Cardinal Rack v23.07 VST2 VST3 AU x64 x86 ARM LiNUX WiN macOS [FREE]

FREE | 18 July 2023 |WiN : 639 MB / macOS : 880 MB / LiNUX : 1.68 GB
Cardinal is a free and open-source virtual modular synthesizer plugin, available as JACK standalone and AU, LV2, VST2 and VST3 audio plugin for FreeBSD, Linux, macOS and Windows.
It is based on the popular VCV Rack but with a focus on being a fully self-contained plugin version.

More specifically, this is a DPF-based plugin wrapper around VCV Rack, using its code directly instead of forking the project, with the target of having a proper, self-contained, fully free and open-source plugin version of Rack.
See the why section below for the reasons Cardinal exists, also for frequently asked questions check this FAQ document.

Cardinal contains Rack, some 3rd-party modules and a few internal utilities all in a single binary.
All "Core" modules from Rack have been replaced by Cardinal equivalents, simplified to better work for an audio plugin.

Cardinal does not load external modules and does not connect to the official Rack library/store.
All VCV branding has been removed (to the best of our knowledge) in order to avoid any trademark issues.

The VST3 version is in progress, already part of the build but still experimental.

Stable release
Cardinal releases have official builds for Linux, macOS and Windows.
There are Linux builds for various architectures (armhf, arm64, i686 and x86_64), macOS "universal" (arm64 + intel) and Windows 32 and 64bit builds. Both macOS and Windows builds have an installer.

Plugin variants
Cardinal provides 3 plugin variants - "main", Synth and FX.
They are all equivalent in performance and behaviour, with only the IO and metadata that changes.
This is because some hosts are very strict on which plugins are allowed as instruments vs FX, so separate variants of the same plugin are needed.

FX and Synth variants both have 2 audio outputs, while "main" has 8.
All variants have MIDI input and output support.

Main
This variant provides 8 audio inputs and outputs and 10 CV inputs and outputs.

NOTE: Due to AU and VST2 formats not supporting CV ports, this variant is not available for those formats.

Synth
This variant provides 2 audio outputs but no audio inputs or CV ports.
Plugin type is set as "instrument".

FX
This variant provides 2 audio inputs and outputs, but no CV ports.
Plugin type is set as regular "effect".

Screenshots
Because people will ask for it. It is, well... Rack.
But a couple of modules background's have their colors flipped, because damn we want proper dark mode!

Module browser


Basic patching


Carla and Ildaeil plugin hosts


Custom Fundamental modules design



Included modules
At the moment the following 3rd-party modules are provided:


A feature comparison between Cardinal and Rack Pro can be seen here

Changelog:
- Add AIDA-X module
- Add Bogaudio AD to mini variant
- Add (binary) plugin scanning to Ildaeil plugin hosting (LADSPA, DSSI, VST2, VST3 and CLAP)
- Add plugin presets to Ildaeil, when exposed on the plugin side
- Add VST2 plugin folder option to Windows installer
- Allow custom URL for remote instance connections
- Allow usage of local user directory and configs, expose related options
- Fix focus to input text dialogs
- Fix missing menubar cpu usage
- Invert scroll X direction
- Rework file menu
- Update base VCV Rack to v2.3.0
- Update Sapphire to v2.2.2 (adds Tube Unit)
- Update MindMeldModular and SurgeXT, for Rack 2.3 compatibility

Build related changes:

- Bump minimum required macOS version to 10.15
- Fix build with GCC13
- Fix missing `make install` of mini variant
- LTO no longer enabled by default for release builds
- Only enable remote OSC control in headless builds
- Remove `NOPLUGINS` build option
- Remove use of `mingw-std-threads`
- Several optimizations and build tweaks

Web version related changes:

- Add persistent storage (automatic on save, can be manually triggered via File menu)
- Add local (browser-side) patch loading via File menu (under "Open local patch")
- Automatically load no-simd version on browsers that do not support web-simd
- Disable cursor lock by default