Has there been any talk of adding ‘control voltage’ tools for modular synthesizers? I’m in Bitwig right now but struggling with stability issues with my RME RayDAT in Linux. Ardour works great with RME but has no CV tools so I can’t make the switch since I work mostly with
my modular system.
Any advice is welcome. cheers 
Current nightly builds support CV ports on plugins (e.g. Cardinal), and it works fine.
CV isn’t a different signal than audio, it just (sometimes) gets handled differently. What is it you want to do with the the modular?
What we don’t have are the extensive modulation capabilities in Ardour itself (which could be driven by a modular, though that would be a workflow I’ve not seen, even in Bitwig).
basically modulators of CV signals for DC coupled I/O.
Ardour will be the sequencing hub which uses automation and midi<->CV to control the modular. I don’t want VCV/cardinal running as a plugin, just modulators and automation that wiould output as voltage.
bitwig and live have the dedicated CV Instrument and CV output ‘devices’ that can be modulated by the DAW and tx/rx over DC coupled i/o - I’m wondering if there’s a way to do that, or any plans to.
That might bring me into the Ardour fold because Bitwig on Linux is pretty rough for me whilst Ardour’s engine is lightning fast in my tests!!
Now that I think about it, I think there’s a DC offset plugin… maybe I could modulate that?? Still would love to see a proper CV toolkit.
Well, as noted, we have zero modulation capabilities at present, so any hint of having explicit CV capabilities seems a bit premature. From my perspective, CV is an audio signal with different workflow assumptions. We do have a “plan” for modulation stuff, but no idea at all when it might get implemented.
Yep, CV is audio. I can use my modular system with Bitwig or Live to modulate anything, bidirectionally.
Maybe I could knock-up some AI slop plugins just to get things working in the meantime.
Thanks for the answers. Appreciate it
Plugins can get host tempo and automation data, so seems like a plugin styled like a module from a modular soft synth would do what is desired. Does anyone make those style plugins in LV2 or linux VST3?
Yeah, you can control a plugin like Cardinal from Ardour automation, it’s pretty cool.
But there’s not much in the way of Bitwig-style automation …“apply this LFO to the cutoff of this filter plugin”
Wouldn’t you just do that by routing your CV output where you want it to go, either via chains of plugins, or aux sends, or by routing to a hardware output to send to a hardware device?
Is the distinction just that Bitwig has an interface that explicitly labels modulation sources and destinations and so makes it easier to setup?
Well, both the labelling, but also the possibility - it comes with many “plugins” that can have their controls modulated directly within bitwig itself, and many interesting modulation sources.