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

[graywolf2004]

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I am happy to be using REAPER where VST2 is still a green valley but Cubase is phasing out big-time VST2s... S***ty stuff if you ask me... :\

Yep, I feel your pain. A while ago I was researching this topic and found out that $teinberg had deprecated VST2 and they forced devs to sign come paper to have the right to release their plugins in VST2 format, this is their way of pushing their bloated, over-engineered, over-complicated VST3 standard down the people's throats. As for MIDI support, they deliberately removed the ability to send CC messages to the plugins, saying that 'MIDI has limitations'. So it bacame impossible to create full featured MIDI plugins as VST3. Also they say (in a mentor tone) that VST2 MIDI plugins are't supposed to be, since it is exploiting undocumented features of VST2 by some devs. Sorry for ranting here, once I was mad about it. But now because of where I am and other problems I have in my life - this thing about VST2 is the 999th thing I care about, I will keep releasing BlueARP as VST2, cause in VST3 I can't have all the features. And hopefully somewhere in a few years VST3 will be forgotten (this is what it deserves) and superseeded with something like maybe CLAP (didn't check it closely yet, but have some hopes for it)

[mabian]

...
I am happy to be using REAPER where VST2 is still a green valley but Cubase is phasing out big-time VST2s... S***ty stuff if you ask me... :\

Yep, I feel your pain. A while ago I was researching this topic and found out that $teinberg had deprecated VST2 and they forced devs to sign come paper to have the right to release their plugins in VST2 format, this is their way of pushing their bloated, over-engineered, over-complicated VST3 standard down the people's throats. As for MIDI support, they deliberately removed the ability to send CC messages to the plugins, saying that 'MIDI has limitations'. So it bacame impossible to create full featured MIDI plugins as VST3. Also they say (in a mentor tone) that VST2 MIDI plugins are't supposed to be, since it is exploiting undocumented features of VST2 by some devs. Sorry for ranting here, once I was mad about it. But now because of where I am and other problems I have in my life - this thing about VST2 is the 999th thing I care about, I will keep releasing BlueARP as VST2, cause in VST3 I can't have all the features. And hopefully somewhere in a few years VST3 will be forgotten (this is what it deserves) and superseeded with something like maybe CLAP (didn't check it closely yet, but have some hopes for it)

Please check out CLAP whenever you can - it IS the solution.

- Mario

[graywolf2004]

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But why is Steinberg doing that?? wont this push midi plugin developers to CLAP format, or they do not want midi plugin development anymore?? makes no sense imo....

I think Steinberg have developed something like star sickness. Once they created a revolutionary thing - VST2 - it is pretty compact and effective, although has some limitations. Then they tried to embrace everything with their VST3 and created some over-complicated thing, which is maybe good for monstrous multi-latyer, multi-timbral, multi-everything plugins with multiple hierarchical lists of parameters, but this thing is absolutely bloated for a simple plugin development, there is not an easy path there if you want to create something simple. And I think they don't feel musicians anymore, their approach is mostly technical.
But enough ranting here ) The reality is yet that some have to use VST3 and 99% of BlueARP's functions work in VST3, CC pass through is the only thing that doesn't, but hardly anyone uses that, so it is not that bad. Just additional waste of time to test everything with VST3.

[satYatunes]

Now that strum mode is here, which guitar vst have you tried it with? I tried with Ample Guitar M Lite, AAS Strum Session, MonsterDAW Guitar. AGML sounds good but not great.

[phreaque]

The good one by far is Roland soundcanvas.

[graywolf2004]

Now that strum mode is here, which guitar vst have you tried it with? I tried with Ample Guitar M Lite, AAS Strum Session, MonsterDAW Guitar. AGML sounds good but not great.

The best results I could get are with Roland Sound Canvas VA, the patch called 'Steel Gtr.2'. Also I checked it with my hardware synths - Ketron SD1000, Yamaha Motif XS Rack, Kurzwel PC3LE. Ketron and Yamaha give good results, but to my ear Roland's patch is just a bit better. Kurzwel is so-so. Looks like in Ketron and Yamaha patches are a bit over-decorated, which works well for sparse patterns and single notes, but sounds a bit unnatural in strumming. So I guess it is hard to find the right sound because in most of the synths these patches are made to sound good in a sparse melodic patterns, not in a dense strumming patterns.
The second thing - depends what you define as 'great', if 'great' is 100% like real guitar, it is not achievable, due to limitations of midi and some other limitations. I will maybe play with MPE in the future which might help with some of the issues, but I guess for non-MPE it is almost as good as it can be. Try to play with velocity values and velocity spread, maybe your soft synths have different velocity dynamics and it doesn't work well with the patterns I programmed for the Roland SC.

