Prefabs

Getting Started

Prefabs is a plugin for VCV Rack 2 that streamlines patching. Save any selection of pre-wired modules as a reusable prefab, browse your prefabs, patches, and the entire module library from a single menu, and drag what you need into any patch in seconds.

The plugin ships one module: Prefabs — browse, save, and load reusable module prefabs and patches.

Browsing and dropping a saved prefab into a patch

Installing

Prefabs is distributed directly — it is not on the official VCV Library.

  1. Download the latest .vcvplugin from the GitHub releases.
  2. Drop it into your Rack 2 user plugins folder:
    • Windows — %LOCALAPPDATA%\Rack2\plugins-win-x64\
    • macOS — ~/Library/Application Support/Rack2/plugins-mac-x64/
    • Linux — ~/.local/share/Rack2/plugins-lin-x64/
  3. Restart VCV Rack. The module appears under the Prefabs brand.

Building from source

You’ll need the Rack 2 SDK and a C++20 toolchain.

export RACK_DIR=/path/to/Rack-SDK

git clone --recursive https://github.com/dustinlacewell/vcv-prefabs.git
cd vcv-prefabs

make
make install

The --recursive flag pulls the submodules the plugin depends on: dep/yui (the declarative UI library), dep/efsw (file watching), dep/date, dep/svghelper, and dep/jansson.

The basic workflow

The whole point of Prefabs is to turn a patch you’ve already built into a reusable building block. The loop has two halves.

Save a prefab

  1. Add the Prefabs module to your rack (right-click the rack → Prefabs → Prefabs).
  2. Build and wire up some modules the way you like them.
  3. Box-select that group of modules.
  4. Right-click the Prefabs widget and choose Save selection as prefab. Give it a name (and optionally a group/tag).

The selection — modules, their parameters, and the cables between them — is stored as a prefab on disk.

Load a prefab

  1. Right-click the Prefabs widget to open its cascading menu.
  2. Browse to your saved prefab (by group, tag, module, or plugin), or start typing to search.
  3. Click the entry to insert it at the mouse, or drag it onto the rack to place it precisely.

That’s it — your pre-wired group drops straight into the current patch.

From here, dig into the Prefabs module for the full menu, search, favorites, and settings.