New Lectric Panda VST (Public Beta)

[freshkidblaze]

https://lectricpanda.com/

Automata

Cellular Automata based MIDI Sequencer. Bits from the Automata state are added to the note base parameters: Trigger, Pitch, Velocity, Duration, Slice, and Hold.
Four MIDI CC's can also be generated.

1-D Automata.
Reset every N steps.
Scalable UI.
Integrated tool tips.
Host Transport Sync.
Sample accurate MIDI Generation.
VST3 Format.

[rcbuse]

Please note, this produces VST3 MIDI output, therefore it does not work with Reason 12.

[Marc64]

Hope for midi vst soon then

[antic604]

Please note, this produces VST3 MIDI output, therefore it does not work with Reason 12.

This is awesome!

---------------------------------------------

Any chance for RE? Or have you abandoned that format forever?

[rcbuse]

Any chance for RE? Or have you abandoned that format forever?

Abandoned is a very stong word... New RE development is on pause for now. These things take sooo much time and effort, I can only get so much out the door. Coming over to VST3 development took almost 2 years of effort to get a framework and build pipline in place, and then make some small plugins on top of it. I would expect a few more VSTs, or VST versions of older REs, before going back to doing new REs.

[antic604]

[...]I would expect a few more VSTs, or VST versions of older REs, before going back to doing new REs.

That's what I came to ask, too

[selig]

Any chance for RE? Or have you abandoned that format forever?

Abandoned is a very stong word... New RE development is on pause for now. These things take sooo much time and effort, I can only get so much out the door. Coming over to VST3 development took almost 2 years of effort to get a framework and build pipline in place, and then make some small plugins on top of it. I would expect a few more VSTs, or VST versions of older REs, before going back to doing new REs.

Having never done any VST development I don’t have a point of comparison. But it sounds like gearing up for VST development is ALSO time consuming, as I’ve suggested to those asking me for VST versions of my REs.
Good information, thanks for sharing, and good luck with your new VST!

[rcbuse]

Having never done any VST development I don’t have a point of comparison. But it sounds like gearing up for VST development is ALSO time consuming, as I’ve suggested to those asking me for VST versions of my REs.
Good information, thanks for sharing, and good luck with your new VST!

Thanks!

It might have been quicker if I chose to use something like JUCE, but I wanted to keep my software dependencies / license stuff as minimal as possible. And then the whole app code signing / cross compilation / copy protection / payment & tax stuff taken care of... took months to get all that sorted. Hopefully I can make enough back to break even on costs.

[jam-s]

If RS only had made an empty VST Rack available for free, they could have saved you quite a lot of hassle. I hope you've also strongly suggested this to them as well, as this one thing could really revitalise the RE platform imho.

[DaveyG]

If RS only had made an empty VST Rack available for free, they could have saved you quite a lot of hassle. I hope you've also strongly suggested this to them as well, as this one thing could really revitalise the RE platform imho.

I don't think listening to RE devs is a strong point with RS. They undermined them when they added VST support and they undermined them again when they introduced the subscription. Both of these things devalue the third party RE market.

SKP are making soundpacks for R+ rather than new REs:

viewtopic.php?p=647250#p647250

[rcbuse]

If RS only had made an empty VST Rack available for free, they could have saved you quite a lot of hassle. I hope you've also strongly suggested this to them as well, as this one thing could really revitalise the RE platform imho.

Yea, I think that would have been awesome... A Free Empty Reason Rack VST. Hell, let people have the Free REs in there too. One would think that would cause a surge of Reason users and get their feet in the door. You might actually sell a ton of REs if a prospective non-reason buyer only needs to pay the price of the Extension. I thought something like that made a lot of sense when they launched the RE subscriptions way back, but those are gone now.

[DaveyG]

This VST reports itself to be an effect rather than an instrument, which is a bit odd. Any plans to fix that?

[rcbuse]

This VST reports itself to be an effect rather than an instrument, which is a bit odd. Any plans to fix that?

