New MidiFX Available

[Ronny.G]

@Variorum Hi, the new version of CSMultiCompanderV2 is great! very useful for rapid velocity adjustment.

if I can, after trying it for a while, I would like to kindly suggest you some improvements.

1. The "start" and "end" points (0,127) should be adjustable also on the horizontal axe and not only on the vertical one. This is a very important improvement. It would become possible to correct the absolute "minimum" and "maximum" values of the velocity.
2. Add maybe the possibility for the user to add more "points" to better tune the curve or if it's difficult, at least change from 4 points (as it is now) to lets say 8 for example.
3. When you select the "velocity mode" it would be very helpful if the indicator panel on the bottom of ctrl chng that do nothing in this mode could display the two velocity value numbers. Before and after the curve adjustment.

Just my suggestions for improve this even more. And thanks again! for your time and work on these MFX plugins, they are all very useful on some situations.

 

Edited January 28, 2022 by Ronny.G

[Variorum]

A while back, I was doing some work with Melodyne on a solo trumpet from Session Horns. I noticed that there was a slight, random pitch shift going on, presumably because it was a recorded sample of a real trumpet player. That seemed to give it a "real" quality. I occasionally use VL instruments on the EX5 and they sound really good, but their pitch is perfectly constant which makes them sound fake during extended notes.

I built a Breath Controller a few months ago which helps the realism a lot... but the perfect pitch was still a problem. So I thought a slight, randomized pitch curve would help. After a bit of Googling, I found  @Rogério's excellent CAL script that could create such a curve (and other randomization effects). How he converted a bicubic spline interpolation algorithm into CAL's RPN language without going insane is beyond me  

Anyway, I decided to write a plugin that would introduce Midi pitch modulation called Waver. Because that's what it does.

Here is a short sample with two trumpets from Cakewalk TTS and one EX5 trumpet. This doesn't use the plugin:

...and here's the same sample that DOES use it on all three tracks:

If you use a very low amplitude setting on the plugin, it has a subtle but significant effect on the realism; almost psychoacoustic. Of course you can jack the amplitude way up if you're trying to emulate a 6th grade orchestra ?

It's available on my site if you'd like to try it out.

[Max Arwood]

Wow, I think it sounds great!!

[Variorum]

9 hours ago, Max Arwood said:

Wow, I think it sounds great!!

Thanks Max.... Hope you get some use out of it.

[Max Arwood]

Yes this one is another hit! Great sounding pitch shifter. That sounds so much better. Is that 2 pitches I hear? It sounds like the original and the pitch shifted one together. 
 

Thanks again!

Max

[Max Arwood]

On 4/25/2023 at 6:11 PM, Variorum said:

How he converted a bicubic spline interpolation algorithm into CAL's RPN language without going insane is beyond me  

? That would make it WAY beyond me lol!

[Variorum]

Well, here's another one...

I've been working on it off and on for at least a couple years. Every time I'd open the project, I'd see my TODO list. A lot of the items started "Figure out how to..." so I'd get depressed and close it ?

Anyway, it spews forth CC events into your track (the CC specified in the Modulated CC box). You can modify Frequency, Amplitude, and Offset via assignable CC's in the track or from your keyboard. You can right-click on any of the four CC edit boxes and select Learn to easily assign a knob or slider on your keyboard or controller. It works with direct keyboard input too, so you can play while twiddling knobs to change the parameters.

I'm not sure how useful it'll be in production, but it's fun to play with!

I plan to add some functionality soon, like using the Pitch Wheel to manipulate a parameter and enabling pitch event output in addition to CC's. But... I need to take a break from it for a little while ?

Try to read through the docs. I know docs suck, but they aren't too long and it'll make it a little easier to use.

You can check it out here, as usual.

PS - If you're a robot, please don't take offense to the check box that says "I'm not a robot". I'm not anti-robot or anything. Just contact my AI and she'll give you some alternate way to transfer it into your consciousness.

[sjoens]

Hey thanks for all the great additions. Curious if you can make their GUI elements, including text, available for customization like Dimension does? I can use a res editor but it's more of a hassle. 

[Grafo]

13 hours ago, Variorum said:

Well, here's another one...

I've been working on it off and on for at least a couple years. Every time I'd open the project, I'd see my TODO list. A lot of the items started "Figure out how to..." so I'd get depressed and close it ?

Anyway, it spews forth CC events into your track (the CC specified in the Modulated CC box). You can modify Frequency, Amplitude, and Offset via assignable CC's in the track or from your keyboard. You can right-click on any of the four CC edit boxes and select Learn to easily assign a knob or slider on your keyboard or controller. It works with direct keyboard input too, so you can play while twiddling knobs to change the parameters.

I'm not sure how useful it'll be in production, but it's fun to play with!

I plan to add some functionality soon, like using the Pitch Wheel to manipulate a parameter and enabling pitch event output in addition to CC's. But... I need to take a break from it for a little while ?

Try to read through the docs. I know docs suck, but they aren't too long and it'll make it a little easier to use.

You can check it out here, as usual.

PS - If you're a robot, please don't take offense to the check box that says "I'm not a robot". I'm not anti-robot or anything. Just contact my AI and she'll give you some alternate way to transfer it into your consciousness.

