Pulse Control is a VSTi designed to become master controller for the Waldorf Pulse/Pulse Plus from within a sequencing host. With this VSTi there is now no need to touch the unit, all controls are managed by the plugin itself as opposed to using the Pulses internal patch storage. The Pulse is a great synth with an analog filter and VCA sections, but is hampered by only having 40 user writeable presets. By using the HG Pulse Control, the Pulse effectively becomes the same as any other VSTi in the sense that patches are stored with each project and reloaded automatically.

On top of this, the VSTi also adds a second advanced Arpeggiator, programmable sequencer, Modulation Sequencer, a Gate Sequencer, 2 x 32 stage envelopes (with repeat), an LFO and random voltage which can be used via a second dedicated Modulation Matrix. These features transform the Pulse into a much more powerful and versatile instrument. Finally inline with other Homegrown synths, there are randomization and default buttons for every section as well as an adjustable Global Random/Default.

There is a fully functional demo version available to download from the product page which works for 10 mins in each session.

MORE INFORMATION

Looks nice. Has this been tested in the NI Maschine environment?

Cool! I'd like something like this for my Slim Phatty! (and not the Rekon crap non-working-too-expensive plugin)

aikighost: No I haven't got access to it, if you can route the VST midi out to the Midi Out in Maschine it should work fine! The demo is fully functional for 10 minutes per session so you can try it, please report back if you do

T-CM11: Do you know if all of the slim phatty controls are controllable via midi CCs? If so it should be easy to build a version for it. The extra features would only work with CCs as sysex hogs the data stream and so sending an LFO via sysex wouldn't be possible. I would imagine that the SP makes good use of CCs though?

Andy

Yep! And all CC's are listed in the back of the manual (online)

I would love to see something like this for the Waldorf Blofeld and would buy it immediately!

The problem is that I can only do it with something that I own, I would love to own a slim phatty and a blofeld. Without the actual instrument it would be impossible really, especially for the presets. The idea was to do this for other synths, but it relies on me being able to get hold of one! The Blofeld is fairly cheap though and may be a possibility as long as it has plenty of CCs.

I have thought about making something generic, although it wouldn't be as fully featured as the Pulse Control, it would be possible to create CC maps for any instrument in theory. The one problem with this is making presets, which would probably sound completely different on each synth. I'm also unsure how well the system would work on polyphonic synths as the sequencers can only be monophonic although that may be interesting in itself.

Anyway, I'm thinking about it all, I started with the intention of just building a simple VSTi controller for the Pulse, because I wanted it. I didn't imagine how far I could take it, v1.1 has made the Pulse into something similar to an Evolver, having independent control over each oscillator.

I've just borrowed an MS2000R to explore, so that may be next..

Hi,

Very nice work! I bought a copy yesterday and I've been playing with it all day.
Every Pulse owner should have a copy - it slays the other commercial offering and offers so much more.

A couple of FRs if I may be so bold:

- The knobs seem to have a very long travel time.
- Could you add the cross-mod option for Osc2?

Also, it could be my system but when using the Arp, sometimes I get a stuck note that even the Panic button won't kill, requiring a restart.

Overall I'm impressed. You may have found a nice niche here...

Cheers

Thanks I was surprised how far I could take it.

I'll see if I can speed up the knobs a bit.

I was hoping to work on the update this week, but unfortunately other things have got in the way, I'm hoping to work on it on Friday.

The Arp won't be a problem, it is being replaced in the next version by the new ARP (see my other newest plugin) which is far superior offering note scaling. I rebuilt it from scratch so it should be bulletproof in the dropped notes department. I think there is a bug with the panic button in that it doesn't take into account the midi channel being used. I'll make it send on all channels in the next update.

I've had another request for cross mod, which setting is it I didn't see it in the manual?

Glad you like it! I've been looking for potential other instruments to do it with (and affordable). I've borrowed a Microwave 2 which seems like a good candidate. I'm also working on a plugin for the Akai sgo1v which turns it into a much more powerful beast from the point of view of building layered patches and one finger sequencing. I've never explored interacting with hardware before surprisingly but it's enjoyable

take care
Andy

Hi Andy,

The new Arp seems tasty .

Cross-mod is an oscillator type only available to OSC2. See page 21 of the manual.

Looking forward to the next version, but don't let me rush you!

Cheers!

first, i really like to see that anybody is still making editors for hardware synthesizers! thats great!
your works looks awesome! but i'm not able to use it because im on mac and logic.
but maybe it's possible for you to port your software to OSX. at best it would be a AU plug in. but i would buy it too, if it would work standalone on OSX.

I would love to do cross platform plugins, but to do it I need to buy Juce really which is a hefty price tag. I was thinking of doing some sort of pledge idea to fund it if enough people are interested, although I was thinking of doing it for ARP initially. I dabbled with cross platform last year, but found it quite frustrating whereas Juce is very well organised and maintained.

I'll be working on the update tomorrow.

1.2 update is released:

* Newly Developed Arp engine installed with Polyphonic Mode for chained Pulses (although it can be interesting with 1 Pulse as well!).

* Scale Mapper, mainly for use with the Arp, each note can have a distinct scale to squash the sequence into.

*Clock send now disabled by default, enabled via the send clock button in the master section.

*Panic will now send on all 16 channels, just in case the plugin has been routed externally to a differing channel to the plugin channel.

*Cross Modulation Oscillator Mode added to Oscillator 2.

I gotta make room in my weekend to play with this!

1.21 update released that fixes compatibility issues with hosts that apparently need midi VST plugins to have Audio outputs (such as Ableton Live). Dummy outputs have been added