Yea, there isn't any category in the VST world for midi effect / midi generator. There are issues with VST "Instruments" producing MIDI, since they are supposed to be a MIDI-->Audio device, so the only thing left is the effect category. It also has an audio outputs, because a lot of hosts will shit their pants if you load a VST without audio outputs, but it just passes though any audio.

[DaveyG]

This VST reports itself to be an effect rather than an instrument, which is a bit odd. Any plans to fix that?

Yea, there isn't any category in the VST world for midi effect / midi generator. There are issues with VST "Instruments" producing MIDI, since they are supposed to be a MIDI-->Audio device, so the only thing left is the effect category. It also has an audio outputs, because a lot of hosts will shit their pants if you load a VST without audio outputs, but it just passes though any audio.

I'm a big user of VSTs that generate MIDI and yours is the only one that lives in effects not instruments. I've had no issues with the others. Have you tried it in FL Studio? I think it will probably not work at all in that.

And, yeah, it's normal for them to have a dummy audio output to keep various DAWs happy.

[rcbuse]

I'm a big user of VSTs that generate MIDI and yours is the only one that lives in effects not instruments. I've had no issues with the others. Have you tried it in FL Studio? I think it will probably not work at all in that.

And, yeah, it's normal for them to have a dummy audio output to keep various DAWs happy.

Can you suggest one or two VST3s that I could look at ?

[DaveyG]

I'm a big user of VSTs that generate MIDI and yours is the only one that lives in effects not instruments. I've had no issues with the others. Have you tried it in FL Studio? I think it will probably not work at all in that.

And, yeah, it's normal for them to have a dummy audio output to keep various DAWs happy.

Can you suggest one or two VST3s that I could look at ?

The daddy is Scaler 2 - it does have some built-in sounds but MIDI out is the main purpose.
The other two I use a lot are Cthulhu and BlueArp. These two are VST2 only. BlueArp is free.
Lurking in the "trialled or bought but hardly used" box are Chordjam, Instachord, Orb Suite and Melodya. At least some of these offer trials.
All of the above install as instruments not effects so I would suggest that's the best thing for Automata to do.

The good news is I just tried Automata with FL Studio. It does work but because it is an effect it ends up by default as a master insert in the mixer even if you drag it into the instrument rack. (You also have to fiddle about assigning pretend midi port numbers to Automata and to the destination synth but that is not your doing - it's the utterly daft way FL Studio does MIDI things).

[antic604]

It might have been quicker if I chose to use something like JUCE, but I wanted to keep my software dependencies / license stuff as minimal as possible.

Please consider CLAP format, eventually.

It was created by Bitwig & U-He (by a guy who worked for the latter, now works for the former) so it's already supported by Bitwig, Reaper, Qtractor, Zrythm. Studio One seems to be lurking into it, too. The list of plugin developers grows every week:

https://cleveraudio.org/hosts-and-plug-ins/

[rcbuse]

Can you suggest one or two VST3s that I could look at ?

The daddy is Scaler 2 - it does have some built-in sounds but MIDI out is the main purpose.
The other two I use a lot are Cthulhu and BlueArp. These two are VST2 only. BlueArp is free.
Lurking in the "trialled or bought but hardly used" box are Chordjam, Instachord, Orb Suite and Melodya. At least some of these offer trials.
All of the above install as instruments not effects so I would suggest that's the best thing for Automata to do.

The good news is I just tried Automata with FL Studio. It does work but because it is an effect it ends up by default as a master insert in the mixer even if you drag it into the instrument rack. (You also have to fiddle about assigning pretend midi port numbers to Automata and to the destination synth but that is not your doing - it's the utterly daft way FL Studio does MIDI things).

Thanks! I'll take a look at these. It's been so long I can't remember what the reason for the effects choice was. I do remember starting out with it as an instrument. Perhaps if I play around with these and automata's settings I'll figure it out again. It might have been chaining them in bitwig didn't work or some such thing.

[rcbuse]

It might have been quicker if I chose to use something like JUCE, but I wanted to keep my software dependencies / license stuff as minimal as possible.

Please consider CLAP format, eventually.

