Blue Cat's PatchWork 1.5 (now 1.6) and MB-7 Mixer 2.4 Released

[Blue Cat Audio]

Hi,

We are happy to release an update for Blue Cat's PatchWork and MB-7 Mixer plug-ins, improving compatibility with third party plug-ins and adding new interoperability features.

Both plug-ins can now load more VST and Audio Unit plug-ins (fixing compatibility issues with several plug-ins manufacturers). For improved interoperability between systems, plug-ins' state are now retained even if the plug-ins are missing, and VST plug-ins can be relocated if moved. The new PatchWork 1.5 plug-in also supports MIDI FX Audio Units and can be loaded as a MIDI FX in Logic Pro X to quickly build complex MIDI effects chains (full change list below).

The update is free for existing customers and is available for download from the same page as the initial purchase (link received by email). Demo versions can also be downloaded on www.bluecataudio.com, in VST, RTAS, AAX, Audio Unit and DirectX formats, for both Mac and PC (32 and 64-bit).

New Features for both plug-ins:
- Missing VST plug-ins can now be relocated if not found.
- The plug-in now saves missing plug-ins' state so that they can be restored later.
New Features for Blue Cat's PatchWork 1.5:
- The Audio Unit can now be loaded as a MIDI FX in Logic Pro X.
- MIDI FX Audio Units can now be loaded into the plug-in.

Fixes and compatibility improvements for both plug-ins:
- Fixed issue on Mac when loading sessions created on Windows using VST plug-ins in sub-directories.
- Fixing compatibility issues with several plug-ins that used to crash when unloaded (Image Line, MeldaProduction, Catanya...).
- VST Plug-in name is now displayed when loaded from a missing VST shell bundle (instead of just the name of the bundle).
- (Mac) Fixed random crashes when using keyboard shortcuts in the host application to switch between plug-ins or tracks.
Fixes and compatibility improvements for Blue Cat's PatchWork 1.5:
- (Mac) Fixed parameters not available for mapping when Audio Unit bridged with SoundRadix's 32Lives.
- (Mac) Fixed parameters mapped with wrong range for some Audio Units (u-he, AAS...).
- (Mac) Fixed parameter changes sent from host not visible in the user interface for some Audio Units (u-he...).
Fixes and compatibility improvements for Blue Cat's MB-7 Mixer 2.4:
- (Mac) Fixed crash introduced in 2.3 when trying to load missing VST plug-ins.
- (Mac) Fixed crash after closing the editor of an Audio Unit plug-in loaded with SoundRadix's 32Lives.

Pricing:
Blue Cat's PatchWork: 59 EUR or $79 (VAT excluded).
Blue Cat's MB-7 Mixer: 99 EUR or $129 (VAT excluded).

Enjoy!

[sinkmusic]

- Missing VST plug-ins can now be relocated if not found.
- The plug-in now saves missing plug-ins' state so that they can be restored later.

Nice !
Thank you for the constant uppdates, BlueCat !

[dumbledog]

Can you give an example of where you'd use Patchwork as a MIDI FX? As far as I know Logic's built-in plugins aren't usable by Patchwork (or at least I haven't been able to add Space Designer or whatever as an effect) so apart from your Plug'n'Script we're pretty much limited to the few 3rd Midi FX plugins out there, and the only ones I've seen are arps like Cthulhu and Cream.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Logic stock plug-ins cannot be loaded by third party apps or plug-ins, that's right. However, in addition to our scripting plug-in that lets you do anything (and chaining it into PatchWork is really valuable) and the plug-ins mentioned above, I think you can also use Reaktor to create MIDI effects. There are probably other VSTs out there that have MIDI capabilities.

[woodsdenis]

You can now use any VST arp in Logic, Thesys for example without having to go throughout the IAC bs. Great job guys !!!!

[Ah_Dziz]

Any chance you guys are gonna have vst3 support?

JJ

[dumbledog]

Logic stock plug-ins cannot be loaded by third party apps or plug-ins, that's right.

Hate to be that guy, but this really should be mentioned in the product page. It's pretty reasonable to look at the list of plugins in Logic, see this:



... and figure at least some of the Apple plugins are available as AU, if not the built-ins as well. Or at least that's what I figured when I bought it without giving this a second thought. I still use it for Dexed and shame on me I guess for reading between the lines but a disclaimer would seem kindof prudent.

On the plus side, Patchwork does fix a nasty bug in the Plug and Mix AUs wherein Logic will hang after bouncing a track containing them, so there's that.

[dumbledog]

You can now use any VST arp in Logic, Thesys for example without having to go throughout the IAC bs. Great job guys !!!!

Snap that should include BueARP as well, although I'm not able to trigger notes yet. Gotta read the instructions more thoroughly, argh.

(Edit: Durrrrr, just a matter of setting the "Midi Out" in Patchwork to "All" )

[Blue Cat Audio]

Logic "plug-ins" are are not Audio Unit plug-ins, since they cannot be loaded by any third party application.

However, as explained in the manual:

if you want to load the system Audio Units provided by Apple, you will need to open the CoreAudio component located in the /System/Library directory

So you can load all the Apple Audio Units too .

VST3 may be supported in the future, but it is definitely not a priority compared to other features in the todo list: most plug-ins are available as VST2 and/or AU, and many VST3s are actually less stable than their VST2 counter part.

[dumbledog]

More specifically, it looks like it's in:

/System/Library/Components/CoreAudio.component

From where you get a dropdown (see below) to choose one of the components. Their interfaces look like crap but I wouldn't be surprised to find the built-ins to just be wrappers for these anyway. Thanks.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Yes, the default CoreAudio UIs are indeed not very nice, but the sound remains the same...

[Blue Cat Audio]

You might be interested in knowing that Blue Cat's PatchWork 1.6 has been released. The main news is that it is now also available as a standalone host application, but the new release also includes several improvements for the plug-ins versions:

See Blue Cat's PatchWork 1.6 announcement on KVR

[Breeze]

I replied in the host's section, so sorry for the crosspost: does this mean that I can save a setup as a standalone and recall it when I use PatchWork as a plugin within a DAW? It's one of my favorite workflow processes with Chainer, which is now really showing it's age with incompatibilities and 32-bit limitations, and which I've been dying to replace.

Does this also mean that you can load PatchWork as a plugin within PatchWork? So you can load a previously saved chain of VIs in one slot and a previously saved processing chain in another?

[rasmusklump]

Hi,

I love the standalone version but have two problems (one if it minor) with it:
When I change the buffer size on my audio interface (RME Fireface UFX, Windows 7 64bit) I have to restart Patchwork to work again.
Hosted plugins keep their position after restarting but the main interface starts always centered.


Cheers
Alex

[Blue Cat Audio]

As posted in the other thread, yes you can share the presets between all plug-ins versions and the standalone application. It also works in most cases between windows and Mac.

PatchWork of PatchWorks is indeed also possible, as explained in the user manual:

Patchwork of Patchworks

When using complex routings and many plug-ins, you may want to reuse parts of your effects configurations as modules. In this case, using several instances of the Patchwork plug-in into another one and using presets for predefined configurations will do the trick!

And since you can give each plug-in a custom name, it doesn't matter if the plug-in in a slot is already a patchwork of patchworks of patchworks of...

If you are crazy enough, you can also create maps of sub-maps of sub-maps of parameters to control specific parameters of a sub-patchwork with a MIDI control surface or a knob in the main patchwork app. Time to get some sleep I guess