Thank you very much for this, for us with hardware synthesizers it's very useful.

[User 905133]

I have used LFOs from Voltage Modular to modulate soft synths hosted in CbB.  So I appreciate this newest MFX.  Thanks!

[Variorum]

7 hours ago, sjoens said:

Hey thanks for all the great additions. Curious if you can make their GUI elements, including text, available for customization like Dimension does? I can use a res editor but it's more of a hassle. 

Yeah, I considered doing that in the past, along with internationalization. There's just such a small user base for MFX that I haven't prioritized it.
I've started (barely!) work on modifying my component set to be vector based/resizable 'cause that's what the cool kids are doing now. ?
That may negate adding customizable skins to the components... unless I use a collection of SVG's or something.

 

4 hours ago, Grafo said:

Thank you very much for this, for us with hardware synthesizers it's very useful.

One of the reasons I made it is to automate params on my EX5. It's a quick way to experiment with movement and if I find something I like, I can modify the synth voice.

1 hour ago, User 905133 said:

I have used LFOs from Voltage Modular to modulate soft synths hosted in CbB.  So I appreciate this newest MFX.  Thanks!

You can stack a couple of these in a track and use the first one to output a wave to the second one (i.e. output a Sawtooth modifying CC 150 and Frequency set to Whole and set the Amplitude CC modifier on the second one to 150 modulating CC7 with a Sine wave).
If you're lucky, you might find some cool combinations ?

One word of warning... make sure you don't have an automation lane with the parameter you're trying to automate (the Modulated CC). Automation lanes and CC's are two separate things in Cakewalk and they'll clash.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Variorum

[User 905133]

1 minute ago, Variorum said:

One word of warning... make sure you don't have an automation lane with the parameter you're trying to control. Automation lanes and CC's are two separate things in Cakewalk and they'll clash.

Are they two separate things or did the addition of automation (not just in Cakewalk) mess up how CCs used to work?

[Variorum]

They seem to be separate mechanisms. I think the Cakewalk documentation warns against using both on a track... I'll have to see if I can find that.
It's not a huge problem since Cakewalk allows you to convert CC's to Automation Lanes and vice versa. Just something to be aware of.

Having existing CC data on a track isn't a problem because the plugin eats any CC's that match the Modulated CC parameter. So, if you're modulating CC7 and there is already volume CC data on the track, the plugin will just erase and replace it.
 

[sjoens]

8 hours ago, Variorum said:

... unless I use a collection of SVG's or something.

What program would you use to create them? I find not all SVG's are created equal and have no success editng them on one GUI.

[Variorum]

I normally use Inkscape for vector graphics, but I've never used its output in code before. Hopefully they'll standardize the format soon?

[Variorum]

Here's another plugin... with a twist. it's a VST3 Midi Effect called VelociRouter.

I couldn't do track routing with MidiFX so this is what I came up with.

If you've ever wanted to route Midi data to separate tracks depending on the velocity of the note, this is for you! You can adjust the velocity of the notes that are routed using the Velocity Offset knobs. This can be useful for balancing transitions.

A paltry set of instructions are on the web site... it's pretty easy to use. Just make sure you pay attention to the part about enabling Midi Echo on all receiving tracks. This is required for all plug-ins that produce Midi data.

If you you're having a problem getting it to produce Midi output, double check the VST3 setting Enable MIDI Output. It should be checked by default.

As with all the other plug-ins, it comes with a 100% money back guarantee ?

Get it here.

[User 905133]

With a guarantee like that, I had to try it out in conjunction with a midi module I have started to work on for use in another program (a virtual modular synth).  With a very quick test, it seems to work as intended so far.  Thanks for sharing.  

[Quick Math]

Thanks for the great tools.

I have used these MIDI plugins in the past without problems.

But now the GUI is broken for any of these MIDI plugins. (Original Cakewalk MIDI plugins are fine)

Does anyone knows why this happens and how to fix it?  

 

 

[Variorum]

I'm stumped...
It looks like there's an issue translating between screen and window coordinates. The components in your screen shot are off by a factor of 1.82 horizontally and vertically. The font is also different (sans serif) and about 1.82 times larger.

I guess I'd have to ask the standard questions: Are you running Windows 10 or 11? Any updates to your video drivers? Anybody else seeing this issue?

I'll keep poking around.

[Quick Math]

2 minutes ago, Variorum said:

I'm stumped...
It looks like there's an issue translating between screen and window coordinates. The components in your screen shot are off by a factor of 1.82 horizontally and vertically. The font is also different (sans serif) and about 1.82 times larger.

I guess I'd have to ask the standard questions: Are you running Windows 10 or 11? Any updates to your video drivers? Anybody else seeing this issue?

I'll keep poking around.

Thanks ??

It's been on Windows 10. It could be video driver related as my video driver has been actually suspicious but I'm not sure if there was any updates. I checked graphic settings (resolutions) and it seems okay.

I wonder why font is different, is it not properly loading the set font?

Some files are apparently automatically compressed by Windows but any files related to Cakewalk are uncompressed. If any files related to this might have been compressed and not loading the font?