KVR Audio

Hengy · Post by **Hengy** » Sat Nov 06, 2004 2:06 pm

does anyone know of a free/low cost midi editor/sequencer that has user definable scripted/macro note editing capabilites. ie i'd like to be able to take a midi clip and for example apply a macro to a region that would select all notes above a certain velocity and multiply their duration by x and slide them forward by a random number of ticks.

r_module · Post by **r_module** » Sat Nov 06, 2004 2:22 pm

i was looking for such a tool since steinborg killed the 'interactive phrase synthesizer [ips]' in cubase.

there's a replacement which is in fact much more powerful but with some issues tho: softstep and art wonk (the newest version) of algorithmic arts (www.algoart.com).

you can do nearly anything with midi-data but it has
a horrible timing. moving a module makes the midi-stream stuck for a moment (at least here). therefore i just use it 'offline' meaning i program the algo-patterns (the apps have a comfortable pattern system) and record the result into a file. if you tweak it 'live' it's much more fun but often the stuck-issue appears (s.above).

they are not shareware in questions of price but they are extremely powerful.

Hengy · Post by **Hengy** » Sat Nov 06, 2004 2:44 pm

thanks i'll check them out, i'm sure such functions exist in compositional tools like key kit, but i've never really got my head round it

r_module · Post by **r_module** » Sat Nov 06, 2004 2:51 pm

Hengy wrote:compositional tools like key kit, but i've never really got my head round it

give also ntonyx-apps (www.ntonyx.com) a try. they
are specialized in "transformation" too but much more
"lean" and not so complicate as the algo-stuff.

lo3q · Post by **lo3q** » Sat Nov 06, 2004 2:57 pm

If you can get hold of an old copy of Twelvetone's Cakewalk, it has a very versatile built-in programming language, CAL, that can do things like this (though it has painful syntax and a fairly steep learning curve).

People sell old versions, like Cakewalk 7, on e-bay for a few dollars. (The up-to-date version of Cakewalk, Sonar, still incorporates CAL, but it costs hundreds of dollars).

By the way, you didn't mention whether you required realtime processing. If that's what you want, CAL can't do it.

Hengy · Post by **Hengy** » Sat Nov 06, 2004 3:30 pm

thanks for the suggestions, i own ntonyx's sequencer and it has some powerful tools, including ones that'll nearly do the example task i gave, but it doesn't have a fully flexible macro style tool,
CAL sounds pretty much what i was after, though perhaps without the steep learning curve part, or the need to find an old copy of cakewalk

oh and i'm only after offline processing, not real time twiddling

Hengy · Post by **Hengy** » Sat Nov 06, 2004 4:16 pm

im currently looking into artsong, which seems to offer what i'm after though it's a bit of overkill

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Sat Nov 06, 2004 5:18 pm

One of these might help. I'm not sure whether they'll support the kind of functionality you need, but they're the best that came up when googling for "midi scripting."

MIDI-OX -- Version 6 exposes a COM interface that you can script in Visual Basic (or any language that supports COM).

Mark Hirst's MIDI scripting page -- oriented toward Visual Basic, some assembly* required (*not assembly language!)

They're both programmer-y, not musician-ish. But they cost nil, and let you start with a fairly minimalist approach ("build just what you need" instead of "buy a big app and use its scripting").

That said, I've used Cakewalk's CAL, and aside from its fairly bizarre LISP-like syntax it's... well, not TOO bad. Lacks a lot of the power I'd like to see but that's life.

Meffy

Hengy · Post by **Hengy** » Sun Nov 07, 2004 1:31 pm

cheers meffy, that midi scripting development looks interesting if it gets developed further, i've kept it bookmarked.
i've found midi scripting in artsong that does what i want, i'd been playing around with it for its algorithmic tools ever since CM did a piece on it, but it's got powerful sripting capabilities under the hood

kritikon · Post by **kritikon** » Sun Nov 07, 2004 8:10 pm

does anyone know of a free/low cost midi editor/sequencer that has user definable scripted/macro note editing capabilites. ie i'd like to be able to take a midi clip and for example apply a macro to a region that would select all notes above a certain velocity and multiply their duration by x and slide them forward by a random number of ticks.

Personally I use the Logical editor for that sort of thing in Cubase. You can save your own macros, but you need to go into the advanced logical editor to get the full editing. Logical edit certainly does all of the above things - it has select by note value, velocity, position etc and can transform by length, position, velocity, pitch, change to CCs etc. Although it certainly doesn't have the full power of the IPS - but it'll do most of the stuff apart from applying LFOs etc to midi values (but you can process in ramps etc).

If you really need the advanced IPS stuff, Tim Conrardy had a thread going somewhere around here recently about some old Atari midi apps (that were extremely advanced) and a converter app to enable them to work within PCs. Some of the Atari midi apps have still not been bettered (although the GUIs looked a bit dodgy). I can't remember which forum he posted in though

Maybe do a search for all recent topics by Tim?

paradiddle · Post by **paradiddle** » Sun Nov 07, 2004 8:44 pm

If you know somebody who willing to sell their copy of Logic audio platinum 5 pc for a cheap price, you can use the transformer to do this very easily. Plus you get a nasty app with some incredible midi editing.