[graywolf2004]

I have this task for myself - to find the best free synth to use with the BlueARP's guitar mode. Roland SC, although it is available via Roland Cloud subscription, is a bit outdated and will never be updated. There's a project called Nuked-SC55 (SC55 emulation - should have the same guitar sound in theory), I want to try it out. Also tried MonsterGuitar plugin - electric guitars are good, but acoustic ones are so-so, on some samples there's too much silence in the beginning of the sample, which totally ruins it's usage for strumming. Will check some other free plugins and maybe make a separate video on this.

[graywolf2004]

Just checked in with Ample Guitar M2 Lite. After some tweaking I could get it about 80% as good as Roland, if you switch off all its fancy stuff, to simple keyboard mode, but still it has too much velocity dynamics on the high values. Also it has chuck strum implementation switching by a low note, I'll think how I can incorporate that into BlueARP. Maybe limiting velocity will also work, I will try that. Here are the settings that work best for me right now

Capture.PNG

Also in BlueARP - setting strum speed to -1 and velo amp to 1.10 and base velo to 0 - it gets almost as good as Roland in strumming, in picking-only patterns it is even better.

[rasmusklump]

The Acousticsamples acoustic guitars sound good with bluearp.

[satYatunes]

I am trying more plugins, some I had forgotten that I have... RealGuitar Classic is good. I found a preset in SampleTank 4 called "Steel String F", it sounds good but you will have to tweak the FX applied like compressor, eq, etc.

@graywolf2004 - Some notes sounds out of tune with AmpleSound M Lite. Are you experiencing the same? Preset is Ballad 3, 90. I tried other presets also it's same. May be I am doing something wrong.

[graywolf2004]

...@graywolf2004 - Some notes sounds out of tune with AmpleSound M Lite. Are you experiencing the same? Preset is Ballad 3, 90. I tried other presets also it's same. May be I am doing something wrong.

Nope. But apart from a known bug with capo param, there's a bug in v2.7.0 - it gives wrong voicing on some inverted chords, only noticed it yesterday when refining 'retart on key' logic. Already fixed in upcoming 2.7.1. For example note combintaion C-D-F is Dm7 but it sounds wrong this way; if you press D-F-A-C - it is correct. This issue you have - is it only with Ample Guitar or the same with other synths? Ample guitar hase some 'intelligent' settings that may alter the imcoming notes, better to swith those off to make it play like a simple synth that doesn't care about which cobination of notes you send in - it just plays them all.

[graywolf2004]

PS. Overall I feel like Ample Guitar may be the recommended VST to use with BlueARP gutar mode, just need some more testing and tweaking. Still feel like it 'embellishes' the notes I play with it's algorithms beyond what I need, cause in my case it is all handled by BlueARP, I need it to play just as a normal synth which plays strictly the notes I send in.
Any other free guitar VST suggestions? A few others menthoned here are commercial, but the only other free one I know so far is the Monster Guitar VST.

[graywolf2004]

So far so good, I didin't find any other bugs. So apart from the incorrectly working setting in guitar mode and wrong voicing of some inverted 7th chords (when you play 3 notes instead of 4) it seems fine. So if you play just regular m/Maj chords and 7th chords with all 4 keys pressed (even inverted) it should work fine. In 2.7.1 I the mentioned bugs are fixed. Also a note: the chord detection system in BlueARP is pretty relaxed now, so it detects m/Maj chords from just 2 keys, if you play C+E for example, it will be CMaj. Some time later I will maybe make a setting for that, but now IMHO this way is the less restrictive and most comfortble to play. I also improved reatart on key logic, so now it works much better musically in the guitar mode, so I think somewhere mid-January I'll release the update, mostly small improvements and fixes, no big changes. And the manual is waiting to be updated, all these new features require some place in the manual.

[satYatunes]

If you want to try DecentSampler (free) then try this sample pack (also free) with it.
https://www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/12-string-acoustic/

[rasmusklump]

Is it normal that when I have changed the mode to drum or guitar I can't change it back to normal arp?
I already had this with the drum mode in the previous version.

But the best arp gets better and better with the time.
Thank you very much.