I´ve just listened to the examples of the Antares Kantos. Mo matter how deep i dig in my brain, i just can´t find any use for this groundbreaking plugin. And the UI is about the uglyest i´ve ever seen. Am i just getting old and sour or is this "The Emperors New Clothes".

HC

I think you're right...it's interesting, but extremely geeky and highly specialized. Most pitch tracking/envelopefollowing stuff is that way....kind of cool in an esoteric, academic way, but it's definitely not for everyone.

Anyone disagree?...I'd also be curious if anyone thinks this is the bees knees.

spectrum

if it can really track your voice and play, I think it's a GREAT machine

just imagine: you have an idea on your mind. Just sing it! imagine if you've got an "impossible" part to play that someone else composed or you just imagined. Just sing it!

i think that if this thing works this way, it is surely amazing (at least for me)

pity it's MAC only at the moment...I'll surely buy it...!

spectrum: It’s not the beez knees yet, but I think it will be. It struck me as odd that Antares would develop an app that can extract pitch, dynamics, harmonic content and formant characteristics from a vocal performance and not store the data as Midi. This means you’re limited to using the on-board synth. I e-mailed Antares about it and they replied that they are working on implementing Midi in upcoming versions of Kantos.

When they do – I’m in. Talk about your alternative Midi controller!

"When they do – I’m in. Talk about your alternative Midi controller!"

Exactly!! If KANTOS had MIDI out,
I'd HAVE to have it. Without it, it's
just an expensive novelty in my book.
Of course, even with midi outs, the big
question is.....how well does it track.
I've been VERY disappointed in other
proggies that make the pitch2midi claim
even LS guitar synth,(which also has a
mic input), which, AFAIK, is the only
other proggie that does this in realtime.

Cheers.....CL

I'm neither a pro musician nor a pro keyboard player, so I am _very_ interested in the concept of converting audio to MIDI (to audio)...

For example: I am still fascinated by the bassline of O'Briens' 'Bernie Funk' Stylus Demo. I simply can't program a bass sound as expressive as this, but if so, I wouldn't be able to play it as expressive as this with the keyboard, at least without practicing a lot.
But I _can_ sing (grumble, articulate,...) interesting lines, and it would be damn cool, if there was a prog that transforms this noise into MIDI (and 'back' to any VSTi)...

I played with the demo of 'digital ear' and I _am_ impressed. Once a flexible and proper software was available as (VST) plugin (because of workflow reasons...) I'd sure buy it, if possible...

TabSel

Can Kantos be set to quantize the pitch of its input? It could only be of any use to me if it were capable of correcting the intonational inaccuracies of my (rather weak) singing voice - à la AutoTune, Antares' flagship product.
Even so, speaking as someone who plays keyboards, guitar and bass, I'm not short of opportunities to express my musical ideas. Kantos is relatively expensive, and I can't foresee myself investing in a product that might only occasionally be useful.

Is not Kantos the *real* VST kazoo everybody was asking for?

J.

I had a chance to play with it for an hour or so a while back, and found it full of potential (then again, I do at least one electroacoustic piece a year:eye: ). The filters are a lot of fun to muck around with, adjusting the range of the pitch tracking is easy, and the synth engine does come with a good variety of sampled waveforms. The GUI is a bit of a nightmare (in more ways than one!), but I would get it were it not for the price. Given its relative usefulness in a working studio, it should be half the price.

The gui looks like a complete nightmare. It looks like the kind of thing they would put on a screen of a computer in the background of a sci fi tv show set.

Change the 'a' in the name to a 'u'. Sorted!

i agree for the "nightmare" interface.... i use some hardware vintage synts that do this job and i find them very useful. For me all the features of kantos are not necessary, i'd be satisfied also by a more simple structure like junox, CM101 or even Tau (my korg ms 10, korg xr911, mxr guitar synth, that i use for these jobs are very basic machines)......... so a little "too much".... i like simple analoglike synts..... complexity and features are nice in FM and samplers and perhaps drum synts (like waldorf attack)

I´ve tryed pitch-to-MIDI-converters of different kind. I think the idea is cool and funny, but i have never found them really usefull. I´ve tryed to use Logics "Pitch to Score" and t.c. FireworX.
The real holy grale would be polyphonic pitchtracking, and i know for shure that a lot of skilled people around the world is trying to crack that one.

By the way: in the t.c. FireworX you can build a voicetracked synthesizer too.

Cheers
HC

Here is a Pitch to Midi Plug I'm currently trying out. It is by Polyfractus and for Mac only. It is shareware, 40 bucks if you like it....

Pretty simple to use. I only tried it once, so I'll get back to you about its usefullness.

btw, he makes a GREAT reverb (Dr. Verb)

Pitch to Midi Web page