As I mentioned a while back, long-time plugin developer Voxengo have undertaken an overhaul of their product line. Starting with the somewhat baffling, gorgeous sounding totally free OvertoneGQE, they followed up with the VariSaturator and the Voxengo Crunchessor.

Since I was in the market for a new compressor, I took advantage of a new release special offer (now unfortunately passed) and got in on this last one. If you’re familiar with Voxengo you know that he never stops working on his product, and we’ve already been treated to a couple of bugfixes. You’ll also know, even without a discount they’re well reasonably priced.

So, I’ve had a while to use it and I’m relying more and more on it. I’m not one of these gearslutz who can discern between a Fairchild and Pultec¹ but this thing works great. It can be as transparent or characterful as you’d like. Though I don’t think anyone would have argued that Voxengo haven’t always produced top-o-the-line DSP.

What’s most impressing me about the new Voxengo plugins is how vastly better looking they are. As much as I relied on them in my productions - Voxformer and GlissEQ are particular favorites - they were functional looking at best. Well, while they were overhauling their development platform, someone over there also spent some serious time thinking about the GUI. Not only are they smartly configured to respond to your interaction, and softened with a nice “Web 2.0″ sheen, if you don’t like the color scheme you tweak it to your liking.

So, not as singularly unique and characteristic as the Audio Damage GUIs, or with the gear porn gee-whiz photo-realism of, say, the new offerings of Waves. But nevertheless, a real feather in the cap of one of the best deals in DSP.

^{1Yes, that’s a joke. Though feel free to point out how wrong I got that.}

_{Awesome yearbook photo uploaded by Kristin Smith (her mother), via stock.xchng.}

I don’t think I’ve done much writing about GForce Software on these threads. Which is odd. GForce Software are, without question, among the elite of commercial independent audio developers - along with fxpansion, SonicCouture, Audio Damage, Ohm Force - that are cool beyond all reasoning.

I know, “cool”… what does that mean, right? A word so overused as to be meaningless, a verbal tick slightly better than people who stammer “you know” every three words. But I feel about these developers the way I felt about certain independent record labels during my formative music years, labels like Homestead, Touch & Go, SST: creative, adventurous, with a lot of attitude and the taste to back it up. In some ways, as a fan, it felt you had a relationship with these companies because they were run by a few individuals who knew their shit. I didn’t always like everything they were putting out, but I was almost always interested and had respect for their choices.

Imperfect and over-thought analogies aside, you get the point.

The first GForce product I procured was the MTron, which I still love, though, let’s face it, has limited use. (Disclosure: I don’t have the 3rd Tape bank, so I’m about 20 sounds short of the full sounds. I’m holding out for the promised MTron Pro.) But I’m fascinated by vintage sounds so this was one of the first VSTs I bought. Then I got impOSCar, which is still my go-to softsynth. Really, I can’t stress enough how much I love that software. The beauty of GForce products is that in addition to sounding great they seemed to be designed by actual musicians. While sometimes it’s fun to tuck into a multi-page synth that makes you feel like you’re trying to solve a rubic’s cube, the amount of milage GForce get out of a single screen on impOSCar is truly impressive. And, yes, it screams like a bastard.

(I just bought Oddity; I haven’t really had a chance to explore it or utilize it.)

So I was very excited when I heard that GForce were producing a sample-based instrument of the great string machines of years past. I was listening to M83 a lot at that point, so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Unfortunately, when it finally was released I was skint, so it wasn’t until a few months ago that I finally got around to ordering it.

Not that GForce products are expensive; they’re really cheap compared to a lot of other synth makers, especially considering the quality. I was just really broke and short on work.

And, yep, it’s already been used on a few tracks. I’ve heard some people write it off as a “one trick pony” on boards and a few bone-headed reviews. This couldn’t be more wrong. The depth of sound is perhaps not all-encompassing but it’s certainly not limited. It is very versitile. And with the additional control built into the smartly designed but still classy GUI it can do a hell of a lot more than just lush pads.

Though, if you like lush pads this shit is a no brainer.

I know it may seem redundant to purchase an application that more or less replicates a lot of built-in functionality for a program, but if you’re a user of Cakewalk’s Sonar or, especially, Project 5, you will probably be well served by Agitated State’s forthcoming MenuMagic v1.0.

MenuMagic extends your control over plugin organization in both of Cakewalk’s flagship sequencers in just about any way you might care to have them extended, from global renaming to cross-application synchronization to intelligent categorization and beyond.

