7Aliens Catanya - Music Phrase Arpeggiator

[cwig]

Surprised we havent heard anything back from 7Aliens since the 2nd . Hope its not because of all the hijacks..

He is ashamed calling such unready plug-in "arpeggiator" and selling it for 45€

Is Catanya really that bad?

No, I really like it. I don't get the hate it seems to get here. Did people expect a step sequencer?

[Optomadic]

..maybe it needs a swing adjustment? The different "grooves" seem to be about the varying the velocity, not the timing.

I agree, if theres ever a upgrade, this feature is a must! In the meantime try adding InsertPizHere's MIDI swing.
If your making your own patterns, try extending some longer than others. That changes 'the feel' of the patterns quite a bit.

Surprised we havent heard anything back from 7Aliens since the 2nd . Hope its not because of all the hijacks..

He is ashamed calling such unready plug-in "arpeggiator" and selling it for 45€

Dont do that !
Lets try to keep things constructive.
Perhaps it will motivate the Dev to consider adding some more features.

[4damind]

But it is far more advanced than your average arpeggiator.

My Arpeggiator has different directions (up,down,random,updown,...) different sort order modes (sort first, sort any, sort normal,...), easy dropping of midi sequences into the arp etc. Pitchshift, Transpose, Repeat options... And a classic mode with dozens of additional play order patterns...
Ok, this is a advanced arpeggiator (ArpacheSX from Cubase5) but some of the basic options you will find also in most average arps (eg. built-in from synth).

And now show me some of this options in "Catanya"

This plug-in is far away to be called a "advanced" arpeggiator.
Its a step sequencer player with some very basic options but a lot of average presets.

The idea to have a Arp plug-in is great! I would buy such a plug-in if it have all today expected features and some more advanced features. But sorry, this "Catanya" plug-in is only at a early stage of development, missing mostly _all_ today expected features. I would not use this plug-in if it was for free

[peterdh]

....The timing seems too mechanical, maybe it needs a swing adjustment? The different "grooves" seem to be about the varying the velocity, not the timing...

@7Aliens...You really should allow groove timing/midi import, a swing option is not enough IMO. Grid timing can sound to mechanical. The motif arpeggiator inspired you, well it's got groove timing.
I agree with 4damind, Cubase Arpache SX is a better arpeggiator, but it hasn't got many presets.

[red37]

Can you create your own patterns and modify them in your DAW. Quantize/Swing/groove etc...do it that way?

[4damind]

Can you create your own patterns and modify them in your DAW.

You can, because this are midi-effect plug-ins, so you have also the option to "export" all on the fly to a midi-track (Cubase: mix midi in loop). This is also the recommended working for all sequences, so you can manually change some different parts in the complete song later (velocity, swing, controlling of the filtersweeping if its a synth...)

But there is a wrong implementation with the Catanya plugin: Its a "synth" plugin and not a "Midi Effect" plugin, so this "export" as Midi events on the fly will not work (you must record it realtime on a extra midi track).
A later workaround could/should be a implementation of a export function or drag & drop to the host. But I think it was not the goal to have such features, its more developed as a "pattern player" and eventually to sell additional pattern packs later?

[red37]

Can you create your own patterns and modify them in your DAW.

You can, because this are midi-effect plug-ins, so you have also the option to "export" all on the fly to a midi-track (Cubase: mix midi in loop). This is also the recommended working for all sequences, so you can manually change some different parts in the complete song later (velocity, swing, controlling of the filtersweeping if its a synth...)

But there is a wrong implementation with the Catanya plugin: Its a "synth" plugin and not a "Midi Effect" plugin, so this "export" as Midi events on the fly will not work (you must record it realtime on a extra midi track).
A later workaround could/should be a implementation of a export function or drag & drop to the host. But I think it was not the goal to have such features, its more developed as a "pattern player" and eventually to sell additional pattern packs later?

This is not so bad for me....i do a lot of that similar thing already in SONAR 8PE. Then i edit the MIDI data before bouncing the part to Audio.

[7Aliens]

Hi to all,

thanks for your comments. I'm sorry not to reply earlier but I was very busy last days. I will try to compensate this by the following FAQs.

