I am developing a Windows only VST plugin currently which is a Sample Based Drum Machine with many features. It has 10 parts and tons of randomization option like the other HGS stuff. It can be played in the usual way via midi as a standard drum kit, but also has a sequencer for building up grooves, and the grooves can also be played via the midi keyboard. There is one key that triggers the entire loop, and subsequent keys trigger each part sequence, which allows for a breakbeat kind of improvisation.

There is also an overall mixer which allows access to many parameters from a single screen and makes stuff like dubbing very easy. You can also randomize from here, so for example you can randomize all Pitches or resonance etc...

Also includes a Modulation Sequencer and a few random value generators which can be assigned to each part.

The FX section has Reverb, Delay, Flanger/Filter, Gate, Compressor & Limiter.

Also has Pitch Shift and a Time stretch type effect.

The greatest feature is that it has the ability to record Loop Perfect Samples and automatically name them and put them in a Folder by BPM. You can easily produce hundreds of loops with little effort that are ready to import into any sampler/sequencer.

Finally it comes with a lot of great drum samples and has the ability to create you own banks by simply placing a folder of samples in the installed samples folder (the same as the way Orgone works).

Pricing isn't set in stone yet, but there will be 2 licenses, a personal license and a commercial license. The commercial license will allow using it to create products that you can sell, ie; loop CDs/Packs. The personal license will allow creating loops for yourself and for using in your own productions. I decided this because it is so stupidly easy to make a great sample CD in a few hours with very little effort

Anyhow, I'm looking for some beta testers to run it through the mill, a first beta should be ready possibly by next week. I thought I would try and get some people interested in advance. You must be willing to test out the software as fully as possible with each release and provide feedback via this forum, and in return you will get a free personal license when it is officially released. You must also agree to not share the software and that's about it

Anyhow anyone interested, please reply to this thread and I'll keep everyone informed from here. You could also create an account on hgsounds.com in readyness and state your username in this post, which will make life easier for me when setting the site permissions.

I'm not sure how many testers I am after as yet but it will be 1st come first serve!

take care
Andy

[edit] - Thought I'd also add this info which is later in the thread:

The GUI is still under development unfortunately, once the main GUI is ready I will release the beta, but I'll give you some ideas on what it will be like:

This is the first VST I've done as a collaboration and the Synth itself is being designed by a colleague (Andreas) so it looks nothing like my previous designs. It is a hardware emulation with many knobs and also an LCD screen which has some features tucked away on panels. We are trying to make it look as hardware as possible, to keep the front clean and simple.

The top 2 rows of knobs will have the settings for each drum part which are Vol, Pan, Cutoff, Reso, sample start, attack, release, Pitch, Drive, Velocity, Vel-Filter, and 3 effect sends to Reverb, Delay and Flanger. This is per drum part so you select from one to 10 to edit the specific part.

The LCD Screen is still being worked out, I have some programming to do to make this happen, but essentially (subject to change) along the top is the 1-10 edit boxes, and another set of panels that will expose extra settings for the FX, Master or Section Modulation. These settings appear in the bottom part of the LCD. Also near the top is the Bank and Sample selection for the current part. There is also randomize buttons and a few master setting in here too.

Below this is 2 rows of knobs for the FX which are Reverb, Delay, Flanger and Compressor.

On the right side there is 4 sets of buttons * 10 which represent a strip for each part. Top line are Drum Triggers, Second is Sequence triggers, Third is Solo, and the Fourth is OFF/ON.

Below that are the Master controls which is Volume, FX Mix, Humanize, Swing, Cutoff, Resonance, Release and Pitch. The last 3 affect all the parts so that the relationship between these settings on each part is maintained. Also the Pitch has normal mode, delay based shift, or timestretch which can create some crazy sounds

Finally below that is the Record Controls, Noise Gate and Limiter, although I may not keep the Limiter controls, I still want to asses how useful they are. The output is always limited anyway.

