Sure, what with it being 2008 and all, “plug-in” to many people means audio processing. But what if you want an arpeggiator? Or something to harmonize incoming notes, or match them to scales? Or … well, just about anything else you can do with pitch and time with MIDI, from utilities to music effects? And what if your host’s built-in options are letting you down?

The good news: you’ve got lots of options. The bad news: a lot are on Windows.

We saw Chirp, a Mac/Windows utility for assigning QWERTY keyboards to MIDI input, earlier this week. But that’s led to some other discussions.

The MVelope MIDI Toolkit includes a whole range of free MIDI plug-ins for Windows VST hosts. There’s already MKey, a very nice, mature QWERTY keyboard (similar to Chirp, but a little simpler and functioning as a plug-in). In beta or “teaser” form are some other interesting utilities: a pattern-based arpeggiator (pictured, top), filter/router, chord generator, and eventually a Control Change-powered LFO you can drop anywhere you like. (I’d love to have that last one in Ableton Live, since I miss the readily-available LFOs found in tools like FL Studio.) Thanks to Peter for the tip on this one.

But ready to jump down the rabbit hole?

The old CreamWare Scope DSP platform has been given new life… yet again. Things had been suspiciously quiet since Sonic Core acquired CreamWare’s assets early last year, and many long-time users were worried the end was near. It turns out the team was simply hard at work. The company will unveil powerful new Scope hardware and significantly upgraded software at the 2008 Frankfurt Musikmesse (March 12-15).

The big news is the € 2698 ($4200) Scope XITE-1 DSP hardware system. It’s based on Analog Devices SHARC DSP chips, offering 10x more processing power than their previous high-end Scope Professional card. The new hardware is housed in a 19 inch 1U rack case that interfaces to your Mac or Windows box via a PCI-Express (desktop) or ExpressCard (notebook) interface.

Even as software continues to flourish, there’s still a great argument for a hardware box that does what you need — especially when that box has extensive feature sets, MIDI support, comes from Roger Linn, and costs US$375. Roger himself writes to let us know about the release of the AdrenaLinn III:

AndrenaLinn III Product Page

Like the models that came before it, the AdrenaLinn III is a guitar amp modeler with modulation and effects. The effects section is what really sets it apart: delays, filter sequences, and modulation are all synced to either the built-in drum machine or external MIDI. MIDI sync, of course, means you could easily integrate this with a software setup with tools like Ableton Live, Reason, or Cakewalk Project5. But it’s also little wonder that Linn, creator of various breakthrough drum machines, would turn a guitar effects unit into a drum machine.

The AdrenaLinn III incorporates myriad improvements over its predecessors, generally making this a more well-rounded unit, with enough effects that it could be an all-in-one solution:

• New effects: Reverb, compression, tuner, enhanced modulation
• New amp models, for a total of 40, Linn Design also says the improved models have better presence/tube saturation/tonal accuracy
• Better MIDI control, now letting you get to nearly all settings from MIDI foot switches and expression pedals, with assignable foot switch functions
• More presets, more drum beats

I look forward to hearing one in person. And this sounds too nice, anyway, to let the guitarists have all the fun — this sounds promising on many other instruments, too. Roger tells us his wife uses her AdrenaLinn with a cello.

Since this really is software running in a box, if you have an existing AdrenaLinn, you can upgrade to the latest model for US$99, which sounds well worth it. We’ve predicted before that more affordable, capable hardware would continue to advance external gear at the same time as computer software develops, and this is another example of how the two can nicely coexist in your setup.

Other gear watching…

I’m more in the AdrenaLinn vein than Line 6 Pods, but if the latter interest you, Music thing gets the scoop on leaked specs on a new model.

Meanwhile, what many are really eager to see from Roger Linn is the collaboration with Dave Smith, the BoomChik. We expect that’s a ways off yet. Okay by me: more time to save the pennies.

Our friends Chachi and Alan write in from San Francisco’s music tech haven, Robotspeak, to share a video giving the Moogerfooger FreqBox some hands-on time. Since the FreqBox needs some signal to do its magic, they turned to two great sources: Alan’s guitar, and Chachi’s Roland TB-303.

We hope to have some more on the FreqBox soon; let us know if you’ve gotten one yourself and how it’s working out for you.

Previously: NAMM: Moog Music moogerfooger FreqBox Meant to be Heard, Not Seen?

Looks can be a powerful agent for changing how we think about sound. Pairing liquid, organic speakers with equally fluid and dynamic visualizations, the launch of Muon last month in Italy made this principle readily apparent. I’m all about lo-fi, cheap gear here on CDM, but if you absolutely must launch luxurious aluminum speakers with spectacular animated visuals at a posh party in an Italian salon, I sure won’t complain. Pass the prosecco, please?

Muon Project Page, documentation videos at chrisoshea.org
See coverage at ze | d | esign, toxi’s project blog, MoCo Loco, elsewhere. (Yeah, CDM’s motto is: cover things last. Was a bit busy with Maker Faire!)
Created by Moving Brands

Details on the installation and how it was done:

Bertill is an insanely glitchy distortion unit based on models of circuit-bent hardware, as a free VST for Windows and Mac (Universal Binary). Actually, whether you should really believe that or not, I’m not certain: I’m only vaguely sure of the relationship of the massive digital mangling this plug-in causes and the obscure Handycam shots uploaded to YouTube of a circuit-bent setup. Regardless, the thing sounds wonderfully awful. The knobs are straightforward and will demolish your sound entirely if you like; dial different “types” for a variety of different settings. Some of the higher type numbers are actually fairly subtle. Good stuff.