It was created by Bitwig & U-He (by a guy who worked for the latter, now works for the former) so it's already supported by Bitwig, Reaper, Qtractor, Zrythm. Studio One seems to be lurking into it, too. The list of plugin developers grows every week:

https://cleveraudio.org/hosts-and-plug-ins/

Yes, CLAP is in progress.

[joeyluck]

It might have been quicker if I chose to use something like JUCE, but I wanted to keep my software dependencies / license stuff as minimal as possible.

Please consider CLAP format, eventually.

It was created by Bitwig & U-He (by a guy who worked for the latter, now works for the former) so it's already supported by Bitwig, Reaper, Qtractor, Zrythm. Studio One seems to be lurking into it, too. The list of plugin developers grows every week:

https://cleveraudio.org/hosts-and-plug-ins/

Such a terrible name though, right? Lol

Not just because of the association with the word, but because I keep seeing people say "clap plugins", which means "clever audio plugin plugins".

And then you can't just say "CLAPs" like you do "VSTs", because then when you ask people what their favorite CLAPs are, they might just say "808". And then "clap plugin", that's something made by Robotic Bean, right?

And then they are stretching it because the acronym would actually be CAP, but instead they decided to use two letters from the first word.

Why didn't they just call the format Clever? The file extension could be .clever or .clvr if you want to cool. Then people could just say clever plugins and be correct and not even have to say the word clap or explain what CLAP stands for.

[DaveyG]

Please consider CLAP format, eventually.

Such a terrible name though, right? Lol

It's certainly an acronym that would be very unlikely to originate in the UK and probably some other countries.

[rcbuse]

The daddy is Scaler 2 - it does have some built-in sounds but MIDI out is the main purpose.
The other two I use a lot are Cthulhu and BlueArp. These two are VST2 only. BlueArp is free.
Lurking in the "trialled or bought but hardly used" box are Chordjam, Instachord, Orb Suite and Melodya. At least some of these offer trials.
All of the above install as instruments not effects so I would suggest that's the best thing for Automata to do.

The good news is I just tried Automata with FL Studio. It does work but because it is an effect it ends up by default as a master insert in the mixer even if you drag it into the instrument rack. (You also have to fiddle about assigning pretend midi port numbers to Automata and to the destination synth but that is not your doing - it's the utterly daft way FL Studio does MIDI things).

Thanks! I'll take a look at these. It's been so long I can't remember what the reason for the effects choice was. I do remember starting out with it as an instrument. Perhaps if I play around with these and automata's settings I'll figure it out again. It might have been chaining them in bitwig didn't work or some such thing.

Figured out a way to make it show up under both categories in FL, so that will work I think. Next version will have that plus some other fixes.

[Carly(Poohbear)]

Using Automata in Reason.

Demo of it working towards the end of the video.

[antic604]

Such a terrible name though, right? Lol

Not just because of the association with the word, but because I keep seeing people say "clap plugins", which means "clever audio plugin plugins".

And then you can't just say "CLAPs" like you do "VSTs", because then when you ask people what their favorite CLAPs are, they might just say "808". And then "clap plugin", that's something made by Robotic Bean, right?

And then they are stretching it because the acronym would actually be CAP, but instead they decided to use two letters from the first word.

Why didn't they just call the format Clever? The file extension could be .clever or .clvr if you want to cool. Then people could just say clever plugins and be correct and not even have to say the word clap or explain what CLAP stands for.

You're overthinking it way too much

[joeyluck]

Such a terrible name though, right? Lol

Not just because of the association with the word, but because I keep seeing people say "clap plugins", which means "clever audio plugin plugins".

And then you can't just say "CLAPs" like you do "VSTs", because then when you ask people what their favorite CLAPs are, they might just say "808". And then "clap plugin", that's something made by Robotic Bean, right?

And then they are stretching it because the acronym would actually be CAP, but instead they decided to use two letters from the first word.

Why didn't they just call the format Clever? The file extension could be .clever or .clvr if you want to cool. Then people could just say clever plugins and be correct and not even have to say the word clap or explain what CLAP stands for.

You're overthinking it way too much

No, it requires a normal amount of thinking.