KVR Audio

Open Keys · Post by **Open Keys** » Sat Mar 28, 2026 12:14 am

Hi! I am hoping to find people familiar with MIDI and virtual instruments to test my plugin. It's not quite an instrument in itself (doesn't produce sound) but it changes the notes in your virtual instruments, inspired by the way that a guitar can be retuned instantly to spark ideas.

It's called Open Keys. It lets you control how much randomness you want, and in what ways.
Use sliders to to control how often notes change, how far they drift from their origin, and how strictly they obey key and scale rules.
Generate harmonic anchors and motifs by having notes copy the exact pitch, parallel movement, or inverted direction of their neighbors.

And much more. It's all about the music and this lets you break free from playing the same chords and patterns on your MIDI keyboard instruments.

If you're interested, send me a message and I will give a 100% discount if you give me honest feedback. openkeysplugin.com
Thanks!

Cuauhtli · Post by **Cuauhtli** » Sat Mar 28, 2026 1:49 am

So, if one was to put a sequencer/ arpeggiator in front of it, you could basically create a generative sequencer? That might be cool.

Open Keys · Post by **Open Keys** » Sat Mar 28, 2026 2:09 am

Exactly. This was part of a quick demo video I made to get approved by the payment platform I use with an arpeggiator playing 2 chords.

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Sat Mar 28, 2026 3:54 pm

Working great so far. Installation was smooth. So far, using it to apply a little chaos and drift to chord progressions keeps them from being too repetitive and stale. It would be nice if there were up/down buttons for the scales, and also if Randomize Pattern could not affect Scale and Key.

Cuauhtli · Post by **Cuauhtli** » Sun Mar 29, 2026 5:18 pm

Uncle E wrote: Sat Mar 28, 2026 3:54 pm It would be nice if there were up/down buttons for the scales, and also if Randomize Pattern could not affect Scale and Key.

Randomize pattern doesn't affect scale and key. At least not for me in Reaper. If you mean randomize parameters, click the box next to 'Scale' and 'key' and it won't be randomized.

Working well in Reaper. No bugs or crashes. Took me a sec to figure out how to save presets but it's simple (just right click on the preset box, D'oh!). A couple of nice additions would be to have the randomize option for every lane individually. Also, the option to have it randomize every so often by itself. An example is Pigments sequencer where you can set it to change the sequence every, bar, 2 bars, etc.

I haven't tried assigning my midi controller to control the parameters yet, but I have assigned LFO's to add more randomness/chaos. Works well. I'm sure I have Envelopes/steppers in my midi toolbox somewhere so I can set it up to randomize every few bars or whatever.

Anyway, a lot of fun to be had with it, I get some musical note sequences that I wouldn't have arrived at on my own so it's a good idea generator.

EDIT: Forgot to add: The ability to Resize would be a welcome addition as well.
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One of these days I'll put all of my sequencers and arpeggiators on one track and see what happens.

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Sun Mar 29, 2026 5:35 pm

Cuauhtli wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2026 5:18 pm Randomize pattern doesn't affect scale and key. At least not for me in Reaper. If you mean randomize parameters, click the box next to 'Scale' and 'key' and it won't be randomized.

Got it. Thanks. Unchecking Scale and Key fixed it. FWIW, it would probably be better to have these unchecked by default.

Took me a sec to figure out how to save presets but it's simple (just right click on the preset box, D'oh!).

hmm, that's not working for me, but clicking OPEN KEYS and selecting Open File and Save File works.

Cuauhtli · Post by **Cuauhtli** » Sun Mar 29, 2026 7:00 pm

Oh, yeah. Right click on the boxes in the middle (there's 48 of them) and it should have a popup for save/delete presets. So you can save 48 presets. Then save them all as a file in the menu which is basically a bank. Hope that helps. Took me a while to figure it out.

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Sun Mar 29, 2026 7:59 pm

Thanks. That worked.

btw, try shift-clicking all the faders texts (Length, Chaos, etc.).

Cuauhtli · Post by **Cuauhtli** » Mon Mar 30, 2026 1:42 am

Uncle E wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2026 7:59 pm Thanks. That worked.

btw, try shift-clicking all the faders texts (Length, Chaos, etc.).

Oh, cool. I didn't know that. Thanks.

Open Keys · Post by **Open Keys** » Sat Apr 04, 2026 3:57 am

Thank you guys for the feedback! Will definitely consider adding these features. I just put out some youtube videos to show the basics. Glad to hear it's working

Like open guitar tuning for a keyboard - Free plugin for beta testers