Your fave MIDI fx, arp, mapper, mangler, generator, chorder, controller, utility. VST or MFX

[SirkusPi]

Would anyone care to review and compare Captain Plugins and Orb Producer?

Sure.

Captain Plugins works perfectly fine on my Mac (OSX Mojave) and up-to-date Logic.

When I tried Orb Producer last night, on the other hand, I immediately ran into a significant bug in both the AU instrument version and the VST version, which I ran through Blue Cat's Patchwork MidiFX plugin. (NOTE: there is no Orb Composer MidiFX AU. The AU is a regular instrument, which plays a built-in synth.)

I could set up the OrbChords plugin OK, but when I then added the OrbBass plugin, it caused the OrbChords to run in quarter time. In other words, although the whole point of the plugins is supposed to be coordination between the four, there are timing coordination issues the render them unusable.

I'm not such a bitter, jaded person that I'm swearing them off forever; I'll give the OrbProducer Suite demo another try when (if?) they fix this fundamental bug. But it certainly did not make a good first impression that they released it with such a fundamental issue.

[UncleAge]

I didn't want to derail this topic. Please consider my post about Phrasebox.

Thanks
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=541571

[Kalamata Kid]

Would anyone care to review and compare Captain Plugins and Orb Producer?

Sure.

Captain Plugins works perfectly fine on my Mac (OSX Mojave) and up-to-date Logic.

When I tried Orb Producer last night, on the other hand, I immediately ran into a significant bug in both the AU instrument version and the VST version, which I ran through Blue Cat's Patchwork MidiFX plugin. (NOTE: there is no Orb Composer MidiFX AU. The AU is a regular instrument, which plays a built-in synth.)

I could set up the OrbChords plugin OK, but when I then added the OrbBass plugin, it caused the OrbChords to run in quarter time. In other words, although the whole point of the plugins is supposed to be coordination between the four, there are timing coordination issues the render them unusable.

I'm not such a bitter, jaded person that I'm swearing them off forever; I'll give the OrbProducer Suite demo another try when (if?) they fix this fundamental bug. But it certainly did not make a good first impression that they released it with such a fundamental issue.

Too bad it has this bug.
Hope when it is fixed it would be great to get a feature and workflow or whatever comparison or review.

[Ploki]

Would anyone care to review and compare Captain Plugins and Orb Producer?

Sure.

Captain Plugins works perfectly fine on my Mac (OSX Mojave) and up-to-date Logic.

When I tried Orb Producer last night, on the other hand, I immediately ran into a significant bug in both the AU instrument version and the VST version, which I ran through Blue Cat's Patchwork MidiFX plugin. (NOTE: there is no Orb Composer MidiFX AU. The AU is a regular instrument, which plays a built-in synth.)

I could set up the OrbChords plugin OK, but when I then added the OrbBass plugin, it caused the OrbChords to run in quarter time. In other words, although the whole point of the plugins is supposed to be coordination between the four, there are timing coordination issues the render them unusable.

I'm not such a bitter, jaded person that I'm swearing them off forever; I'll give the OrbProducer Suite demo another try when (if?) they fix this fundamental bug. But it certainly did not make a good first impression that they released it with such a fundamental issue.

Beat me to it.

there are also some glaring GUI omissions. seems rushed.
also what's the point of OrbProducer plugin? I thought it's gonna be the "master" plugin where you control all instances, but it just looks like another OrbChords plugin.

[BluesMuse]

Mozaic Beats released a replacement for AutoTheory called "Chord Prism". https://www.chordprism.com/ I received a free upgrade key. I did just upgrade Auto-Theory recently so I don't know if all users will get keys or if there will be a date restriction. So far all I did was verify that the After-Touch overload bug is FIXED!

[Kalamata Kid]

^^^
Wonder if the Chord Prism will have an intro price to motive me/us to buy it.

[Musical Gym]

It's a rebrand of AutoTheory, not really a new product.

[David]

Fwiw, a quick personal update:

As part of my own quarantine/stimulus efforts, I've been staying locked in (poster child for at-risk populations!) and finally digging into M4L and Live 10, which I've never until now really taken the time to explore, even though I've had Live since version 4. So, just bought a few 3rd-party MIDI FX (mostly from k-devices—fav so far is Moor—and Isotonik—++ on Arcade bundle 1—and downloaded at least a 100 free others from the M4L sharing site—polyrhythmus!! Plus there's plenty of really great for-not-much-$ stuff in there, with gumroad links, that are excellent, like eg. Kairos. Euclidean tool are in vast abundance and mix'n'match really well as a rule:)

And, yeah: wow. WOOOOOW! MIDI heaven:)

Plus of course, there's SO many great M4L modulation devices: fav so far is Survey, from pAtches…

Still mostly using all these to drive Logic-loaded sounds, and taking advantage of the incomparable MIDI FX Freeze and modulators there to mold and capture it all. Then really digging re-performing the best of those exported captures with reMIDI:)

Overall, good times, despite it all; hope everybody else is doing OK!!

[Kalamata Kid]

^^^
David, Glad you are having a great midi time!

I have always looked at Live and M4L as the midi panacea.
Looks like I was correct to do so.

Would you say that below are good alternatives to M4L that have many midi modules?
Reason Rack with the Players.
Bidule
Reaktor but cannot host VST's
Unify
Architect
Midi Lab https://www.kvraudio.com/product/midi-lab-by-soundigy

Edit: as per fairlyclose's post I added Architect to the list.
Edit 2: Added Midi Lab

[fairlyclose]

would love Live and M4L but is way beyond my budget - although if I added up all the money wasted money on junk like Architect I might have been able to afford it

[Kalamata Kid]

^^^
It would be fantastic if Max for Live was available as a VST plugin as is Mux of Mulab.
And at a reasonable price.

[fairlyclose]

^^^
It would be fantastic if Max for Live was available as a VST plugin as it Mux of Mulab.
And at a reasonable price.

yep would be great, or if M4L patches worked in Max

[David]

way beyond my budget

It surely would be for me, too, if I hadn't been slowly upgrading over many years to stay current. I took about three years to get to 10, eventually leveraging Sweetwater's 3-pay, no-interest plan to manage that:)

[David]

^^^
…
Would you say that below are good alternatives to M4L that have many midi modules?
Reason Rack with the Players.
Bidule
Reaktor but cannot host VST's
Unify
Architect
…

Hmm…

I'd say that only Reaktor and Reason even remotely come close; Reaktor for the User Library, where all the really interesting MIDI stuff is, for free, and perfectly useable in any VST host that can route MIDI from one device to another (are there any DAWs that can't do that?), or connecting with a MIDI loopback device from R.standalone, and Reason because Players and now MIDI out from the rack. But M4L really is still way more vast than either…

Bidule may have a lot of presets but it's not at all easy to get going with, IMO, so I've never even started trying to check out what's there already, and have only built some very basic things myself, so it just feels like a utility to me, not a magical world…

Even moreso with Architect, as fairlyclose confirms; I spent about 20 minutes with the early beta, then lost all interest, very disappointed to see that it wasn't for me at all. If it ever does get off the ground, remains to be seen if anybody ever starts building finished, useable stuff for it, let alone sharing that.

Unify seems not really in this category to me, even though I find it very intriguing what they're doing with it. It's still most a host for other devices, even though it's already got some unique built-in MIDI wonders. For the money, and for the energy they're pouring into, it seems a must-have to me, but only because it's so much more than the sum of it's parts, and pushing the whole, not much explored 'til now, idea of a host into fresh territory.

My opinion, anyway!

[Kalamata Kid]

Added Midi Lab to the list a few posts above.
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/midi-lab-by-soundigy