Here are this weekend’s bunch of price drops which end November 24th.
- Oscidia – $14.99 to $7.99 (ends November 26th)
- Euclidean Sequencer – $14.99 to $8.99
- Surface Builder – $14.99 to $8.99
Oscidia
Oscidia is an AUv3 plugin for iOS which can be loaded into your favourite DAW allowing you to use it as a sound source for any MIDI source. Its wide range of features and oscillator types allow it to produce a vast variety of sounds. In particular, the inclusion of Wavetable greatly expands the traditional wave types and brings a wealth of modulation options. Oscidia has 3 oscillators per voice, and each oscillator can be a different wavetable – all working and morphing together to create some incredibly amazing sounds.
Oscidia includes SINE, SAW, SQUARE, TRIANGLE, SUPERSAW, SUPERSQUARE, WAVETABLE and ADDITIVE wave types. You can import and export compatible wavetables using drag and drop directly to the Wavetable manager. Wavetables support morphing and warping (phase distortion), all controlled by the Mod Matrix routing. The SINE and TRIANGLE wave types both support several wave folding modes which allow dramatic real-time morphing too.
Oscidia supports 5 filter types which support 12/24dB modes and morphable LP/BP/HP filter modes which can be automated from the Mod Matrix or via the Sequencer. The sequencer itself is very unique and allows up to 3 simultaneous ARPs to play at the same time. Each ARP can directly control the 3 oscillator levels independently per step, as well as the pitch, filter morph, cutoff frequency, probability, gate, note repeat and ties. This allows for complex rhythms to be created that are not tied to pitch.
Euclidean Sequencer
Euclidean Sequencer is an alternative incarnation of the classic step sequencer that has become very popular in the modular realm. It is based on Euclidean rhythms developed by computer scientist Godfried Toussaint in 2004. Euclidean rhythms have their roots in Greek mathematician Euclid’s algorithm, which involves using the greatest common divisor of two numbers to place hits in a sequence as evenly as possible across a set timing divisions.
In practice this is actually simpler than you might think, and Euclidean Sequencer is a great way to auto generate complex musical sequences with no prior knowledge of how it actually works.
Euclidean Sequencer is an AUv3 plugin that can be loaded inside any popular host application that has flexible MIDI routing.
You can define up to 4 Euclidean rhythm parts, each part is referred to as a band. The bands are labelled A-D and colour coded RED, ORANGE, GREEN and CYAN. Together these 4 bands create a pattern, and you can create up to 16 separate patterns per song patch.
Since each band can specify its own note sequence and output MIDI channel, you can create some quite sophisticated rhythms patterns, driving 4 separate instruments at once. Even better you can seamlessly switch patterns to create even longer evolving sequences. Patterns follow a specified key, scale, or defined chord.
You can even use MIDI input to automatically make note sequences conform to the currently playing chords.
Euclidean Sequencer now supports 4 different modes, traditional Euclidean, PolyRhythm, PolyMeter and PolyTempo. We have many great ways to automatically generate complex rhythms making it an invaluable tool for experimental music creation.
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.
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