Virtual Synthesis

A gorgeous, slow-moving, haunting stretch of virtual synthesis, courtesy of the musician who goes by Nvra. There’s a growing category of online footage of tracks documented underway in real time using the VCV Rack software platform. VCV is a software emulator of modular synthesizers, meaning one can, affordably, patch together multiple instances of modules that, in the real/physical world, would add up to a pretty penny. Instead, there’s a pretty visualization of what’s happening. The developer of VCV has commented that despite it being an audio production tool, the graphics challenge is in some ways the greater one, due to the sheer amount of elements that might be shown at a given time. As the tool has matured, it’s provided more options to stylize the way the modules appear, and that has, no doubt, helped encourage people to post videos of their work online, and in public. Nvra’s track, titled simply “Collider,” is a lush, carefully paced series of swells, some tonal, some seemingly vocal, and then occasionally highlighted with little sonic glints and melodic snippets.