Imitone -- wow! Most embarassing post I ever started

[tonedef71]

A new version of imitone studio is available.
—————————————————————————————

(This is NOT an update to the imitone app!)

imitone's plugin alpha continues with the addition of a classic VST2 plugin for Windows along with some improvements for the VST3. The VST plugin can function as a direct audio-to-MIDI adaptor and should be compatible with most DAWs. Plugins are also now automatically installed: just navigate to "Download for Windows with VST".

The next step for plugin development will be VST and Audio Units for Mac OS X. We're also looking forward to introducing the look and feel of the imitone app (rather than depending on the host's sliders), but we'll want to make sure the plugin's internals are stable, useful and reliable first.

Please keep experimenting with the plugin and contact us about any issues you encounter, or general feedback. Let us know if imitone works in your DAW!

[ThomasHelzle]

Hallelujah!
After about 4 years I am finally able to use Imitone in my DAW as intended.
Thank you very much Evan!

Looking forward to have the full GUI there too.
I probably won't ever touch any of the other incarnations beside the "Imitone" VST2.

Evan, could you please consider two changes to the installer?
- Ask for the paths where the VST2 plugins should be installed.
- Let it remember where Imitone and the VST2 plugins were last installed between updates.

I don't use the standard path for the app and use a custom path for VST2 plugins (as do many others).
Pretty much every other plugin installer asks for the VST2 paths, so it would be great if Imitone could do the same to make life easier for everybody and we won't have to move the plugin after installation manually.
Remembering paths is of course not mandatory, but it gives an installer a much more polished feel if you do not have to enter the custom path on each update.

Will test the plugin more when the building place above our apartment subsides in the evening.
Imitone does not track hacksaws, hammers and power drills as well as the human voice

Thank you very much!

Cheers,

Tom

[tl]

Hallelujah!
After about 4 years I am finally able to use Imitone in my DAW as intended.
Thank you very much Evan!

Looking forward to have the full GUI there too.
I probably won't ever touch any of the other incarnations beside the "Imitone" VST2.

Evan, could you please consider two changes to the installer?
- Ask for the paths where the VST2 plugins should be installed.
- Let it remember where Imitone and the VST2 plugins were last installed between updates.

I don't use the standard path for the app and use a custom path for VST2 plugins (as do many others).
Pretty much every other plugin installer asks for the VST2 paths, so it would be great if Imitone could do the same to make life easier for everybody and we won't have to move the plugin after installation manually.
Remembering paths is of course not mandatory, but it gives an installer a much more polished feel if you do not have to enter the custom path on each update.

Will test the plugin more when the building place above our apartment subsides in the evening.
Imitone does not track hacksaws, hammers and power drills as well as the human voice

Thank you very much!

Cheers,

Tom

I second every single word.
The routing in Bitwig is a bit of a PITA but it works...

Thank you, Evan.

Regards,
tl.

[ThomasHelzle]

The routing in Bitwig is a bit of a PITA but it works...

I actually prefer it over most other hosts in that regard. At least for live use I only need a single hybrid track and can even have other Midi VST plugins on the same track.
But yeah, recording the generated Midi could be a bit simpler and more straight forward. I hope one day selecting another track as note input will work both while recording as well as on playback without an additional note receiver...


In my initial test the ImitoneVST2 worked great in Bitwig 2, but I seriously miss the beautiful and helpful GUI

Cheers,

Tom

[interactopia]

Regarding the GUI, my main concern is that it will create conflicts with the host DAW. This is especially concerning with Ableton Live, which also uses an OpenGL renderer from what I've heard.

For this reason, and because it could be useful to "pin" the imitone window on top of everything else, I've been considering an unusual approach where the imitone app acts as the GUI for the VST. For workflow purposes, that would mean the app appears as an independent window. I'm trying to work out how this would impact workflows, so I'm interested in hearing some thoughts.

I wouldn't count on DAWs improving audio-to-MIDI routing any time soon unless we start to see tools of that nature entering the mainstream. Until DAWs implement a way to treat a plugin as a control surface, I remain convinced that virtual MIDI devices are the most natural way to do it...

[interactopia]

Hey, Tom — [forgot to post this response yesterday]

You might be surprised about the power drills, actually.

Your comments on the installer are noted — it was a bit of a last-minute addition. I'll implement a custom path feature in a future update.

As before, I'm interested in confirmation about which DAWs do and do not appear to support the VST and VST3. If the plugin crashes or fails to load, debug information can be located like so:

* Press Windows+R to open the RUN prompt.
* Type %APPDATA% and hit enter. A folder will appear.
* Find com.interactopia.imitone (a sub-folder).
* Grab vst2_calls (a text file) and send it to support@imitone.com.

Any other feedback is invited.

[taldt33]

Hi,
I manage to load the vst2 in ableton10 but how to configure it?
I have two vst (imitone and imitone app-to-app midi) which one do I have to use and how?

Thanks

[ThomasHelzle]

Regarding the GUI, my main concern is that it will create conflicts with the host DAW. This is especially concerning with Ableton Live, which also uses an OpenGL renderer from what I've heard.

For this reason, and because it could be useful to "pin" the imitone window on top of everything else, I've been considering an unusual approach where the imitone app acts as the GUI for the VST. For workflow purposes, that would mean the app appears as an independent window. I'm trying to work out how this would impact workflows, so I'm interested in hearing some thoughts.