This has been in development for quite a while - I think it was first announced shortly before Sonar 6, and to be honest with you, not only had I forgotten about it, once Sonar got the plugin manager I thought it would probably go away.

Fortunately, it did not. The built-in Sonar plugin manager is quite handy, but even it has its limitations. This appears to address most, if not all, of those.

What really sold me on this is that it takes care of a major oversight in the Project 5 v2.5 update. Hey, swell, we got the plugin manager, but for some odd reason there is no plugin organization in the program itself. Being that the primary focus of Project 5 was as a softsynth studio this is a rather bizarre omission. And since that update was, what, a year ago? one wonders if once again Cakewalk doesn’t really have any idea what to do with the program and that sooner or later, when they milk the last few dollars from it, they’ll retire it for good. Which leaves one wrestling with absurdly messy plugin management.

Anyway, MenuMagic will now take care of this, one of my two biggest gripes about the program (non-configurable hardware outs being the other; seriously, if I’m not using outs I should be able to not have them cluttering up my workspace). So even if/when Cakewalk lets Project 5 wither on the vine I’ll be able to squeeze a few more years of life out of it.

And now is the time to act. Agitated State is extending the pre-release price of $24.99. Which is about the perfect price for such software.

Sweetwater’s patented Superficial Appearance Demarcation (SAD) technology…

Further my post concerning BeatBurner, I got around to installing it onto my DAW. Figured if I was gonna run my mouth off…

Though I downloaded the full package, I haven’t yet installed the included beats. While BeatBurner only processes 16bit wavs - we’re digital lofi so we don’t let that stop us, do we? - I have plenty of fodder for this thing. More than a few folders full of my early ACID loop collections, various freeware loops, stuff culled off Brit music mag cover disks - a bunch of crap to be sure, but some that have stood me well over the years - mostly shopworn breakbeats, but some other oddball stuff I’ve picked up. I thought I’d run them through it, let me evaluate the ‘burners potential on material I am well familiar with.

And it is indeed very cool. So, yes, not a beat-slicer. More like a very musical audio modulating filter synth wave-shaper thing. Every loop I loaded up sounded great and made me want to squirrel it away for later use. With just a bit of fiddling you can coax some unique sounds out of it, depending on what you’re feeding it. It’s a one trick pony, more or less, but it’s a great trick that sounds fantastic once you know what you’re doing, more or less.

It seems petty to fault the program’s shortcomings since it’s a few years old and, you know, free. They are what they are - off the top of my head I can think of 4 things I wish it did or did better - but since we’re all more or less in agreement that what sounds good is good no matter what goddamn bit-rate it was recorded at, it is a nice tool for getting some new use out of old sounds, and has a lot of inspiration potential. Tip: Disengage the sync on the delay and lfo for instant dub fun.

So I’m definitely going to kick into the coffer once the next paycheck comes in.

EDIT: Okay, so I’ve spent some more time with it, and not so right with the “one trick pony” thing. It actually has quite a few tricks up its sleeve. It would be great if it did 24bit samples, just for the breadth of shit you could throw at it. So, it’s not Kontakt. But it’s way more capable and interesting than a lot of commercial synths.

Chris @ AI is running an interesting open thread inviting readers to dream up their own plugins/software.

Being the software geek I am, this is something I’ve thought about before. So, to further refine my initial idea:

A 12×12¹ MPC-style grid. The cells can be triggered individually or in groups, and rows and columns can be triggered horizontally, vertically or, why not?, diagonally. Grouping could be done by color. Each cell can contain either a MIDI or an audio clip (REX, wav, aiff), play either looped or as a one-shot, forward and reverse. Drag ‘n’ drop between cells. MIDI cells can contain note and/or control data. Each cell, group, row and column can be mapped to a MIDI trigger.

Integrated Piano roll MIDI editing and a beat slicer.

Now here’s the thing: the MIDI can be routed completely internally. So the MIDI in one cell can modulate various parameters on any number of other cells: the MIDI-steps in one cell routed to the CC# of another cell, or the velocity of another, or to the clock-division of the whole engine. If you can think of it, it can be wired up in the matrix. Throw in a hosting engine, so you can put in put in your synths and effects, or build chains, and the steps of the MIDI cells can be routed to the exposed plugin parameters of the plugin. Or MIDI VSTs can be hosted and send/receive data through the matrix.

Oh yeah, you can record directly from one cell to another, or from one output routed back into an empty cell. No multi-channel audio recording, but a single stereo in would be useful. 16 configurable outs, though. Right? So, a real sampler.

