Adding and Removing Modules

Adding / Removing Modules with Drag’n Drop

The heart of the Virtual Mix Rack Plugin is its Drag’n Drop System.

Drag’n Drop operations allow you to:

• Pick a Module from the Library and insert it into the Rack.
• Re-order your processing sequence by moving the modules.
• Move a Module from one Rack instance to any other.
• Duplicate a Module within a Rack instance, or clone a Module from an Rack instance into another.
• Remove a Module by throwing it out of the Rack view.

Drag’n Drop System Philosophy

In the VMR Rack, we opted to a modern approach for the Drag’n Drop.

In the “legacy” approach, all the action was taking place when you released the mouse. Although this is the Drag’n Drop behavior we all are used to, this behavior has a lot of disadvantages. The main one being the lack of dynamicity, because in that mode, there are only two states, the one before the drag operation, and the one after you released the mouse button.

In the Virtual Mix Rack, the Drag’n Drop is smarter and more flexible. The two rules behind the system are:

1. The Drag’n Drop is flexible, movements/insertions happen in real-time and are always reflecting what is supposed to happen.
2. The audio path is always synchronized with the current module layout, meaning that what you see is what you get in the audio routing sequence. 

To start a Drag operation, just grab a Module (from the Library or an existing one that you grab by its background panel), and start dragging it around.

When you are dragging a module, you are actually dragging the entire Rack Slot. You are not only moving the Module, which means that you are also moving all your Automations and all the other information related to the Module (current Module preset etc.).

How do I Add / Move Modules?

To add a new Module, simply drag an icon from the Library. As soon as your mouse is over the Slots View Port, then the new Module is created during the drag operation, and then you can just move it around.

To Move a Module, grab it by its panel and start moving around. The Rack sequence is updated during the drag operation, both visually and sonically (the audio path follows what’s happening visually in real-time).

How do I Clone Modules?

Cloning Module is achieved by pressing Cmd/Ctrl while performing a standard drag operation. As soon as you press Cmd/Ctrl, the Module gets cloned where it currently is. The clone would be destroyed if you release Cmd/Ctrl before you release your mouse button.

How do I Move / Clone Modules between Rack Instances?

This is one of the coolest feature of the VMR from a workflow perspective.

To Move/Clone a Module from an instance into another, just drag it from the first Rack view to the Second. Holding Cmd/Ctrl during the Drag operation will duplicate the Module instead of moving it.

How do I Remove Modules?

There are two ways of removing Modules and Slots:

1. By clicking on the X icon in the Slot Header: this will first remove the loaded Module, then click again to remove this Slot. Note: there is a minimum numbers of Slots a Rack must have (some hosts are imposing a constraint over the minimum width a plugin can have).
2. By dragging the Slot and dropping outside of the Rack.