Shuriken: Berrtil Distortion unit

Here’s what it can sound like hooked up to a pad from Sytrus:

berrtil.mp3

Sure, theoretically you should use real circuit-bent hardware for this. But this is fun anyway.

The plug-in is the creation of a Swedish Betabugs Audio vet going by the name Shuriken, which is apparently a ninja star. (Nice domain!) Lots of other good things on the site. Here’s the circuit-bent setup, though you mostly see it rather than hear it. Use your imagination:

How many times can you hear the same delays and filters and reverbs over and … over … again? The developers at DaevlMakr promise a more “organic” quality by employing unusual combinations of techniques and adding a little chance to the flow in their Daevl.Plugs suite. I’ve been meaning to talk about their work for some time (and, of course, they’re evidently CDM readers). I’m adding them to some projects now, but in the meantime, here’s an initial preview. And I’ve gotten some additional feedback from our recent contributor addition, Liz Knight aka Quantazelle, who has met the developers and been toying with the sounds.

First, the lineup:

Daevl.Plugs (Info, sound samples, screenshots)

1. daevl.cerberus: “Three delays in a feedback network, with distortion via self frequency modulation plus time-shifting on each channel.” Think multi-tap/delay feedback with a timbral twist.
2. daevl.cubedriver: Bitcrusher + pitch shifter + stereo delay = swirling digital mayhem. You’ll know the effect when you hear it, but it’s still not something you’ll find included in a Pro Tools bundle.
3. daevl.hilbertspace: “Three Hilbert-Transform ring modulators in a dual mono delay network.” Glitchy, digital ring mod.

Stompboxes are back! Yes, software is great, but the gigging musician still loves something you can plug in and step on. The Messe show saw some traditionally rack-mounted gear reborn in stomp form.

Sure to be a huge hit, Roland’s BOSS RE-20 takes the beloved RE-201 Roland Space Echo and recreates it as a stompbox. It emulates all the major features of the RE-201, down to placement presets and tape flutter and magnetic head sound saturation, and adds a longer delay time — plus the ability to tap in delays with your foot. No pricing or availability yet that I’ve seen.

BOSS RE-20 Space Echo Product Page
Music thing weighs in with some thoughts.

At the other end of the spectrum, vocal processor maker TC-Helicon is best known for making big, do-everything racks. They’ve now taken the most popular features there, and repackaged as stomp boxes called VOICE|TONE. The idea is to perform all of the sweetening you’d normally apply in the studio onstage.

German manufacturer CreamWare - best known for their Scope DSP cards and ASB tabletop synthesizers - was declared insolvent on December 18, 2006. Those of you who’ve been following the company for a few years will recall that they hit a similar rough patch in 2004, but re-emerged to release their acclaimed lineup of ASB hardware synthesizers, along with updates to their Scope DSP software.

Luckily, this cloud has a silver lining. The company’s assets have been acquired by two companies with considerable CreamWare experience: SonicCore and InDSP.

SonicCore is a German company run by former Scope developers Holger Drenkelfort and Juergen Kindermann who will continue to develop, support and market Scope DSP boards under the CreamWare name. Drenkelfort made the following statement on the PlanetZ forum this morning: “As we have been deeply involved from the beginning in the development of both SCOPE hard- and software, it’s a very special pleasure for us to provide ongoing support for these great products. Furthermore, we will continue the manufacturing and selling of SCOPE products and devices, as we believe that’s the least this platform deserves. You can be sure there will be some nice offerings to come in the future.”

It appears that rights to the hardware synthesizer technology have been acquired by InDSP, the India-based design company that developed the ASB gear. This arrangement seems ideal, since InDSP is helmed by former CreamWare exec Frank Hund. There’s no word on whether the current ASB lineup will remain in production, but I strongly suspect InDSP will be behind some shiny new hardware at the upcoming Frankfurt Musikmesse.

All in all, this should enable CreamWare technology to live on and flourish.

Yes, now not only will Jessica Simpson be able to sing in tune, she’ll be able to be tuned to an Indonesian pelog scale!

AutoTune, the ubiquitous and now pretty ridiculously powerful tuning software, has some major new improvements in AutoTune 5. Central to the upgrade is a graphical mode that lets you draw pitch envelopes over a representation of the detected pitch. Here’s where things start to get interesting: the developers at AutoTune have added pen tablet input, so you can hook up your Wacom tablet, polish off your drawing skills, and perform either subtle tweaks or expressive, experimental pitch changes to an audio source.

Microtonal and alternative guru Carl Lumma, a veteran of Keyboard Magazine, writes to point out that the upgrade now no longer limits you to conventional major and minor modes: 26 historical and microtonal scales are included in the new release. That’s great, but they don’t seem to support Scala tuning files, which would be even better. There’s also new sync-to-host support, so you could do some crazy beat-synced pitch distortion with this.

It’s too bad AutoTune isn’t a little more affordable, because it sounds like just the kind of software a lot of us would love to abuse. The adjustment speed and vibrato controls are all designed to be expressive and closely controlled, so I think there’s likely a wide range of sonic effects you could coax out of this very powerful software. Go find a friend with a plug-in-laden Pro Tools setup and ask if you can borrow it late at night.

Antares AutoTune 5 Preview [Antares, via]