The whole thing can run stand-alone or as a plugin - or ReWire or Jack I suppose - and it outputs multi-out audio *and* multi-out MIDI. So you could build a complete sequence/song in the software, wire it up to your host, and record the complete ball of wax. Or perhaps there could be a “track” sequencer, that in a record mode records the sequencing of the channels and cells.

Obviously, this is hugely based on the GrooveMatrix of Project5. It may be glaringly similar to Live; I wouldn’t really know. There’s a bit of Tenori in there, too. And some energyXT as well. Basically, I’ve just cobbled together all the bits I like about other software/plugins and put it into one package. But in my software there is minimal bloat.

^{1Originally I thought 32×32 but doing the wireframe I realized this is way too much information for a GUI so I whittled it down.}

EDIT: Due should also go to cakewalk form member “b rock” Tom Brockway for doing the heavy lifting on this one. The whole MIDI-routing thing was something he was talking about in one of those old threads wish-list thread I can’t be bothered to dig up.

Okay, as long as Antares still produces hardware units that can keep aging popstars in tune during the national anthem or the American Idol Tour on something resembling pitch night after night, Autotune isn’t likely to go anywhere. Besides, the name Autotune as entered the vernacular, like ProTools or Q-Tips, where people use a brand name as shorthand for the task performed rather than a specific product.

But in terms of the software used for pitch correction, Autotune is about to be totally pwned.

I’ve been using Melodyne since it’s first version (in its cre8 iteration), when it still didn’t integrate into other software but at all (lots of exporting and importing) and have kept up with the updates as the software has progressed, despite the fact that I don’t actually use it that much. (Not because I sing that well, just that most of the music I’ve been working at present on is sans vocals.) I didn’t buy the plugin version but I did get their “Medolyne Bridge” working, more or less (tempo changes tend to throw it for a loop).

I avoided Autotune mostly because of its PACE copy-protection, and because once I tried the demo of Melodyne, the Autotune plugin felt cramped and fiddly. And I couldn’t get nearly the same quality of results. I just grokked with Melodyne. Even if you’re not using it to tame woolly vocals, it’s great for mashing up samples and loops, or taking uninteresting spoken vocal samples and making them melodic.

And now Celemony has announced the next generation of Medolyne with something their calling DNA: Direct Note Access. Which means you can take polyphonic material, say a guitar or piano chord, and split it up into its constituent notes and tune those individual notes. Here, watch the video. If it works 3/4 as well as that video we’ve moved into a whole ‘nother level of musical deconstruction.

Before you get too excited, keep in mind it’s scheduled for fall of this year, so it’s actual appearance is a ways down the line. The first of the Celemony Melodyne line to get it will be the plugin, and if you register between now and when this is released the update is free. The plugin is on sale at various online shops and at Mega-Lo Guitar Mart so now is a good time get in on this. They also offer many upgrade paths for all their products so visit their web shop and see what you qualify for.

I guess it’s time for me to buy the Melodyne Plugin.

Really I should have posted this earlier. It’s not like it’s new information. Nevertheless it surprised the hell out of me when it happened.

I’m a newcomer to the good ship energyXT, so I had no working or emotional attachment to the earlier versions. From what I understand it was the business for cool MIDI tricks and all kinds of weird modular routings. The kind of audio/MIDI Fu I’m only just beginning to tap into. The release of version 2, which included a Linux version, was not without controversy. Some features were dropped, more emphasis was placed on the sequencer, and Windows die-hards thought the Linux version was a waste of development time. Then the updates stopped for something like - gasp! - two or three months (normally they’re quite regular) and a lot of glaring bugs hampered the program. Suddenly: an update that includes an OSX version. Cue much grumbling and bitching about the still-unresolved bugs, missing features, yadda, yadda.

Personally, I’m impressed. I can completely understand why a coder would want to go back and build out his code to be more future proof, to be more portable. If that meant sacrificing some of your platform-specific code, so be it. I think it’s (as they say around these parts) wicked cool that were I suddenly to switch my OS I could still use a program with which I am familiar. An academic point to be sure. But if the program survives (who knows these days) and continues to become more stable and feature-rich there’s more potential for a good community of resources.

Yeah, there are still some head-scratchers and some weird glitches, but incrementally it is coming along nicely, and with just a minimal amount of creative thinking and a handful of well-chosen plugs, you can get it to do some amazing things.

Considering I’m a Windows user, and (primarily) a Sonar user, I find these days I’m more interested in software that is available to all platforms, or at least both Mac and Windows.

