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Paralogos Music TechnologyKevin Kissell, the founder of Paralogos, has been creating computer music technology since 1982, when he started stuffing industrial D/A converters into a Z80-based microcomputer and started programming them in C. So it should be unsurprising that Paralogos is a provider of specialized software components for MIDI and Digital Audio. Sonar Plug-insCakewalk's Sonar is an industry-leading integrated MIDI/Audio production environment for Windows-based PCs. It does many things, but it doesn't do everything one might want, and some things could, well, be done a little better. That's where we come in. Free Plug-in DownloadsReSync.dll is an Mfx filter that compensates for a bug in Sonar 1.0-2.2 wherein loops containing both audio and MIDI data get desynchronized by one "tick" per iteration. LesLoups.dll was written out of frustration with the lack of flexibility provided by the Looper plug-in from provided with Sonar 2 X. This free demo version is fully functional, and now (since v0.4) allows settings to be saved. Version 0.5 adds both the ability to "play through" live on the same MIDI track as is being looped by LesLoups, and the ability to arm the loop via a MIDI controller message, so that the loop need not necessarily start at the beginning of a track. The use of LesLoups is reasonably intuitive. You select a loop length in terms of measures and/or notes and/or MIDI ticks. The filter will capture MIDI note data for that amount of time, and then begin replaying the loop. You can force the beginning and ending of a loop to be aligned to the beginning of the measure or beat containing the first MIDI note, which is necessary if you want the loop to begin with a rest. The "Auto-mute" function suppresses any further MIDI data coming from the input track once the loop has been loaded. Disabling Auto-mute lets you hear both the loop and the rest of the input sequence. The MIDI automation feature is enabled by checking "MIDI Arm" and setting the "MIDI Ctlr." field to the controller number you want to use to arm the loop capture. To trigger it, insert (or record) a MIDI controller event of any kind at the point in the MIDI track where you wish to start the loop. Orchid.dll is a very simple MIDI "orchestrator" that assigns incoming notes to different MIDI channels according to priority and a MIDI key range. With multi-channel samplers like Kontakt (and the various Kontakt-based players for Garritan, EWQL, et al) and VSampler, this allows different instruments to be assigned to different channels, and different channels different ranges/priorities such that one can play polyphonic music on a MIDI controller and have each voice played by a different instrument. Each row of the Orchid UI panel represents one instrument or section available for the "orchestration". The Channel value is the MIDI channel corresponding to the instrument voice to be played. The Min and Max Note values represent the range available of the instrument, with middle C being 60. The priority value is used to decide which of multiple available instrument/voices should be used - if the priority is the same, the topmost instrument on the UI panel is chosen. After changing the settings, the Confirm button needs to be clicked to send the new parameters to the plug-in. Whereas Orchid 0.0 only worked with "live" input, version 0.1 also orchestrates MIDI tracks on playback. One can even play live through an Orchid channel that is also playing back, but because of the way Sonar buffers MIDI streams, a voice will only be assigned to a "live" note if all recorded notes that will be assigned to that voice have already been played. To download, just click on the name of the plug-in you wish to use. To use these plugging with Sonar, or any other software system using the Mfx APIs to manage MIDI, save them in an appropriate directory, open a command line window in that directory, and type the command:
To de-install, run the same program with the /u ("uninstall") flag, e.g.
If, having read the foregoing, you can't figure out how to use these tools by playing around with them, drop me an email, and I'll write up some simple documentation. Disclaimer: All software is provided "as is", with no warranty express or implied that it will do anything useful. While you might think that there isn't much damage a simple plug-in could do to your system, and while our software has decades of experience behind it, Microsoft OS installations are often flaky and fragile, and Paralogos and Kevin Kissell disclaim any responsibility if an error in our products triggers a catastrophic chain of events resulting in loss of service or data. Last update: December 8, 2004. |