1. I want MIDI import, why there is not MIDI import, MIDI import, MIDI
import, MIDI import...

MIDI import is not created because Catanya is not MIDI player, neither step sequencer. When you look into the Sequencer book-mark you don't see proper notes but so-called transformational rules (there is missing notes height).
See following picture. There is displayed how it works and how Catanya transforms (incoming) MIDI notes. Hope that it's clear that appropriate MIDI import wouldn't work 100% correctly.

2. MIDI export, drag & drop midi to the track etc

As answered above there are used transformational rules (not MIDI notes) as internal Catanya data. It means that output MIDI notes are the result of mixing the input notes and those rules. The plugin is not able to create any output sequence when there are missing active notes at the input which are just at a timeline respectively inside your head (you are going to play them).

There is only one relatively useful solution: there will be button Record inside Catanya which allows to load an output sequence. It will be moved to the timeline using Drag&Drop after that.
So you have to:
1) press Record button (Catanya),
2) press Play button (host),
3) load the sequence,
4) stop playing (host),
5) Drag&Drop to the timeline or export as MIDI.

This seems to me contraproduktive because it is needed just to press Record inside the host and load the sequence to the track right now.
When you use Reaper it's possible to render (offline) output MIDI as new take.

3. Is there a help file?

It seems that the Tutorial videos will be enough at the beginning - seeing something is better than reading about it. Due to people wishes (classic pdf manual is required) we have to change it and it's prepared. It will be reachable on the section Download.

4. Presets

The quality of presets is problematic (due to selected tempo) in this case. For example: Techno is usually played at the interval from cca 120 to 150 bpm. The bass pattern is super-techno-cool at 150bpm but at 130 it's horrible. It is necessary to watch control Tempo on every preset. There are levels Slow (up to 90), Middle (90-120), High (120-150), Very High (higher than 150) right now. We are planning to define and show recommended tempo for every new patterns.

5. Bugs/not bugs

There is known problem with x64 Windows. As written in the requirements, Catanya is 32bit only. Usage on x64 is risk of anybody but we don't recommend it. The second problem is with Ableton Live 7.x. For version 8 it works without any problem (almost all presets were made under Ableton v.8 without any crash). We are not able to say when this problem will be solved - it's not clear if it's problem of Ableton or Catanya.

6. Another disappointments

I think that many people don't understand what Catanya is, what's its target and its main ability. It's not stupid MIDI player. It's not step sequencer either. Maybe it was mistake to call it arpeggiator because Catanya is much more. I'll try to explain you it by the following picture:

http://www.7aliens.com/images/catanyaTransform.jpg

This picture shows that there are allways transformed input notes ONLY. There are your tones on the output too, at three octaves range. It's not possible (like step sequencers, MIDI players, MIDI phraze library do) that you receive nice pattern which you can place to your composition but it doesn't harmonize. Some tones are out of the chord even out of the scale sometimes. You need to edit it hardly. This is not problem with Catanya because if you have your input chord all right then the output sequence will be ALLWAYS all right too (musically).

So try it from this point of view and we believe that you will find it great.

Wishing many wonderful compositions.

Branislav Dimos
7Aliens

[Optomadic]

Branislav thanks for taking some time to explain this to us.

I was wondering one thing though, are you planning on adding swing in a later version?

A yes or no answer will suffice.

Thanks again for any info.

[7Aliens]

Branislav thanks for taking some time to explain this to us.

I was wondering one thing though, are you planning on adding swing in a later version?

A yes or no answer will suffice.

Thanks again for any info.

Yes - in next major version.

[Optomadic]

Thanks Branislav .

[funkychickendance]

Branislav: Nice concept, and let's hope that you'll keep developing the product. I'm coming in at this stage, because i can see what you're trying to do. If i pull one or two new tune concepts out of unusual chord sequences using it, it's worth the money.

=fn<x>

[grymmjack]

branis; you should watch your tone around here man. you could get a bad rep by patronizing us.

that said, now i've gotta try this. thanks for the explanation and the time you took to explain it to us.

[serve]

branis; you should watch your tone around here man. you could get a bad rep by patronizing us.

I hope that was a joke, becuase if nothing else there was patronizing insults being flug his way from users of KVR here....

I think your statement should be applied to all. Though it should be common sense, yet common sense is often very uncommon!

My $0.02

[serve]

By the way I've just picked this device up today...And I have to say that for what its worth its an incredible little tool! No matter what you toss at it you can come up with some amazing little rifs, beats, and bass lines!

Highly recomend getting your hands on the demo!