A series of VCV Rack modules built around emergent systems — cellular automata, shift registers, iterated processes — that you watch evolve on screen and patch as control voltage. Each module is a small generative world: set it running, nudge it, and harvest the patterns it produces as pitch, gates, and modulation.
macOS (Apple Silicon). Windows, Linux & Intel builds coming via the VCV Library.
Lucida modules are generative systems you can see. The on-panel display is not decoration: it is the state of the process, and watching it is how you learn to steer it. A change to a knob propagates visibly across the grid or the register before it ever reaches a cable.
Every module turns its internal dynamics into useful CV — scan taps, polyphonic rows, quantized pitch, gates — so a self-organizing system becomes a playable sequencer and modulation source, not just a screensaver.
Lucida inherits the SHLabs industrial panel grammar — gunmetal field, header strip, clear signal flow — with a creep-green family accent that ties the series together and sets it apart from Mashina's red.
The flagship. A 24×16 toroidal cellular automaton evolves on screen and emits CV. SPREAD biases the birth / survive rules, MUTATE injects per-cell noise, and FLOW clock-multiplies or -divides the simulation step. Paint cells with the mouse, sweep the scan position with SCAN_CV, freeze the simulation while keeping outputs live, and choose scan-and-tap, polyphonic-row / column, or quadrant-mix output modes.
A 16-bit looping shift register in the Music Thing Modular tradition. LOCK slides between full randomness and an exact repeating pattern; LENGTH sets the loop (2–16 bits). A built-in quantizer (10 scales × 12 roots) puts the output straight onto a melody. Outputs: quantized V/OCT, raw bipolar analog, a write-position gate, polyphonic per-bit gates, and a clock pulse. The display shows the live bits above a scrolling history, so the lock pattern becomes visible.
Free, and built to be played. No account, no nag screen.
You'll need VCV Rack 2 — a free download for macOS, Windows and Linux from vcvrack.com/Rack. Colony and Turing ship together in the SHLabs-Colony plugin: download the .vcvplugin below and drop it into Rack's user plugin folder, then restart — the modules appear under the SHLabs brand.
macOS (Apple Silicon). Windows, Linux & Intel builds coming via the VCV Library.