Here are this weekend’s deals from 4Pockets.
- Helium MIDI Editor – from $10.99 to $6.99
- Visual Compressor – from $7.99 to $4.99
- Time Machine – from $6.99 to $4.99
- Chameleon Sampler – from $8.99 to $5.99
- MultiTrack Recorder – from $10.99 to $7.99
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.
Visual Multi-band Compressor
Visual Compressor is a 4 band compressor/expander which has the ability to analyse audio in real time giving an accurate and reliable spectrum representation of your signal as well as visual feedback of compression or expansion levels. It’s uses range from final mastering of songs to dynamic manipulation and EQing of drum tracks.
What makes this different from a normal compressor is the ability to compress or expand frequency ranges rather than the whole mix, with up to 4 bands available. This allows you to say tighten up a wayward snare drum while adding that extra punch to the bass drum while leaving the rest of the track intact.
Each of the 4 configurable frequency bands can be modified using drag and drop operations directly on the graph making it easy to understand and quick to configure. Turn on the labelling option for colour coded details. Each band can function as an EQ allowing raising and lowering the bands gain by +/-24dB. You can assign either a compressor or expander to each of the bands.
The compressor allows you to compress excessively loud sounds that exceed a specified threshold. Each band has configurable attack, release and ratio settings.
The expander can be used to expand sound exceeding the threshold while compressing anything below it. This makes it useful for adding dynamics or even for noise reduction of a specific band.
Each band has mute and solo buttons so you can audition what is coming through a certain band, great for use during band frequency setup. There is also a bypass option which removes a band from use and reduces CPU load.
You can load and save custom presets as well as copy and paste settngs between instances. This is great if you need to setup multiple instances with the same settings.
One of the cool features is the ability to save up to 3 mixes and switch between them for comparision. These mixes are actually saved as part of custom presets and as the saved state in your DAW.
Time Machine
Time Machine is a plugin that allows you to go back to the days of vinyl and tube amplification.
If you still long for those nostalgic days of warped records, worn needles, static laden, crackle ridden vinyl then this plugin is what you’ve been waiting for. It simulates the sound of early gramophones, radiograms, record players, through to late 80’s turntables. You can either select an ‘Age’ or tweak individual settings to add warp, dust, scratches and good old fashion hiss to your recordings.
The tube emulation mimics the old valve driven amplification which can be overdriven to add a nice warm
tonal quality to your sound. It even allows you to add additional harmonics using the saturation knob to mimic the effect of tube amplification. It’s a subtle but effective way of adding character and punch to thin sounds without changing pushing them in to the realms of distortion.
When you turn on the Vinyl emulation you can choose to emulate the needle hitting the record, while the power button smoothly fades the effect in and out.
We’ve all heard those great intros that sound like a blast from the past before diving into an aural onslaught. Well this might just be the tool to help lull your audience into that false sense of security!
Chameleon
Chameleon is an AUv3 compatible sampler instrument plugin for your favourite DAW.
The program can run as a standalone app in order to record audio samples from the internal microphone or professional audio interface. It also supports incoming Inter-App Audio connections for sampling directly from other iOS applications, however it is primarily intended to be used as an AUv3 Instrument plugin for applications such as Cubasis, AUM, Auria, Meteor, Gargeband etc. The plugin can additionally be loaded as an AUv3 effect in order to record audio passing through it from other AUv3 Instrument sources, which makes it a very versatile and useful tool.
So what is a sampler? A sampler is a device that allows you to imitate other instruments with just a few short audio snippits. Although it comes with a library of presets it also allows you to create your own. You do this by recording multiple audio clips and mapping them to the notes on a MIDI keyboard and Chameleon does the rest using a sophisticated pitch shifting algorithm to fill in the blanks. Recorded samples can either be layered or mapped freely over a 7 octave range and saved as individual presets. Presets are then organised into custom categorised banks which can be exported and shared with others.
Just think, you can sample all your favourite synth sounds and carry them around on your iPhone/iPad without the inconvenience of lugging heavy gear around with you. Sample anything from musical instruments to vocal snippits, drum machines or ambient noises. The possibilities are endless.
Recording is incredible easy. Just create a New Patch and press record. Chameleon will wait for you to play a note before recording begins. Once recorded press the LEARN button and tap the note range on the virtual or MIDI keyboard to map the sample. Repeat this as many times as required, tweak the settings and save your patch. Additionally you can setup loop points with the ability to apply crossfade. If all that sounds too complicated, just press auto sample and let Chameleon do all the sampling for you.
Chameleon also has a quite sophisticated arpeggiator which allows you to create complex mixtures of notes and chords with glide, hold and re-triggering options.
On board reverb, digital delay and chorus effects are available to give your samples a more polished touch. We also include 4 touch pads for quickly dialing in on a sound or for easy effect automation. Configurable touch ADSR and modulation options are available too.
Chameleon can also import audio samples using iOS Files integration or you can make use of Copy / Paste to quickly drop one of more samples into a patch. You can also freely edit samples using the built in tools such as normalise, fade in, fade out, crop, clear options etc.
You can run Cameleon as a standalone app and map external MIDI keyboards (Bluetooth MIDI support also included) and perform audio sampling outside of your DAW. This is provided for convenience since you can’t record input when hosted as an AUv3 Instrument plugin.
Yes some DAW’s have built in samplers which only have the ability to playback libraries provided with the software. Chameleon allows you to built your own libraries of sounds and share them with others. There’s a budding rapper in you dying to get out and we have just the tool!
MultiTrack Recorder
This is an AUv3 compatible Multi-Track Recorder plugin specifically designed for AUM and other DAW’s that don’t support audio recording capabilities.
MultiTrack can be used for a host of purposes such as a tool for recording and layering audio for export to other DAW’s , creating that perfect loop for other third party applications or recording vocal sessions to accompany you in AUM. Its uses are endless.
It features the ability to record up to 8 mono or stereo audio tracks per instance, with the ability to run multiple instances under the control of your host DAW. MultiTrack has the ability to run standalone using it’s own transport or synced to a host which allows synchronous control of multiple instances.
MultiTrack supports various recording modes including the ability to set punch in and out points for sample accurate recordings. Press the Host Sync in order to the advantage of the hosts transport controls or enable the remote button to enable host recording controls (great for NS2).
Use the Audio Pool window to quickly and easily import, export and perform mix-downs of audio clips. Quickly and easily move audio files using drag and drop to the time line or between the audio pool and the Files App. Imported audio is automatically converted to the projects sample rate. The audio pool also features the ability to copy and paste audio directly from the iOS pasteboard as well as preview and manage your data.
An intergrated 8 channel mixer allows you to control the level, pan and effect send levels. Although AUM allows some great routing options for third party effects, MultiTrack also includes an extremely CPU friendly beat synced delay and reverb which can be used where recording pre-effected instruments is not an option.
MultiTrack allows per clip volume level as well as being able to control start and end cropping and fade in/out on a clip by clip basis. All these operations are quick and easy to make using the touch screen alone.
Also included is the ability to perform operations such as splitting, normalising, reversing and time stretching of audio clips all with a multi-level undo built right in. A comprehensive set of selection, copying and duplication tools make editing a breeze.
Each track has it’s own mute, solo and metering which can also be used to monitoring incoming signal levels. Finally you have the ability to mix down a selected range of your song or create perfectly looped samples for use in other DAW’s , samplers and drum machines such as DigiStix.
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