Here are this weekend’s dose of 4Pockets deals which end on February 27th.
- Helium MIDI Editor – from $10.99 to $7.99
- MIDI Layers – from $7.99 to $5.99
- Sideband Remix – from $7.99 to $4.99
- Visual EQ Console – from $7.99 to $5.99
Helium MIDI Editor
Helium is a lightweight AUv3 MIDI sequencer plugin designed specifically for AUM. It supports up to 16 tracks of unlimited length with the ability to direct output to 16 channels on up to 16 MIDI output ports.
One of the great features is the ability to import and maintain libraries of MIDI clips using Helium’s ‘Media Bay’. These clips are freely available all over the internet and may contain individual chord sets, chord progressions or drum tracks. You can quickly build a song by dragging and dropping your MIDI clips from the media bay onto your timeline. You can also save your own clips directly to the media bay to create your own personal MIDI clips libraries. Long press on a clip to preview its contents using the currently selected MIDI device.
Helium now ships with a library of over 7000 MIDI clips, consisting of every chord and chord progression you could ever need.
Helium allows many different ways to import additional MIDI clip libraries. Simply drag and drop your ZIP collections directly to your PC/MAC web browser and they are automatically unpacked into the clips library folder. You can also drag and drop files between the Media Bay and the iOS Files app.
Helium supports a sync mode called ‘Remote Looping’. This was something we recently introduced into our MultiTrack Recorder plugin and is very useful for breaking down the timeline into sections. You can define up to 12 loops which can be used to specify the locations of say the intro, verse, chorus, and outro within your song, then trigger these loops seemlessly in sync with the host tempo. Once captured, these loops can then be triggered by incoming MIDI notes.
A new addition to Helium is the ability to piece together loops into songs, so you just concentrate on creating a single verse, chorus, bridge etc. and piece everything together without the headache of having to re-arrange your timeline.
MIDI Layers
Have you ever wanted to play multiple instruments from a single master keyboard during a live performance? Would you like to be able to set up keyboard splits, crossfade layers or create an ensemble of layered instruments? If you answered yes to either of those questions, then MIDI Layers may be your solution.
Layers allows you to create up to 12 scenes, each with up to 127 layers, spanning your entire master keyboard. These scenes allow you to seamlessly switch between various layer mappings at any time during a performance.
Each layer controls the MIDI output, which can be routed to one of MIDI Layers 16 output ports and 16 channels. So if you have 5 layers in your scene, each layer is able to divert MIDI key input to 5 destinations, allowing you to control 5 instruments from one master keyboard.
Layers can overlap, meaning you can create an ensemble of two or more instruments. Layers can also have cross fades so that you can fade from one instrument to another across a specified range. You can also control the velocity curves of a layer if you need to emphasize note velocity at a certain set of octaves.
Each layer can also be remapped so that you can target a different key range on the destination instrument. This allows you to have several single note layers that can target specific drum machine samples for instance.
You can assign a song per scene, or have several scenes containing parts of the same song. Switching scenes is simple, using the on screen scene buttons, via AU parameters, or you can even add a special control layer to a scene which can then be triggered via your master keyboard.
It is also possible to assign a Program Changes to a layer. When you switch scenes, each layer can fire off its own program change to your destination instruments.
Each scene can be assigned its own scale, which enables you to play using only the white notes so say goodbye to wrong notes.
Finally, layers can be assigned to mute groups, allowing you to quickly turn on/off groups of layers with a single key or button press.
Sideband Remix
SideBand Remix is an AUv3 plugin for final mixing and mastering. It separates the phantom center from sideband (L/R) content which is what give a stereo track its width, and lets you remix it.
This is ideal for adjusting the level of centrally panned vocals without affecting everything else. SideBand Remix is great for post-production engineers who want to reposition, isolate, and even eliminate elements of their mix.
Audio can be additionally split into 3 channels, LOW, MID and HIGH frequency bands which are all processed separately and eventually re-combined after processing. This allows you to control the bass and treble portions of your mix separately from the mids where the vocals naturally sit. Being able to push content from the center of the mix opens up room for a vocal to sit comfortably. The punch knob can be used to boost low and high band content or presence, while the shelf filter are there to make sure they never get out of control. As if that wasn’t enough you can enable the harmonic exciter to inject top end sparkle into the mix or enhance low end frequencies.
This is a versatile little tool that can be used on drums as well as vocals. Remove reverb from those snares and give your drum beat that punch it deserves.
Visual EQ Console
Visual EQ Console is a studio quality multi-band EQ console with the ability to analyse audio in real time giving an accurate and reliable spectrum representation of the frequency response.
It includes your typical set of 4 parametric filters which are stable even when parameters are being changed. We also include low and high shelf as well as low and high pass filters, that’s 10 filters in all.
We use a high quality highly hardware optimised FFT to plot the frequency response through the filters so you can see exactly what effect your changes are having on the sound. The scrolling interface automatically adjusts to the hosts window size to allow a double height display in an appropriate DAW.
One of the main problems with most Studio type EQ’s is they don’t give a true representation of the frequency response, often hiding the inpact of low and high pass / shelf filters on the frequency response. This plugin accurately tracks the response all the way through the audio chain and is backed up by the spectrum analyser so you can be confident that it is having the desired effect.
We also include a Compressor / Limiter section to ensure those settings never get too aggressive.
You can load and save custom console presets as well as copy and paste settngs between instances. This is great if you need to setup multiple instances with the same settings.
Plenty of options are tucked away under the hood so as not to clutter the display.
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