ER-301 Sound Computer for VCV Rack

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Features
• Building
• User data
• Repository layout
• Licensing and attribution

Introduction

ER-301 Sound Computer is a VCV Rack 2 port of the ER-301 emulator by Brian Clarkson / Orthogonal Devices, maintained by Jeff Triggs / Festivamente.

The port embeds the ER-301 application, display, unit library, package system, and audio engine directly inside VCV Rack.

• Original ER-301 repository: https://github.com/odevices/er-301
• VCV Rack port: https://github.com/Festivamente/ER-301SoundComputer

This port is developed and distributed with permission from Orthogonal Devices.

Features

The original ER-301 interface, package manager, unit library, and hardware-style workflow remain intact. In addition to the capabilities of the original hardware, the VCV Rack version adds:

• native file browsing
• desktop text entry
• multiple isolated ER-301 instances in a single Rack patch
• per-instance state save and restore in Rack patches and VCV module presets
• direct access to the virtual front card from the context menu or physical SD-card slot
• Silver and Black panel finishes
• selectable display colors
• native ER-301 operation at 48 kHz and 96 kHz, with host-rate conversion at other Rack sample rates
• direct VCV Rack CV output from the ER-301's four outputs
• processing headroom determined by the host computer rather than the original hardware CPU

Building

A Rack 2 SDK is required.

If you do not already have one, download the appropriate Rack SDK from:

https://vcvrack.com/manual/Building

Unzip it beside this repository so that the directories look like:

Rack-SDK/
VCVRackER-301/

If you already keep the Rack SDK somewhere else, set RACK_DIR:

export RACK_DIR="/path/to/Rack-SDK"

Windows: Install MSYS2 and run the build from the MinGW 64-bit (MINGW64) shell. Do not use the default MSYS or UCRT64 shell.

Build

From the top directory:

make install

The first build prepares the required third-party dependencies. This can take a while on slower machines. Subsequent builds reuse them.

See docs/BUILDING.md for additional build information.

User data

ER-301 packages, samples, preferences, and instance data are stored in Rack's user data directory under:

ER-301SoundComputer/

On macOS this is typically:

~/Library/Application Support/Rack2/ER-301SoundComputer/

The VCV port ships core-0.7.0-dev1.8.pkg on the virtual front card and installs it through the normal ER-301 package manager on first setup. It remains an ordinary package: it can be uninstalled and manually reinstalled from front/ER-301/packages/.

Third-party packages

Third-party ER-301 packages are currently supported on Apple Silicon Macs only.

Support for third-party packages on Windows, Linux, and Intel Macs is planned for the near future. This limitation does not affect the included ER-301 core package.

Repository layout

VCVRackER-301/
├── src/
├── res/
├── er-301-native/
├── third-party/
├── Makefile
└── third-party.mk

src/ and res/ contain the VCV Rack integration.

er-301-native/ contains the upstream-derived Orthogonal Devices source.

third-party/ contains the dependencies required by the port.

Licensing and attribution

The VCV Rack port is distributed under GPL-3.0-or-later.

The upstream-derived ER-301 source retains its MIT License and Brian Clarkson's copyright notice. Third-party components retain their respective licenses.

See:

• LICENSE
• ATTRIBUTION.md
• THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md
• er-301-native/LICENSE.md

Release version: 2.1.0

VCV Rack port by Jeff Triggs / Festivamente — https://festivamente.com