I’m not going bother with the whole reasoning behind my platform choice (yawn) other than to say at this point it is mostly inertia. Well that and a financial (hardware and software) consideration. While I have never used a Mac for audio “production”, I’ve logged many, many hours on Macs, mostly with my web work. And really there’s things I like and hate about either platform; six of one. And as the differences between the architecture become more negligible it seems ever more futile to compare them.

I respect developers that can support either OS. To me, it speaks to a certain purity of code. Of course, I know not much at all about software coding, and even less about DSP coding. But for some reason I trust a developer who is not dependent on one or the other platform to do their magic. Certainly, I enjoy the benefits of getting a lot of pretty fun software toys that a Mac user has to jump through some hoops to employ; but most of the time these days, Windows-only signals to me that what I’m getting probably isn’t that spectacular or offering me something that I don’t already have. Whereas, something that is coded for either OS pretty much signals that the developer(s) know their shit, and their DSP is independent of the OS libraries. (Does that make sense?)

So in this vein I’m going to be posting about a few new developments, and some old favorites, that further bridge the divide between one brand of geeks and another

Okay, I’ll indulge in a little NAMM-related chatter, albeit of a particularly geeky nature. I speak of Steinberg’s announcement of the VST3 spec for plugin developers. Hey, upgrade, you think. And just look at all those cool new features.

Well, read this thread. Seems a lot of developers are less than thrilled about having to completely redevelop their software for something that doesn’t bring them any real advantage. In fact, I think it’s safe to say, that Steinberg’s behavior towards independent developers over time has been shoddy if not outright hostile.

The question remains, will anyone outside of Steinberg sign up. Chris Randall thinks that Ableton is major factor in whether it gets accepted, and that makes sense to me, as they are the other cross-platform host with any significant user-base/market-share. If they do, it will be interesting to see who could withstand the storm. Though I do wonder if Ableton has any vested interest in switching over. And Cakewalk by Roland? Who knows now, ’cause let’s be honest, it would seem wither goes Roland so goes Cakewalk. But I can’t imagine their coders are thrilled about having to accommodate a completely different layer of abstraction between the host and the plugins.

I’ll take it from observation and the knowledge of people who, you know, actually code (when they’re able to dumb it down enough for me grasp) that this is potentially a huge pain in the ass to everyone but Steinberg and, more or less, their users. And that can’t be a good thing. Especially for us who are more interested in the fringe of software. From my POV it does seem Stein-aha is preparing to lock up the standard in their favor. But, really, I don’t know shit. However, how many more VST2.4 Steinberg commercial plugins do you think we’ll see?

Honestly, I wasn’t even aware of the VST3 spec until it was announced, other than some vague rumblings around the interwebs. (Are we saying that seriously or ironically these days? It’s hard to tell.) And I’m huge geeky trainspotter. But I’ve long since advocated the advantage of getting DSP & instrument plugins out from under the shadow of one company, no matter how you find their business practices. An open standard that had *wide host support* could mean better code and less time spend downloading updates and figuring out why X combination of host/plug cause things to crash. A fresh API written to be as agnostic as necessary would give developers a realistic target to hit.

But *wide host support* is no small hurdle. I suppose Randall’s vow to dance naked on the ‘Tube is his way of saying “never.” The optimist in me likes to see shit like this happen. The realist knows that everyone wants to be the one to establish the standard, to be “right” - to hold the keys that everyone else has to “borrow.” The populist in me wants to see an sandbox where everyone gets to play and we reap the rewards. Again, the realist knows everyone wants to be, well, king of the sandbox.

It seems to me that for the idea to get any traction, someone/group need to get pretty motivated and act pretty selflessly. And, quite possibly, need a charismatic leader. In theory, couldn’t someone or a small group of coders whip together a really rough API that roughly conforms to VST2.4 and release it under an appropriate license? Then everyone else can have at it? Get one or two adventurous hosts (eXT, whatever that new tracker that was just upgraded for multiple platforms) to include the API. Can an AU/VST wrapper be released as open source? Because that might be pretty necessary for the short term: a good AU and VST2.4 wrapper that would be open to developers to use directly. So, on top of that, developers need to be sold on that API which means a good SDK sooner rather than later - and an SDK that can easily port over to existing standards, right?

Anyway, blah, blah. Point being, yeah, that’s a hell of a lot of ifs, ands, and buts. The realist in me says, it’s a cool idea but it’s never going to happen. The populist still likes to dream.

Could VST3 be the final straw in a long line of relative indignities inflicted upon developers over the years? If the reaction and apparent outcome of that thread are an indication, then quite possibly. But a lot of stars have to line up or someone is going to come up with a really fresh idea.