With so much AI right now just spitting out generic stuff, I wanted to build something that actually feels like a personalized co-writer.
The plugin will suggest presets and you can also feed it your own MIDI and ask for rewrites, accompaniments, extensions, etc.
Would genuinely love feedback from other producers/plugin developers here. If you’re interested, comment here and I’ll send along a code to try it for 1 month free.
I'm a CS Major who has been composing and playing violin for 10+ years, and has recently started with music production. I noticed that there aren't many good violin VSTs, and the ones that are good cost a lot, so I'd figured that I'd take a crack at it this summer. I showed results to a couple of friends and they said it sounds fairly good, so I was toying with the idea to sell it for free/for non-free/have a donation box after I work on it some more.
I know AI is a controversial subject, so I want to pre-emptively defend myself.
Training data: All training data was recorded by me in my bedroom, i.e. no stolen/scraped audio.
Environmental impact: minimal since I trained the model on my laptop in a few hours.
No cloud-based service: large AI services are hosted by the companies themselves since they can't run on laptops/computers. This isn't an issue because my models are small enough to run locally.
Deterministic output: A concern that I've seen online with one of the existing AI-powered VSTs is reproducibility, since many of these methods are inherently random. I designed my paradigm to be inherently deterministic (the same, predictable audio output every time).
Controllability: In order to keep the expressivity of the violin, I have user controls for articulations, note shape (swells etc.), and vibrato per note.
Would you use this virtual instrument with its current quality/features?
If so, would you be willing to spend money for it?
If not, is there anything I can change/improve/add?
Is the current output quality acceptable? To improve it, I would need to record more training data. Do you think it would be worth it for me to get a better mic/use a real studio/find a better violinist?
Ultimately, this project is mostly for my resume as an aspiring ML researcher, but I also plan to use it for my own musical projects in the future. Thank you for reading, listening, and responding!
Howdy folks - happy to announce the release of Essential Six, a faithful emulation of the quirky, but exceptional Six Trak by Sequential Circuits. This thing was known for incredibly rich sounds (bass in particular) thanks to its stackable six-voice architecture. Essential Six lets you play with custom sounds built on the original instrument with all the convenience of modern digital workflows.
Got inspired by the little ascii animation on the front page of northflank, decided it would be cool to have plugins in that style.
Honestly the filter sounds really freaking good too, its simple, but I had it actually look at circuit schematics etc so it's actually doing some real emulation not just faking it, have no idea how accurate it is, but the cpu usage is super low so I'm happy. I plan to make a whole serious of plugins with interfaces like this, for my own personal use. I know we dont need more vibe coded slop on the market but if anyone decides they want to use them I could possibly post them.
just bought amplitude 5 max (the most expensive and recent version). they say that this is the "all-in" version but after buying it i see inaccessible gear. literally no mention that the full edition didnt come with everything anywhere on their website. anyways, ive contacted their support for a refund and they refused it because i registered the product (necessary for me to even see the unincluded software in the first place) 15 minutes ago. what a joke and what a despicable company. i payed 200 euro for their "total studio 3.5" (which is actually filled with outdated versions of their software like modo bass 1.5 instead of the current modo bass 2). AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS! IF YOU WANT AMP SIMS GO TO NEURAL OR LINE6 OR LITERALLY ANYONE ELSE!
My plugin is basically a disperser with up to 2048 allpass filters stages with a few extra options like different feedback delays via the timbre parameter, a drive knob, stereo control and gain/mix knobs. I coded the DSP myself and used claude to generate some SVG files and then displayed them via baseview egui. The plugin is avialable in VST3/CLAP on linux (glibc >= 2.17) and windows 10/11. I tested it in pluginval, clap-validator and steinberg's VST validator. It passes all tests but I still have some issues on windows. Last bug I got was that pressing windows key after deleting the plugin would cause the DAW to crash. I fixed the bug but maybe more bugs like this are remaining so I think it still needs some testing. DM me if you're interested.
