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

[fairlyclose]

Another plus for Stochas is the Surge dev team is at the helm.

I certainly don't want Steam running on my production rig. So much for that.

what is the issue with Steam? I am not a gamer so have no idea about it at all

[Michael L]

make a midi clip for C2 and another for C3 and position them where you want on a free item position track in Reaper. Copy, Stretch and shorten the clips as desired (oh, Stochas is on this track so it can receive those C')

very cool, fairlyclose. FYI for others, this is Free Item Positioning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy12cfTWBPE

[commerce]

Anyone able to get Instacomposer to start/stop using the DAW's transport control (rather than IC's own play control)? (Tried in several apps now )
(If so - DAW and how?)
TIA

You need to 'draw' note C3 in the timeline for the appropriate length... That should do it!

I just picked this up myself and I have to say the early impressions ae quite good. I have been able to get more 'musical' results with this faster than with Orb Composer. The 'phrasing' in InstaComposer seems to be a little more natural. I may have more to share later, but here is my big problem:

I can't drag and drop (or even load saved midi) generated from InstaComposer into Studio One 5. Here is the error:

Could not load InstaTrack3.mid! The File is broken or could not be opened.

I sent in a report to WA, but in the meantime... is it user error?

Take care!

I have also Studio One 5.x and I could drag MIDI to the DAW initially,
but now I have the same problem as you.

[fairlyclose]

make a midi clip for C2 and another for C3 and position them where you want on a free item position track in Reaper. Copy, Stretch and shorten the clips as desired (oh, Stochas is on this track so it can receive those C')

very cool, fairlyclose. FYI for others, this is Free Item Positioning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy12cfTWBPE

further improvements - I have made a clip with C2 for muting - in Reaper I rename the clip C2 MUTE and colour it Red, then another C3 UNMUTE clip coloured green. I now have a green for go and red for stop clip/button that I can freely copy and paste and colour coded for quick recognition, named so I can easily see the note number if I want to drive some other parameter with another note (probably dont need this).

There seems to be a bit of a lag which limits how quickly one can mute and unmute Stochas - just a beat or two - it is very possible to mute before Stochas finishes its phrase.

Also I am having problems with some of the other parameters eg Speed - more work needed, maybe by me maybe by the devs. Anyway - I think Stochas can be a very powerful tool and if the devs implement my feature request for CC as well as pitch info then even better (hint: go to https://github.com/surge-synthesizer/stochas/issues/68 and support my feature request )

[OneOfManyPauls]

Just a quick note that I never did get instacomposer to verify via the key - kept saying "no internet connection". Support finally sent me this today, which did allow me to fix the problem:

We have discovered that our InstaComposer licensing system may not function correctly on anything earlier than macOS Big Sur.

I highly recommend you update to macOS Big Sur, as this problem will likely affect more than just our InstaComposer plugin moving forward. However, if you are unable to do so, here is a workaround that will likely fix the problem for now:

Please paste the attached license file into the license folder

[ThomasHelzle]

Another plus for Stochas is the Surge dev team is at the helm.

I certainly don't want Steam running on my production rig. So much for that.

what is the issue with Steam? I am not a gamer so have no idea about it at all

Well, it's a whole application and store and community etc. and the steam app runs in the background every time you run an app that comes from it, since it also provides the copy-protection.
Some love it since it also provides updates and makes things quite easy when you move to another machine, but it's one more thing that runs in the background and of course it also tracks you (can be reduced in the settings).
So when you start Midinous, first Steam starts and then Midinous.

I uninstalled Steam directly after finding that Midinous doesn't run well on my machine and isn't for me.

Cheers,

Tom

[fairlyclose]

Another plus for Stochas is the Surge dev team is at the helm.

I certainly don't want Steam running on my production rig. So much for that.

what is the issue with Steam? I am not a gamer so have no idea about it at all

Well, it's a whole application and store and community etc. and the steam app runs in the background every time you run an app that comes from it, since it also provides the copy-protection.
Some love it since it also provides updates and makes things quite easy when you move to another machine, but it's one more thing that runs in the background and of course it also tracks you (can be reduced in the settings).
So when you start Midinous, first Steam starts and then Midinous.

I uninstalled Steam directly after finding that Midinous doesn't run well on my machine and isn't for me.

Cheers,

Tom

thanks - yeah for me Midinous is good but also "just another midi thing" - and I have more than enough midi things. For new midi I am really only interested in either tight little utilities or things that offer radical and seductive possibilities. For me midinous is neither - but I can see other people finding it very attractive.
So Steam and midinous will get uninstalled

[bharris22]

But can you run it w/o Steam?

Dont think so - but I am now contrasting with using midi notes to trigger Stochas fragments and that might be easier to get similar. Having some trouble getting Stochas to start and stop or mute and unmute reliably tho.

EDIT - working a treat now - not sure why I was having so much trouble last night
Anyway Reaper, free item positioning mode and Stochas is a winner. I dont think I will bother with midinous now, although it is a great start from that developer

Would you mind providing a little additional detail regarding this Reaper/Stochas setup and how you are using it to get results similar to Midinous?

