modules. |
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This is intentionally not allowed/enabled in Cardinal, as the target is to make a self-contained plugin binary. |
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Online access is also not allowed. |
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Bellow follows a list of features comparing the official plugin to Cardinal. |
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| Feature | VCV Rack | Cardinal | Additional notes | |
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|--------------------------------|---------------------------|---------------------------------|------------------| |
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| Open-Source | No | Yes | | |
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| Free (of cost) | No | Yes | | |
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| Officially supported | Yes, if you pay | No, but you can fix it yourself | | |
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| Contains internal modules | Core only | Everything is internal | | |
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| Loads external modules | Yes | No | | |
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| Supports commercial modules | Yes | No | | |
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| Plugin in LV2 format | No | Yes | | |
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| Plugin in VST2 format | Yes | Yes | | |
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| Plugin in VST3 format | No | WIP | | |
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| Multi-threaded engine | Yes | No, uses host audio thread | Intentional in Cardinal, for removing jitter | |
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| Supports ARM systems | No | Yes | This means Apple M1 too yes | |
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| Synth plugin variant | Yes, 16 ins, 16 outs | Yes, 2 ins, 2 outs | | |
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| FX plugin variant | Yes, 16 ins, 16 outs | Yes, 2 ins, 2 outs | | |
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| Raw-CV plugin variant | No, unsupported | Yes, 2 audio IO + 8 CV IO | Not possible in VST2 format | |
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| Arbitrary parameter automation | Yes | No | Unsupported in Cardinal, tricky to do for many plugin formats at once | |
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| Integrated plugin host | No, Host payed separately | Yes, using Carla or Ildaeil | Currently work-in-progress in Cardinal | |
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| v1 module compatibility | No | No, but with less restrictions | Modules can load resources at any point | |
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| Online phone-home | Yes | No | Online access is strictly forbidden in Cardinal | |
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| Proper dark theme | No, only room brightness | Yes | CC-ND respected by leaving files intact, dark mode applied at runtime | |
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| Proper Linux headless mode | No, always requires X11 | Yes | CC-ND respected by leaving files intact, dark mode applied at runtime | |
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Additionally, Cardinal contains the following built-in modules not present in the official plugin or standalone: |
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* Aria Salvatrice modules (except Arcane related modules, due to their online requirement) |
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* Carla Plugin Host |
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* Ildaeil Host |
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* Host Parameters (24 host-exposed parameters as CV sources) |
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* Host Time (play, reset, bar, beat, tick, bar-phase and beat-phase CV sources) |
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* Host CV (for the CV IO variant, allows direct CV access to/from the DAW) |
