4Pockets have announced this week’s round of price drops. The offers end October 14th.
- Surface Builder – $12.99 to $8.99
- NuRack – $12.99 to $8.99
- MIDI Layers – $9.99 to $6.99
- Vocal Soloist – $9.99 to $6.99
Surface Builder
Surface Builder is a tool for creating control surfaces that send MIDI data to one or more audio components in order to simplify remote control tasks. You start by creating a surface of a given size, adding buttons, knobs, faders, etc. to the surface and configuring them to generate the required MIDI output. Surface Builder allows you to send note on/off, controller change and program change values as well as being able to emulate modulation wheel and pitch bend data. Buttons can also be configured to send bulk MIDI data using a single key press. You can build surfaces that span multiple scenes and link between them for large complex interfaces.
Incoming MIDI data can also be used to control or trigger elements of the interface, giving a bi-directional stream of MIDI data. Surface Builder can be added as a pure MIDI plugin which allows processing of MIDI only, or as an instrument plugin, allowing you to process audio passing through it. You can even load it as an intrument and configure a surface to start and stop audio clips either manually or remotely.
Surface Builder was designed to be used as an AUv3 plugin within your favourite DAW, but it can also be used in standalone to send MIDI directly to MIDI hardware using direct access to their MIDI ports.
Many different object types are supported including buttons, switches, lights, rotary knobs, faders, sliders, XY-Pad, keyboards, as well as text, image and box objects. Each object has many different styles and colours, so no two surfaces look the same.
Drag and drop an audio file onto a button and that button becomes a clip player. Attach rotary knobs to control the clips volume and pan. Throw on top of that a LP/HP filter knob and you are cooking on gas. Drop PNG transparent image icons on buttons to customise the look and feel.
A button can record and playback bulk MIDI commands, on both button press and release. So pressing a button could send the notes of a chord when pressed, and appropriate note offs on release.
A surface can consist of up to 6 scenes for really complex designs. Buttons and switches can be used to switch scenes and also to show and hide other objects to make better use of screen space. Once your surface is complete switch to presentation mode to hide all the toolbars. Each surface can be saved with compressed audio and images all in a single surface file.
NuRack
NuRack is an AUv3 based multi-channel audio and MIDI effects processor with a difference, it actually allows you to design your own custom effects using the 80+ building blocks provided. You have full control over routing which allows you to create complex audio paths in series or parallel. You can choose whether to use the stock interface or create your own custom interface using the built in Interface Builder which allows you to concentrate your audio components into a single customized effect.
NuRack can run in one of two modes. The first providing 3 customizable effects racks which can be switched (manually or via MIDI), providing seemless switching (i.e. delay trails linger whilst another set of effects are faded in). The second mode allows you to route audio through 3 independent audio racks.
A generaous number of over 80 audio and midi building blocks are provided covering 12 different categories of effects. Here are just some of those included in NuRack:
Modulation Effects: Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Tremolo, Vocal Doubler, TalkBox, UniVibe, Leslie & Vocoder.
Time Based Effects: Stereo Delay, Tape Delay, Reverb and Reverse Delay.
Spectral Effects: Parametric EQ, Graphic EQ, PitchShift, Auto-Pan, Bit-Crusher, Tube Overdrive, Distortion, Harmony, Harmonic Exciter and SlowMo.
Dynamic Effects: VelocityControl, Compressor, Multi-Band Compressor, Noise Gate, Gate, and Limiter.
Filter Effects: MultiFilter, LP/HP Filter, Frequency Splitter, MultiBand Splitter, Classic Filters, Formant Filter, Ring Modulation and Shelf Filter.
MIDI Effects: MIDI Harmony, MIDI Velocity, MIDI Randomizer, MIDI Monitor, MIDI Mixer, MIDI Pads, MIDI Control, Strummer, MIDI Recorder, MIDI Modulation, MIDI Remap, CC Monitor, CC Generator, PitchBend, MIDI Time Clock, and ChordToMidi.
Generator Modules: Noise, Audio Clip Launcher, SoundFont Player, Virtual Flute, Virtual Clarinet, Virtual Brass, FM Organ, FM Rhodes and Analog Sawtooth Synth.
Automation: TouchPad, AutoMate, Pattern Automation, and Visual LFO.
You also provide the ability to split and combine audio signal using splitters and mixer modules as well as a number of visual elements such as VU Meters, LED Meters, Scopes, Graphs etc.
Some effects such as phaser and flanger are usually controlled by an LFO, but this can be detached and automated remotely. There are a number of modules that allow auomation based on direct touch (X/Y Pads), Visual LFO, Pattern Automation, MIDI input (CC data), or peak/rms level detection. These automation modules can remotely control knobs and sliders throughout your rack.
Simply create a new rack and start adding modules to it. These modules are generally wired up automatically but these connections can be manually routed. Once you have your sound as you wish you can use it ‘as is’, or switch to Interface Builder mode where you can combine all your modules into a single interface. Elements can be dragged, dropped, resized and coloured as required. Add your own labels, image logos and custom backgrounds before saving your custom component.
Use the X/Y Pad to control your modulation effects by detaching their LFO’s. Use MIDI CC data to automate knobs. Use the velocity of an incoming signal to control the cutoff/resonance of a filter (wah) or volume level of a gain control (swell), as NuRack expands, so do the possibilities.
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.
Vocal Soloist
The Vocal Soloist plugin was specifically designed for adding harmonies and basic auto tuning frunctionality to recorded vocal lines. It is specifically tuned to the frequency range of the human voice and tracks the incoming vocal frequency attempting to tune to the desired musical key and mode of your song.
This effect works in real-time and is able to track a monophonic input creating a convincing harmony at either a specified number of semitones or a key/scale offset. The auto tune allows you to snap to the nearest semitone in chromatic mode, or scale note when a key / mode is selected.
We have also included our very popular vocal doubler and reverb to give added presence and thickness to your vocal lines.
The effect includes MIDI control over pitch. If your DAW (such as AUM) supports sending key on/off information to the effect you can directly control the pitch of the harmony. For those DAW’s that do not support this you are able to route MIDI from one instance of Vocal Soloist to another instance listening on the same bus.
The effect also includes controls for defining your own scales as well as controlling vibrato.
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