That's the front panel, but there is also some screens for The Modulation/LFO Page, the main mixer and the sequencer. The GUI for this still needs much work which will come after we have the front finalized. The idea at the moment is to keep in with the virtual hardware theme by having it as a virtual Monitor that would plug into the back of the unit.

Hopefully that will give you some idea of what to expect, any of this may change as it is still work in progress and as it is an international project it takes a bit longer to get through the dev cycle but will be worth the wait I think.

There are still lots of problems to address but I would say that it is 80-90% functional currently. The humanize and Swing need some work as the existing solution freaks out in FL and probably some other hosts, so some programming is needed there.

as soon as I have more solid info/ screen grabs I'll put them up in this thread, so keep watching.

[edit] A bit about the sequencer I added further in thread added here as well:

Well the sequencer is currently just for creating a single loop from 32 steps, and has a Gate Sequencer style layout (like the Astralis Synths). Each line can have its own tempo and loop length so you can do thing like have hits come in over a long period, or have a 3 beat part overlaid. This can make long evolving loops when the whole loop is played, but the main intended way of utilizing this is to use the midi keyboard to trigger each part and jam the rhythm track out live. It is similar to using sampler loops, except you have a midi key assigned to each of the drum parts, and of course because it is midi, tempo changes aren't a problem.

Also for each track there is a random pattern, or a random one selected from a database of preset patterns. It also has shift left/right and a few other features. This bit is still being worked on, so may change.
Last edited by Astralp on Sat Dec 27, 2008 10:46 am; edited 4 times in total

count me in!
I'm "maxdis" on hgsounds.com

Hi Maxdis

I've added the role to your account but the first beta won't be available until next week at least.

Thanks for taking part What Host/s do you use and what is your CPU?

I'm in. I'm ZombyWoof also at HGsounds.com.

I'd love to participate.
ljefe at hgsounds.

I'm using Reaper on:

Intel Core2 quad Q6600 2.4GHz
Intel P35
2GB Kingston RAM
Radeon HD 2400 Pro 256MB graphics card
Win XP Pro
Frontier Design WaveCenter PCI sound card

Hello Astralp,

I'm interested in beta testing

I'm registered as elxicano at hgsounds.com


I'm a windows xp user 2gig of ram on a Intel dual core processor.

edit:

I'm a Ableton Live user (7.0.12)

interested too

My setup:

- Intel P45, Intel E5200, 4GB RAM
- onboard Realtek audio
- OS: Vista 64bit, Main Host: testdriving Reaper
- Controllers: edirol pcr-300 keyboard controller, korg padkontrol, wacom stylus tablet

I play guitar, keys (both barely

count me in also, I'm stanlea everywhere, except on porn sites.

+1
zmies at hgsounds also.

This sounds very promising. I'm game!

Same user name at your site too.
Last edited by Optomadic on Thu Dec 04, 2008 4:59 am; edited 1 time in total

Reaper / Usine

Intel Core2 Duo E2160
2Gb RAM
Windows Xp


Intel Core2 Duo T9400
4 Gb RAM
Windows Vista

Ok, I've added all of you except Evan, what is your hgsounds user name?

Thanks to you all for helping out!

If its not too late:

azreul @ hgsounds

Intel Q6600, 2Gb, XP - Mainly use eXT 1 & 2 and sometimes Orion & Renoise

I'd sure go for it. Just finished Beta testing the new Pianissimo VST from Acoustica. Might as well try another, lol.

I run Vista on a AMD 3800+, 1gb ram. My main DAW is FL Studio 8. I also use Sonar, Cubase, Mixcraft 4, Ton of other Audio apps... Hundreds of VSTs.

I'm always interested in new plugins under development. Glad to help, especially if it means a new VST in the arsenal! lol

Peace,
jdt-Shades of Gray Recording

azreul you are added, glad to see you onboard

jdt did you join hgsounds, if so what's your username? (see top post)

thanks to you both!