BlueARP VST Arpeggiator development - let's discuss! (Apple M1 ready, 4K)

[David]

Hello, and MANY thanks for this wonderful MIDI-FX creation; it's truly marvelous and quite unique! I'm a sort of MIDI-FX collector and am ashamed to admit I'd overlooked BlueArp until recently—quite foolishly—but am now super impressed:)

(btw, I encountered it while beta testing a soon to be released plugin from PluginGuru (called Unify), in which many different MIDI-FX instances can be assigned to multiple layers at once, each layer hosting any vst or au you've got, including lots of unique instruments from the guru himself (lots more info on his YTube channel here: ), which also includes BlueARP by default, so many thanks, too, for agreeing to be part of that exciting project!)


Anyway, a few questions:
I'm still not exactly clear on file management with BlueArp, and would love to hear what people have settled on as best practices and workflows concerning Banks and Presets. I really don't want to mess around with the default B-Arp settings inside Unify so any Unify patch sharing that references BlueArp presets remains seamless, but I do want to start building, and maybe also sharing, my own bank(s) and/or presets, and safely trying out a few I've found online.
So, can saved .fxb and .fxp files simply be stored and loaded from anywhere? Is there no way to simply save a new preset to an empty slot, or to overwrite an edited slot, in any existing bank without having to create a new file that has to be stored to, and recalled from, somewhere else?

Also, I'm totally wowed by the Chain feature! I've been getting great results just kind of randomly stacking up presets, and have noticed that it's very possible to edit preset parameters in the chain, without having to edit the presets themselves (I then save the results internally in Unify as part of a Unify preset or layer template, rather than externally via the B-Arp Menu, since as reported above I can't figure out how to do that yet).
So, what I'm looking for is a way to make edits to chained presets inside the Preset with the chain without having to do that as fast as possible as they fly by when the arp (and Chain) is running! Is editing the individual Presets one-by-one the only way? It's much better to do that in the context of an existing chain, imo, so I'm hoping there IS a way! So far, I've had some success with the Page Lock function whenever I manage to invoke it while the preset I want to edit is active in the running chain, but that's not always easy to manage, and seems kinda kludgy…

Thanks again, and MANY thanks in advance for some clues on moving forward with my new-fav MIDI FX:)

[graywolf2004]

Hello, and MANY thanks for this wonderful MIDI-FX creation; it's truly marvelous and quite unique! I'm a sort of MIDI-FX collector and am ashamed to admit I'd overlooked BlueArp until recently—quite foolishly—but am now super impressed:)

(btw, I encountered it while beta testing a soon to be released plugin from PluginGuru (called Unify), in which many different MIDI-FX instances can be assigned to multiple layers at once, each layer hosting any vst or au you've got, including lots of unique instruments from the guru himself (lots more info on his YTube channel here: ), which also includes BlueARP by default, so many thanks, too, for agreeing to be part of that exciting project!)


Anyway, a few questions:
I'm still not exactly clear on file management with BlueArp, and would love to hear what people have settled on as best practices and workflows concerning Banks and Presets. I really don't want to mess around with the default B-Arp settings inside Unify so any Unify patch sharing that references BlueArp presets remains seamless, but I do want to start building, and maybe also sharing, my own bank(s) and/or presets, and safely trying out a few I've found online.
So, can saved .fxb and .fxp files simply be stored and loaded from anywhere? Is there no way to simply save a new preset to an empty slot, or to overwrite an edited slot, in any existing bank without having to create a new file that has to be stored to, and recalled from, somewhere else?

Also, I'm totally wowed by the Chain feature! I've been getting great results just kind of randomly stacking up presets, and have noticed that it's very possible to edit preset parameters in the chain, without having to edit the presets themselves (I then save the results internally in Unify as part of a Unify preset or layer template, rather than externally via the B-Arp Menu, since as reported above I can't figure out how to do that yet).
So, what I'm looking for is a way to make edits to chained presets inside the Preset with the chain without having to do that as fast as possible as they fly by when the arp (and Chain) is running! Is editing the individual Presets one-by-one the only way? It's much better to do that in the context of an existing chain, imo, so I'm hoping there IS a way! So far, I've had some success with the Page Lock function whenever I manage to invoke it while the preset I want to edit is active in the running chain, but that's not always easy to manage, and seems kinda kludgy…

Thanks again, and MANY thanks in advance for some clues on moving forward with my new-fav MIDI FX:)

