Thoow Dub.
A dub techno studio in five modules.
Chords, Echo, Mixer, Motion and Brain. Built for deep stabs, endless delays and slowly breathing tracks, and made to lock together into one instrument. I built it for my own kind of dub techno and ambient. Maybe it fits yours, too.
Five modules. One instrument. Built on the principles of classic dub techno.
Every module works on its own and patches like any other VCV module. Put them side by side and they start to talk: no extra cables, no hidden routing, and every link is shown on the displays.
Dock them and they connect. Add cables if you wish.
When Thoow modules touch in the rack, a light edge appears on their displays and a set of couplings becomes available in each context menu. All of them are off until you switch them on, and a patched cable always wins.
Auto-throw
Each new chord opens the echo input for a moment, so only the stabs are thrown.
Reset on chord
Motion restarts with the chords, and the movements phrase with the music.
Internal targets
Send any Motion lane to cutoff, echo time, space, a mixer sweep or a send, without a cable.
Echo as a send
Send A and return A run through the Echo next to the Mixer. A second Echo becomes send B.
Throw passes through
A channel throw on the Mixer also throws the Echo.
Chords in a channel
Chords plays straight into the mixer channel of your choice.
Chords. The stab, built in.
Chords is a 24 HP polyphonic chord module for VCV Rack: a harmony engine and a fifteen-voice synthesizer in one panel. A harmony engine and a polyphonic voice in one panel. Chords builds the chord, voices it and plays it through fifteen voices with a dark ladder filter and long, overlapping releases.
Parallel or diatonic
Move one shape through the degrees like classic chain stabs, or stack thirds from the key. Seven modes, voice leading, and an avoid rule against muddy tensions.
VA, Pulse, Tine
Detuned saws, two pulse waves with slow PWM, or a soft FM tine with a short attack click. One SHAPE knob, three characters.
Dark on purpose
Ladder filter with drive, 12 or 24 dB, negative keytracking and a plucky decay envelope. THIN takes the low end out before the sub.
Echo. Throw it into the dark.
Echo is a 20 HP stereo dub delay and reverb module for VCV Rack. A stereo delay with a clean core and a reverb behind it. Filters sit inside the feedback loop, so every repeat gets darker and thinner, and the loop can sing past 100 % without ever blowing up.
Feedback to 150 %
LOW CUT and TONE in the loop, a gentle saturation that tames runaway, CLEAN or DUB style for the classic narrowing band.
Wobble, noise, drive
Wow, flutter and slow drift from one knob. Repitch or jump when you change the time, ping-pong across the stereo field.
Plate, Hall, Cloud
Three reverbs of our own design, from a bright plate to a slow, diffuse cloud. Before, after or inside the echo.
Mixer. Played, not just set.
Mixer is a six-channel dub mixer module for VCV Rack with two effect sends and a feedback matrix. A small dub desk: six stereo channels with a sweep filter each, two send busses and a FEED matrix that routes the returns back into the sends. Turn it up and the delay starts to sing on its own.
Sweep, send, throw
One knob from low-pass through flat to high-pass, two sends pre or post mute, and a THROW button that slams the channel into send A.
Returns into sends
A→A, A→B, B→A, B→B. Gentle until three quarters of the way, then the loop tips over. Soft limits keep it musical.
Mono bass, clean top
Bass below 150 Hz is folded to mono, the master stays untouched below 8 V and only rounds off above.
Motion. Things that breathe.
Motion is a 16 HP module for VCV Rack with four slow, free-running modulation outputs. Four free-running modulation sources at related but uneven speeds, from ten minutes down to two seconds per cycle. They drift against each other, so a long track keeps changing without ever looping.
Twenty curves
Breath, tide, swell, pendulum, heartbeat, drunk walk and more, each bendable with WARP and sped up or slowed down with TIME.
Never synced
Motion ignores the tempo on purpose. FREEZE holds every phase, RESET starts all four again.
See the movement
All four curves with their playheads, and where each one is going.
Brain. One knob, a new track part.
Brain is a 10 HP scene recall module for VCV Rack that controls the whole Thoow Dub suite. Brain stores the settings of every docked module as a scene and recalls them together. Pick a scene and the knobs on all panels turn to it, smoothly or on the next bar.
A bank of twenty
A factory bank that walks through intro, build, peak and outro, and your own banks saved as files.
Glide between parts
Continuous settings fade over the morph time, switches jump. QUANT waits for the next beat or bar.
No cables needed
Dock it next to the others. A clock input is only needed to land changes on the beat.
Questions and answers.
What is Thoow Dub?
Thoow Dub is a suite of five modules for VCV Rack, made for dub techno and ambient: Chords (a polyphonic chord voice), Echo (stereo delay and reverb), Mixer (a dub mixer with two sends), Motion (slow modulation) and Brain (scene recall for the whole suite). Each module works on its own; placed side by side, they connect without cables.
What is dub techno, and how do the modules help?
Dub techno combines the steady pulse of techno with the studio techniques of Jamaican dub: short minor-seventh chord stabs, echoes thrown in by hand, slowly sweeping filters and feedback loops between delay and mixer. Thoow Dub turns each technique into a module: Chords plays the stabs, Echo and Mixer handle throws and feedback, Motion adds slow movement, and Brain changes the whole setup between the parts of a track.
Do I need all five modules?
No. Every module is a complete VCV Rack module with its own inputs and outputs and works with any other modules. Together they add couplings that save cables, and Brain can recall scenes across the whole suite.
How do the modules connect without cables?
When Thoow modules touch in the rack, they exchange data through VCV Rack's expander system. Each module's context menu then offers couplings, for example auto-throwing chords into the echo, Motion modulating the filter of Chords, or the Echo running as a send effect of the Mixer. All couplings are off by default, a patched cable always takes priority, and the displays show every link.
Which version of VCV Rack do I need?
VCV Rack 2, Free or Pro.
Which platforms are supported?
Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux, like VCV Rack 2 itself.
How much CPU do the modules use?
At 48 kHz, Chords uses about 4 % of one CPU core with all fifteen voices sounding. Echo, Mixer, Motion and Brain each use clearly less.
How much will Thoow Dub cost?
The price will be announced at release.
When will it be released, and how do I join the beta?
Thoow Dub is in its final listening sessions. Sign up on this page to get an invitation to the beta and the news when it's released.
Does Thoow Dub use samples or third-party code?
No. All sound is generated in real time by our own DSP code, and all graphics on the panels are our own.
Be the first to patch it.
Thoow Dub is in its final listening sessions. Sign up to join the beta and to hear first when it's out.