Thanks!

this setup does not exactly mimic midinous but for my purposes this is the sort of thing I can do - and I quite like Midinous and will follow its development
....
make a sequence with Stochas, using the note probability options
set mute to C3 unmute to C2 in Stochas midimapping

make a midi clip for C2 and another for C3 and position them where you want on a free item position track in Reaper. Copy, Stretch and shorten the clips as desired (oh, Stochas is on this track so it can receive those C')

Anyway you can elaborate that to any extent

Thank you very much!

Steam is a no-go for me, but I will likely pick up Nodal at some point in the near future, as it has been on my radar for a while.

Shame about Midinous, though. I sent a support request to see if there is any way to buy/install it without Steam, but am not hopeful.

[dopet]

I have also Studio One 5.x and I could drag MIDI to the DAW initially,
but now I have the same problem as you.

Hi Commerce,

Just got an email this AM from support confirming the midi issues (I sent them the midi files generated from the program). They did send a link to an updated version. I’m not at home to try, but maybe later. Maybe shoot support an email and ask for the update to try?

[tatanka]

Short info about InstaComposer:

- the drag and drop was really broken, I have written to support, they sent me a new beta where it was fixed, works now

No idea when the official download will be fixed, so just try or write to support if you have problem like me, they were very quick (and that on a sunday evening).

[NTO]

No biggie, but...
@dopet - badly formatted quote above. Don't have S1 Ver 5, or problem with S1 ver 4

[BluesMuse]

Short info about InstaComposer:

- the drag and drop was really broken, I have written to support, they sent me a new beta where it was fixed, works now

No idea when the official download will be fixed, so just try or write to support if you have problem like me, they were very quick (and that on a sunday evening).

Well, it's broken for me now as well. Interesting. I am working from the same .song save that I created a couple days ago with the plug and routing, etc. Today, the first time I tried drag and drop, I got an error.

The bloom is off the rose a bit for me, as I am disappointed that there is no way to lock any of the individual randomizers, or "re-roll" just one. That makes it all the more imperative to have functioning MIDI drag and drop, as there appears to be no "quick save" slots, un-do, or similar easy way to go back to your original track to try a different mod.

The developer has a good track record of bug fixing, so I am not too concerned about that. Not sure about adding features though.

[Musical Gym]

@tatanka
Hi Richard. Using the demo of IC, 4 bars of IC = 1 bar in Studio One 4.
How can I make them match? Clicking Sync doesn't seem to work.
Jim
@BluesMuse
Doesn't a track stay locked if you don't have it selected to Generate on the bottom selection group (All 1 2 3 4 5)?
Drag/Drop is working for me now in demo. It stopped working earlier. It seemed like it wanted to drop a midi file instead of just the note data, but now back to normal. Could be a Studio One thing.

[psynical]

Gotta love the idiot on Steam who gave Midinous a thumbs-down because they didn't read the description.

[dopet]

InstaComposer update: Basically verifying what @tantaka has said.... new beta version from WA support team has drag and drop working just fine in Studio One V5 (latest version). WA support has not told me when the 'official' roll out of the update will be.

@BluesMuse: ''The bloom is off the rose a bit for me, as I am disappointed that there is no way to lock any of the individual randomizers, or "re-roll" just one. That makes it all the more imperative to have functioning MIDI drag and drop, as there appears to be no "quick save" slots, un-do, or similar easy way to go back to your original track to try a different mod.'

You can totally edit/randomize one track at a time. Under the GO button you will see the word ALL plus the numbers for each track (1-5). You can click on one of them to highlight that track number. Now that track will be the only one affected by the randomizing features. Another way: Click on the main track number ( the big ones in a circle down the left side). Once that number is highlighted, it is selected for randomization. All the others will remain UN-affected.

@Musical Gym: 'Using the demo of IC, 4 bars of IC = 1 bar in Studio One 4. How can I make them match? Clicking Sync doesn't seem to work.'

The 'Sync' button in InstaComposer just tells it to get the BPM data from the DAW. It doesn't actually sync the playback. You need to draw in note C3 in your DAW to make that happen (confusing, I know). I found that '16 bars' in InstaComposer = '4 Bars' in studio one 5. So, I just drew the note C3 for 4 bars in Studio One and was able to get it to work nicely.

I whipped up a quick demo that I'm finishing up (maybe like 1:30 - 2:00 min long). I will post a link here when ready. It's more atmospheric/ambient as opposed to EDM heavy, so you can take it for what its worth. Pads, Chords, Bass, piano melody (and piano tape loops!) were all generated, unaltered, from InstaComposer. The drums were not.

I have to say, I have had a ton of fun digging into this. For comparison I have Orb Producer Suite (V3), the Captain tools, Rapid Composer (V4). They all bring something unique to the table and I frequently mix n match, but this could move up to my 1st go-to plugin. I mentioned this earlier, but the phrasing seems to be 'more natural' than the Orb Producer (both for melody and bass). I do like Rapid Composer (and his the other plug, Melodya) for more 'lyrical' melody generation. Though it takes a bit more work with Rapid Composer (lots of options). Oh.... I also really love the 1 window workflow.