Hi. Yes, like a month ago I had communication with Unify developers and I granted them permission to include BlueARP into their default plugin package. The idea of the plugin looks interesting.
I didn't quite get all your questions, but will try to clarify something.
Inside Unify, BlueARP should behave just like inside a DAW project. So, Unify preset should be like meta-preset which contains all the data for the child plugins.
Banks and Programs in BlueARP should give good enough way to share presets. The only hint - it is better to do this from BlueARP itself (MENU -> Bank -> Save or Load etc.) rather than using DAW functionality. When you load a single program, it overwrites the current one. You can rearrange them the way you want using MENU commands (stuff like delete program, insert empty, etc.). It is not the fanciest way (better would be to have kinda drag-and-drop browser), but it works now and probably some day I will make it better. Loading Bank rewrites everything. So you can create you own bank with all your favourite programs and use it.
Even more - if you replace BlueARP_FactoryBank.fxb in BlueARP folder with your custom bank, it will be loaded each time you open new instance of BlueARP.
Chains are just a way to stack programs together. So when you change a program which you use in several chains - it will change everywhere. If you don't want this - the easiest way is to copy this program several times - so technically it will be several programs. When you have a long chain and want to edit single program inside it while playing - my idea was to use 'lock page' checkbox for this. Or, while chain is playing - click program navigation buttons back and forth - it will reset the chain and you will edit only one program. Maybe there will be a good idea to change a program when you click on a chain step - I will check it this weekend.
I don't have UNDO function in BlueARP (would be nice, but it's technically not easy). BUT, the easy way to work around is this: you copy you program and insert it into next slot and then you change a copy but still have the original one.
PS. One neat thing not reflected in the manual - click on step led, it will start blinking. Click another one - it will swap these steps.

[David]

Thank you, will study your reply:) In the meantime, I did discover that Lock Page works quite well when clicked while chain is rolling, letting me step thru each preset and any pages it may have or be given and adjust settings in context. Loving it more and more:)

Also discovered that for my own uses, resaving over the same bank makes as much sense as any other approach whenever I tweak a preset and want to save it; seems like single preset saves have to be loaded one at a time to get them back in… And that saving the current bank as the one I want loaded on launch works best in Logic if I save a Default preset in Logic's plugin wrapper. Still figuring it all out, but making progress:)

Also, in Unify there's a global save-layer-as-preset function that's so far working very well as a sort of sub-meta-preset function, since BlueARP is accessed via a MIDI-FX layer…it's a cool and fast way to collect a bunch of Chain variations:)

[Sibsy]

Hi Guys, I really like the look of this ARP but I can't seem to download it for Ableton live and Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.6.
Can I use it on my system?
Thanks

[graywolf2004]

Hi Guys, I really like the look of this ARP but I can't seem to download it for Ableton live and Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.6.
Can I use it on my system?
Thanks

Although I'm testing it in El Capitain, it should work. VST version for OSX should work for you.

[aquilyzer]

Love this plugin, i've a little feature wish. You have added force to scale in the arp section. I think this could added to the output filter section (before the transpose feature), too. So you can create some arp melody lines, which stay in scale, even when you are using scale steps, which are not +/- 12 or 7.

I currently use diatonic transposer after BlueArp to fix this for me in Bitwig.

[Musical Gym]

Is diatonic transposer exclusive to Bitwig?

[David]

Is diatonic transposer exclusive to Bitwig?

Not at all; it’s just key and scale quantising.

[Musical Gym]

I thought it might be a specific tool utilized for that purpose.

[David]

I thought it might be a specific tool utilized for that purpose.

It is, but lots of other DAWs have similar tools, as well as other MIDI FX.

[Musical Gym]

Got it, I just haven't seen it called that in my other daws.

[graywolf2004]

I have a question to all - do you have a need to have BlueARP in some other format except VST and MIDI-FX? I was tidying up my code this weekend and I realized that I can release it as VST3 and/or AAX and it shouldn't take too much time. Well, VST3 is not really necessary since VST2 gonna be around for years to come. Not sure about AAX - I never used Pro Tools.
Another thing - are there any Linux users here? I think for musicians windows and mac should cover the majority, still I had some requests about using BlueARP on Linux. Though I am not a Linux user, I just installed Ubuntu to play around. If there is anyone who makes music on Linux - what DAWs \ plugin formats do you use? I've read something about using windows VST's via Wine on Linux, but I have no info on how good is it.

[sinkmusic]

VST2 is fine for me.

[electro]

The VST3 can suspend CPU. I think that is the man difference with VST2.

[Kott]

If there is anyone who makes music on Linux - what DAWs \ plugin formats do you use? I've read something about using windows VST's via Wine on Linux, but I have no info on how good is it.

VST2 and LV2 are most common, while LV2 is not supported in Reaper, Tracktion, Bitwig.
What framework do you use for Arpeggiator?

Wine may work and may not, most problems (for me) caused by activation/unlocking the plugins. And no drag-and-drop in any DAW.