Spektro Audio has introduced CV Toolkit, a standalone software application that lets you use your computer as part of a modular synthesizer
CV Toolkit offers common synth modules like LFO’s & S&H in virtual form, and generates CV signals through any DC-coupled audio interface or Expert Sleeper’s module.
The 1.0 version ships with 13 virtual modules. You can route the output of any of any module to analog outputs, analyzers (LED / Oscilloscope) or even to the input of certain modules (S&H / Biased Switcher / Slew).
Features:
- Standalone application – doesn’t require any additional software
- MIDI Clock – sync it to your favorite DAWs, drum machines, iOS apps and etc.
- Hands-on Experience – control all parameters from you iPad using the Lemur app (native OSC integration).
- Routing Matrix – route signals
- ScanGraph – a new concept of modulation
- Biased Switcher – let the program flip a coin and decide how it’s inputs will flow
- Eight analog outputs – you can use up to eight analog outputs to send signals to your modular synthesizer
- MIDI In / Out
- Works on both Mac and PC
- 64-bit application
- Clean and simple interface
- Save and recall patches
Here’s a demo of the CV Toolkit in action:
CV Toolkit also offers Lemur integration:
CV Toolkit is available for US $19.99, with an introductory price of $14.99.
If you’ve used CV Toolkit, let us know what you think of it!
Hi there!
This is Icaro from Spektro Audio! Thanks for sharing the news 🙂
I’m very excited about CV Toolkit and I believe modular / analog synth owners will have a lot of fun using it!
The Lemur integration offers a great hands-on experience for the people who might be looking for ways to control their synths digitally without having to use the mouse and keyboard. Because it uses OSC, it offers a much much higher resolution than MIDI.
If you guys need any help, feel free to contact me directly via email (contact at spektroaudio dot com) or Twitter (@spektroaudio) 🙂
This looks great!
Random question, but is there any possibility this could be ported to a Raspberry Pi version– that can access the RPi’s pin-outs?
Hey dude!
Yeah I’ve been thinking about that but I gotta say that electronics knowledge is very limited.
Might be something to give a try in the future!
It’d be dope to port it to a Raspberry Pi, get rid of the interface (thus saving some CPU usage) and control everything via OSC!
Hi, I have an akai max 49 and use it to control cv and pitch. Could I use this software and send signals via the akai midi controller?
To be honest with you, I’m not sure however I guess you can’t use CV Toolkit with your Max 49 🙁
Your Max49 would need to act as an audio interface and let the computer send audio straight to it’s cv outputs and I believe this isn’t the case.
It might be something hackable but…
Sorry dude 🙁
Looks interesting. I have a modular but have yet to dive in to the world of digitally controlling it. I’m intrigued! How does this compare to the MOTU Volta? Can this be used as a MIDI to CV converter as well?
Hi Joe!
My plan was never to replace neither Silent Way nor Volta. Those are some very well developed plugins and they do a lot of things
CV Toolkit is a different beast. It’s a standalone application instead of being a plugin and you think of it as a virtual modular synth that is focused on modulation analog synths. I wanted it to be fun and easy to fire up and start jamming but professional and super flexible at the same time (you can sync it to any DAW and use it in a studio / recording scenario as well).
If you want to get into this world of controlling analog synths digitally, I’d say buy Silent Way and CV Toolkit. Both are very reasonably priced and you’ll be able to do pretty much everything you might need and want.
It doesn’t do MIDI – CV conversion in regards to Pitch to CV (yet) however MIDI can be used to control the CV Toolkit parameters (theres a MIDI chart on the manual).
Just forget MOTU Volta. I think it isn’t even supported anymore… last upadte: “v1.05 | Dec. 14, 2011”
Great software!
Any plans to make this available as a VST? That would be great to sync a modular synth easily with a DAW, I’d love that!
Oh man, I would love to turn it into a plugin however there are a few thing to consider: I’d need to support many formats (AAX, AU and VST at least), it’d take me a lot longer to get anything done, I’d need to charge a lot more for it (because it’d take me a lot more time) and, and the end of the day, it would more complicated to set it up whenever you were going to use it (thats the main complain people have in regards to Silent Way and Volta).
As much as I’d love to make plugins (because they’re super cool), I prefer to make one good and solid standalone app instead of three mediocre / bad-coded plugins.
But hey, even tho it’s a standalone app, you can already sync CV Toolkit to any DAW using MIDI Clock and save / recall preset banks 🙂
Very cool! I will have to pick this up. I have the ES3 and ES5 in my set up. This will go nicely with it. The interface looks nice and clean and not confusing….I am still trying to figure out Silent Way!
How weird, I bump into you on Instagram and then see you on here! Looks like great software! 😀
Looks cool! I have an es3, and though the UI is workable, this is much cleaner. Is there any way to get more than two lfos going though?
Not to diss the program but, you mentioned complications with setting up Silent Way in plug in format being something many people complain about…. What is there to complain about? I bought the Silent Way CV VST suite of plugins and it’s as easy to use as any other plug in. If this program is standalone only, it seems a little redundant with Silent Way being the very seamless, complete CV-integration-into-a-DAW-plug-in that it is.
Hi dude!
I’ll be completely honest dude: I’ve also used Silent Way in the past and I don’t find it that hard to set it up either.
When I see people complaining about it, they usually don’t explain the reasons why they think it’s complicated however I believe its because, whenever you want to use the SW Voice Controller with its full potential (6 outputs), you end up having to create more audio tracks and routing stuff around inside your DAW.
Please don’t get me wrong, as I’ve in another comment, Silent Way is a solid solution and I think it’s great too! I believe both tools have their advantages and they can be used to achieve different results (I personally see CV Toolkit as more of a experimental tool). It’s a matter of workflow preferences.
I think that they’re all great solutions however there’ll always be people that prefer one of them and that’s alright 🙂
I fired this up last night for a quick look. Quite like it. It’s a nice addition to the Silent Way/ES toolkit, definitely not a replacement for the big Silent Way tools. A nice set of features for the price. In my workflow, I frequently do a bunch of synth tweaking/experimenting before firing up the DAW, so I think I will find some use for this.
It’s nice to see other apps support the ES hardware. The Expert Sleepers stuff is one of the coolest tools around, I’d like to see them make lot’s more.
Looks like fun. Would love to see it support AC soundcards like SilentWay, as I mentioned on Twitter. With more affordable analog gear getting into people’s hands it’s great to see tools such as this becoming available.