Sanford Vector Pad - Released!

[Leslie Sanford]

I'm releasing a vector pad MIDI controller plugin for Windows.



Also included is the Sanford Mixer:



The Sanford Vector Pad is a powerful MIDI plugin that lets you control four MIDI sources at once using only your mouse.

The Sanford Vector Pad sends four separate MIDI controller messages in response to your mouse movements. You can configure which controller types are sent as well as their MIDI channel.

The UI provides a grid section for mouse interaction as well as output meters to let you know the value of all four controllers at all times. Together these controls make using the vector pad intuitive and easy.

Included with the Sanford Vector is the Sanford Mixer. The Sanford Mixer was especially designed to work with the Sanford Vector Pad. Using them together will let you dynamically control the mix of four audio sources. You can even create vector synthesis by running four instances of your favorite synth through the Sanford Mixer and controlling the volume of each instance with the Sanford Vector Pad.

Key Features

· Control four MIDI sources at once
· Intuitive grid UI
· Powerful configuration options for MIDI controllers
· MIDI Learn for every parameter
· All parameters can be automated

The Sanford Vector Pad is $15. You can try out the demo here:

Sanford Vector Pad

Here's an example of the Sanford Vector Pad controlling the Sanford Mixer. I'm running four instances of Cobalt through the mixer and using the vector pad/mixer to create vector synthesis:

Vector Synthesis

[yellowfever]

I won't be buying these but I just wanted to congratulate you on the superb graphics you produce. I have the reverb, which is great btw and your graphics really are some of the best out there. I hope this sells by the bucketload for you

[grymmjack]

sick. leslie you realize you're building a modular almost by now? very cool.

[red37]

I'll be having a shufty at this Les. Thanks for the info.

[Compyfox]

Hm... if it's in C++ and it runs in Cubase, I might consider getting it for morphing stuff...

Keeping an eye on it for sure.

[Reverend Rhythm]

Most excellent idea!

[grymmjack]

compyfox; it's C++ 100%.

les: this is a blast! with this, your arp, and some LFO plugs, one can make the coolest stuff.

for instance one of the cooler parts of the jupiter8 by arturia i loved was the galaxy modulator:


i can get pretty close to this with ANY vst's now with 2 instances of your LFO and the vector pad.. piping this through to the vector mixer is hugely cool too.

man i have an energy xt that has 4 cobalts, 2 LFOs, vector pad, vector mixer, and i'm having a total blast building a mega-cobalt. really fun stuff.

was thinking it could be cool to share some energyxt rigs for examples? i could make some for ext1 and ext2 for you if you want. this way people who already own cobalt and buy the vector pad/mixer combo (and odds are they'd probably own energyxt?) could get busy immediately... of course part of the fun of these types of plugins is the patching

pretty awesome stuff. cant wait to see what is next. you're my favorite developer these days

[grymmjack]

here's a screenshot of my megacobalt so far. going to add outboard fx using your verb, chorus, phaser and filter

[Nielzie]

here's a screenshot of my megacobalt so far. going to add outboard fx using your verb, chorus, phaser and filter

Wow, you really got an interesting setup there grymmjack. I own Cobalt, Sanford Reverb and eXT2 myself. Thinking about purchasing the Vector Pad, LFO and Arpeggiator now too

And these are indeed nice building blocks for a modular aproach to a mega Cobalt (version 2) ?

[Leslie Sanford]

I won't be buying these but I just wanted to congratulate you on the superb graphics you produce. I have the reverb, which is great btw and your graphics really are some of the best out there. I hope this sells by the bucketload for you

Thank you! I appreciate that. It's taken a long time to learn how to create UI's for my plugins, lots of studying and practising. It's great to get some positive feedback.

[mellotronaut]

what about a midi-kilt bundle? (lfo, arp, adsr and vector-pad)

[red37]

I must be having a brainfart - does anyone using SONAR 8 know how to describe setting this up and using it to control a VSTi? I cant seem to configure it to do anything. Midi cc's just confuse the hell out of me....i think cc 'O' is modwheel right? Tried that using a combo of Les' Vectorpad and Sylenth 1 - nothing happened. I had the output of Vectorpad going into Sylenth etc...help if possible would be highly appreciated. Ive probably got the wrong end of the stick anyway!

Thanks

[Leslie Sanford]

I must be having a brainfart - does anyone using SONAR 8 know how to describe setting this up and using it to control a VSTi? I cant seem to configure it to do anything. Midi cc's just confuse the hell out of me....i think cc 'O' is modwheel right? Tried that using a combo of Les' Vectorpad and Sylenth 1 - nothing happened. I had the output of Vectorpad going into Sylenth etc...help if possible would be highly appreciated. Ive probably got the wrong end of the stick anyway!

The ModWheel is CC 1. On the Vector Pad UI, each of the four controllers let you set which CC message they send. There's 128 of them, and you may need to hold the shift key down to fine tune the knob when adjusting the CC value.

[edit]Oops, I just reread your message and realized you already have the MIDI output from the vector pad going into Sylenth, so you didn't need the below tutorial[/edit]

Anyway, on to Sonar.

Start by inserting the vector pad as a synth instrument from the main menu:

Insert->Soft Synth->Vstplugins->SanfordVectorPadDemo

(assuming you put the demo in the VstPlugins folder)

Make sure you enable MIDI Output.

Next insert the target synth on another track. Click on the MIDI track. Here's a screen shot showing how to set up this track so that it receives MIDI input from all sources:



This makes sure the target synth gets MIDI from all sources. For example, you may have a USB controller connected to your computer. You'd like for your target synth to receive MIDI from the keyboard as well as the vector pad.

There may be other ways of hooking this up in Sonar. Sonar is maybe the most frustrating environment I've run into for doing this sort of thing.

[red37]

Thanks for the explanation Les...much appreciated. However, ive followed those guidelines above and i cannot get Vectorpad to do anything (that i can see or hear) inside Sonar. I must be doing something wrong surely. I'll have another crack at it later.

Thanks again.

[Leslie Sanford]

Thanks for the explanation Les...much appreciated. However, ive followed those guidelines above and i cannot get Vectorpad to do anything (that i can see or hear) inside Sonar. I must be doing something wrong surely. I'll have another crack at it later.

Sorry for the problems, man. It can be tricky in Sonar.

One important point: make sure the CC values in the vector pad match values in your target synth. For example, I've set up the vector pad to control the cutoff frequency in the V-Station by assigning the CC value for the B controller to 105. I set the A controller to 106 to control the V-Station's resonance parameter.

I had to consult the documentation for the V-Station to discover which CC I needed for the cutoff frequency and resonance.

CC values are just numbers in the range of 0-127. Many synth makers, both software and hardware, assign controllers to parameters on their synth. There's a few standard ones like the modulation wheel and volume, but but many times the choice is arbitrary, e.g. assigning controller 105 to the cutoff frequency like the V-Station did.

If you have any questions, let me know. It's helpful to know the challenges folks face using these plugins so that I can hopefully provide information that makes using them easier.