I wouldn't count on DAWs improving audio-to-MIDI routing any time soon unless we start to see tools of that nature entering the mainstream. Until DAWs implement a way to treat a plugin as a control surface, I remain convinced that virtual MIDI devices are the most natural way to do it...

Hundreds of VSTs use OpenGL for their GUI (for instance everything from Melda), this is not a problem in this day and age if the implementation is done correctly AFAIK.
You may need a fallback for very old Machines or some really bad graphics hardware, but you probably have/need that anyway.
Since you already have the OpenGL implementation if I read your post correctly, I'd rather test first if it actually creates problems instead of "assuming" that it may.

I'm not sure you gain much with the external window and you break what people are a.) used to, b.) expect and c.) you maybe break the DAW handling of plugin windows.
For instance in Bitwig Studio (and many other DAWs), there is a setting if I want to see all plugin windows that I don't explicitly close or if I only want to see those on the currently selected track, where the latter is extremely useful since you don't have to manually reopen the GUI all the time and still don't get a completely cluttered view. Your scheme may break that.

I can see where your idea may be a nice option, but I personally would prefer it as an option only, not something mandatory - and I'd especially rather not have it than it being the only option.
VST GUIs stay on top of the DAW anyway and that is usually what one wants.

As for Audio to Midi routing: Bitwig does it very well IMO with hybrid tracks that can deal with audio and midi both and there only is one hitch/bug/oversight in the otherwise very flexible system, but it's rather easy to overcome. Sure, things could be better, but audio to midi is not a big market (yet?) so I am fine with dealing what there is now.

In my reality, the use of external Audio to Midi applications in parallel to a DAW is a major pain in the behind for many reasons that have been described in detail on this thread often enough to not go there again. And replacing one slightly non-intuitive way to deal with it that needs two tracks but stays in the DAW and users are familiar with it, with another even-less-intuitive way that needs two tracks is a total waste of your life and energy IMO.

I did not use Imitone at all so far because I absolutely disagree with your view regarding "virtual Midi devices being the most natural way to do it". The external app simply doesn't work in a typical ASIO based studio setup on the PC with most interfaces, since only one application can use the ASIO drivers at a time (and even those drivers that allow multiple apps to access them in parallel often create crackles or other problems).
The VST3 workarounds make me scratch my head and ask "why?".
As I said, I probably will never touch the standalone Imitone and the VST3 flavours. All I ever wanted was Imitone as a VST(2) with direct audio in and midi out.
The VST3 API was a major failure and for instance Ableton Live 10 doesn't even support it to this day. I don't know a DAW that only supports VST3 - and if such a thing should ever come up, it's probably Cubase itself because Steinberg finds no other way to force it onto people. I personally hope that there rather will be a well thought out VST4 that actually works for devs and users.

The VST2 works fine in Bitwig Studio 2.x. I didn't test the other flavours, but I didn't see any scanning errors either.

As for power drills: I actually used my microphone on all kinds of noise with Midi Guitar/Bass: worked great and resulted in quite interesting soundscapes. Imitone so far didn't create much interesting things. Maybe it's the wrong brand of power drill...

Cheers,

Tom

[ThomasHelzle]

So, Evan, hows the cave-life these days?
Any progress on finally giving the VST2 a GUI - hopefully a totally normal VST one?

Cheers,

Tom

[No_Use]

Q: Why isn't there a direct audio-to-MIDI adaptor plugin?
A: It isn't actually possible to create one with VST3, which uses its own event format. Hosts are responsible for translating from MIDI to VST3 and back. But VST3 doesn't support translating back to MIDI CC and Pitch Bend, which is a bit of a disaster... For obvious reasons, we'll be releasing a VST2 plugin with direct MIDI capability as soon as we can.

Meanwhile (about a year ago to be more precise) LegacyMIDICCOutEvent was added to the VST3 SDK (also supporting pitch bend from what I gather), so making a proper VST3 should now be possible?

[No_Use]

Got a notification yesterday that a new version (imitone 0.10.0) was just released..

[deastman]

Yawn. Let me know when we have a standard VST version with a proper interface which reliably works as expected.

I hope I’m not remembering this wrong, but my recollection of the original promises for this product claimed that it was using some revolutionary new detection method which worked better and faster than all the others. And that turned out to be merely the naive claims of someone without the experience to know better. Here’s a tip for anyone who wants to make an actual revolutionary pitch tracking system: there are only a few ways of accomplishing this task, including resonator banks, FFT, counting zero crossings, Kalman filters... what you need to do is build a very fast FPGA hardware device which uses all of these methods simultaneously and then arrives at a weighted average between them. Good luck, and off you go!

Edit: and actually, machine learning is probably the way forward.

[deastman]

I just got an email offering the opportunity to upgrade from Imitone to Imitone Studio. What is Imitone Studio? Furthermore, why are you selling upgrades when Imitone is still only at version 0.10, and hasn’t reached 1.0 yet? Beyond that, what about those of us who paid substantially more for the never delivered Imitone Prime? I am not pleased.

[GreyLion]

Maybe he's run through the $100K that he raised for the Imitone that he couldn't make in five years?

Guess he figures there's a whole new generation of suckers out there.

EDIT: Got that email, too. I checked Kickstarter, and it looks like even Evan doesn't have the cojones to extend the scam there. No mention of the NEW offer. Or maybe he's afraid that KS would boot him for going for another bite at the apple?

[No_Use]

Gotta say that upgrade offer left me puzzled (to say the least) too.