Blue Cat's Plug'n Script Unleashed, with Audio and MIDI Scripting Inside!

[Blue Cat Audio]

We are happy to unveil today Blue Cat's Plug'n Script, a very particular scripting plug-in that can be programmed to quickly build custom audio and MIDI effects or virtual instruments without quitting your favorite DAW software.

With this plug-in, you can write your own processors or instruments, with very little knowledge about programming: it brings an entire development environment into your favorite DAW. It also includes 46 scripts and 120 factory presets for non programmers to use it as a multi effects processor. Read more about it on the Blue Cat's Plug'n Script page!

A special introduction offer (25% off) is available until October 15th. Also, special offers are being sent to existing Blue Cat Audio customers: check your email!

[Blue Cat Audio]

We have written a short post on our blog to give a bit more details about the plug-in and what you can expect from it:

Blue Cat’s Plug’n Script: Bringing MIDI and Audio Scripting into your DAW

[vanhaze]

Dear Blue Cat Audio,

Fantastic job on the Plug'n Scipt plugin !
I bought it right away and i find it an amazing plugin !
I instantly tried the midi fx scripts : whoop !

Can you point out for me where i can find decent info about Angelscript programming ?
I am really into Midi FX and i am interested in making my own with Angel script.

Hands down !

Rob.

[tyrell87]

Definitely looks interesting.

Quick question, though...
Can't what this plugin provides also be done with Reaktor, Flowstone (FLStudio) or Max4Live (Ableton)?

If so and you own already one of these, what would still be the advantage of this plugin over those solutions?

[Blue Cat Audio]

The plug-in is not a graphical programming language, but based on scripting (you have to write text). So there are things that are much easier to do with it, and others that may take more time. It is just different .

For example, writing MIDI filters and transforms with our plug-in is really straightforward (less than 15 lines of code is usually enough), whereas with graphical environments, it can become quite complicated. On the other hand, graphical environments may look easier to use for beginners.

[Blue Cat Audio]

@Rob: thanks for your message. Glad that you like it! The best sourceof information to write your own scripts is to start with the scripts that are included in the plug-in. MIDI FX are pretty fast to write by modifying existing ones. Just pick up one that is close to what you want to do and use the "Save As" feature to copy it to your own directory (more on that in the manual).

The AngelScript syntax has almost nothing particular compared to basic C#, C++ or Java. And writing processing scripts usually do not require much programming with classes interfaces etc.

So once you have read the existing scripts and the user manual for the plug-in that includes a couple of examples and tips, if you still need more information, you may want to look at the AngelScript Reference that covers even more things you may not need most of the advanced features btw).

We have plans to write additional tutorials as well. Feel free to ask questions in this forum, so that we have a better idea of which topics should be covered!

[ulozilla]

BlueCat Audio,
Is it possible to model filters or waveforms with this??, Also, is it possible to build a user interface for the plugins? how do you do this?

[Blue Cat Audio]

Sure it is. There are several filters and waveform generators already in the included scripts (you can check the presets).

For the user interface, if you want o build a custom one, you can create it as a skin for the plug-in. We have not provided specific examples yet in the plug-in but the next version should come with several custom user interfaces to help you get started.

[rrichard63]

I hope someone can post a quick comparison with Reaper's JS scripting language. I have been planning to learn JS but haven't started yet. Plug'n Script clearly has an advantage when a pretty user interface makes a difference. Also, Plug'n Script scripts developed in Reaper can be used in other hosts (I don't care much about that because Reaper is the only host I use). What other advantages does it have for Reaper users?

Thanks in advance.

[Blue Cat Audio]

You may want to ask the question in the DSP and Plug-in Development forum, as there might be some people using JS there.

To make things clear, we are not JS users (found the learning curve a bit too steep). But from what I could see in their documentation, I think our plug-in offers the following advantages:
- the syntax and API are probably easier to learn.
- user interface and processing code are completely independent, and a default user interface is provided based on the data model declared in the script.
- Blue Cat's Plug'n Script supports all major plug-in formats (RTAS, AAX, VST, DirectX, Audio Unit), so it is open to more DAWs and users.

There are definitely pros and cons for both, but I guess we are not the right people to talk about it

[rrichard63]

[Edit] Since posting this question, I have found a description of a KUIML element called CURVE_FROM_PARAM_OVER_TIME that might be part of the answer.

The documentation for this plugin describes 32 output variables available to a KUIML skin (and available for MIDI automation). These are named dsp.output0 through dsp.output31. It appears that each one is a scalar quantity and cannot be a vector.

The documentation for KUIML describes outputs of other Blue Cat plugins intended for drawing graphical representations using graph and 3D widgets. Do I understand correctly that Plug'n Script does not provide this kind of information to a skin?

For example, could I write a script and skin that work together to display custom x-y plots based on the audio inputs?

Thanks in advance.

[Blue Cat Audio]

The CURVE_FROM_PARAM_OVER_TIME can be used to build 2D curves from parameter changes over time. It can typically be used to display parameter history (audio levels, compression ratio etc.).

However, if your intent is to display audio data or other types of curves based on computations made in the scripts that cannot be reduced to a set of parameters, this is currently not possible with this plug-in: as you found out by yourself, only scalar data is available for the moment (if you can reduce your data to simple parameters, you can then use a FORMULA_CURVE object to create a curve with a formula using these parameters, such as "sin(dsp.output0*x)").

We intend to add support for other data types in the future (strings, curves, surfaces, raw data...), but the design has not been finalized yet.

[rrichard63]

[Edit] After posting this I found the example I am looking for in the Oscilloscope Multi plugin.

Thank you for the helpful reply. I found an example of CURVE_FROM_PARAM_OVER_TIME in Blue Cat Dynamics (the Envelopes graph) which was also very helpful.

Is there an example of a XY_CURVES_GRAPH widget in one of your other plugins that I could look at? The skinning language manual doesn't really describe the output. If you ever rewrite this manual, you should add screen shots of examples.

[Blue Cat Audio]

The Oscilloscope Multi plug-in uses this widget for the X/Y display.

The documentation is actually being moved to a new system (maintaining all these standalone html pages is too heavy), so we'll be abe to add more examples on the new version. There are actually quite a few screenshots already, but not for all widgets, that's right.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Got some time to play with our latest scripting plug-in lately? You will be happy to know that you can now share your custom scripts in our dedicated repository on GitHub.

We have included there all factory scripts for reference, and your own creations are now welcome!

Musicalentropy has already shared a couple of great scripts: several modulation effects (check out the Leslie!), non linear processors and famous filter emulations. Now show us what you can do!