Is anyone else bothered by the fact that 90% of the companies making plugins don't actually offer refunds?
I've been brushing it off for awhile as it only happened a couple times where the product I bought either didn't work the way it was advertised or it wasn't as good as the advertisement. I spent less than $10 so I let it go, stopped using it and moved on.
Back in March, same thing happened again. I bought a sample pack pack for a drum sampler plugin (I wanted to try something different than EZDrummer for once) because I thought it sounded really good, it did but the problem is that it kept crashing my DAW despite having a very strong computer for audio and video production (it didn't crash with the default samples). Of course, no refunds available, I wasted $30.
The other day I bought an IR pack that I thought sounded really good and had positive reviews on YouTube as well as convincing advertising. I tried the IRs on a few of my projects and they are not good at all. Again, no refunds.
I get that VSTs are non-tangible digital goods but there should be a way, within reason, that allows customers to get their money back if the product either isn't as advertised or doesn't perform as it should causing issues for the customer.
Is this an unreasonable expectation to have from these companies as paying customers? I would be happy with having just 7 day window to request a refund which I think it's enough time to figure it out.
I bought several plugins in the past that unfortunately didn't offer a free trial (luckily they ended up being as good as advertised and met all my expectations). The point is it shouldn't feel like a gamble when buying plugins.
I was talking to a friend of mine who's also an hobbyist like me and he said he usually downloads cracked plugins to demo them, if they work as intended he buys them, if not he can just delete them, no harm to the wallet. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this but if this is the only way to properly demo a plugin, who's to say people actually skip the part where they eventually buy the plugin rather than keep using the cracked ones?
I've never really seen this topic being talked about before, I wanted to start a conversation and see other people's perspective.
Hello, i share these videos from a Youtube serie I started and dedicated to free vst plugins. Enjoy and share your findings ! Next episode will be about guitar 😃
Hello, So recently I picked up the Epic Percussion V3 pack from the recent fall discount that they have. I was unaware that Kontakt Full was required to use it before I bought it. I really don’t want to pay $400 for it if I don’t have to. Is there any free/cheap solutions?
I'm coming from the Eventide Ultrareverb but stepped away from music for a while and am curious to know what other excellent reverbs have come out since then.
hi, i just reset my computer(like the hard reset not just like the regular reset so i wiped my computer) i use illformed glitch quite a lot, and i can access the vst's functionality while i edit clips and midi files etc etc but the plug in window wont open. IE to see all the separate effects and phrases and the blocks to arrange them. does anyone have anything similar that they've had happen to them? any help is greatly appreciated!
What im looking for may be a little bit challenging? Im mainly looking for a VST that changes vocals on how it sounds. Not a simple distortion effect, but like effects how the sample sounds?? Its mainly hard to describe, i see it as the VST trying to mimic the way we maniplute our voice to sound different
List your favorite VSTi (including UVI Workstation/Falcon, WAV kits, MIDI-Chord Generators, and Kontakt) developers with their respective VSTi plugins they have made:
True Soul Vibes/Produce RNB: the best in the game right now Notable mentions: Signature RNB 4.5
StudioLinked (frmrly known as StudioLinkedVST): they got the best Urban music Kontakt libraries and VSTI plugins in the game before Produce RNB/True Soul Vibves came along!! Notable mentions: Trophies by Bryan Michael Cox (produced hits for Jagged Edge, Mary J. Blige, etc.) Funky Fingers by Zaytoven Weird sidenote: on the website, they used to have Urban Alien, Universe Pads, OVO 1-3 Drizzy VSTi plugins, Urban Chord Lab, Trap Goons, Trap Boom 3, Turn Up, They are rebranding themselves. Good thing I got 90% of their Kontakt and VSTI libraries!!!!
Initial Audio: they are type good. They also make good VSTfx plugins, too, Notable mentions: Heat Up 3 (with copious amounts of soundsource library extensions 808 Studio 2 (dope and they have a couple of good VSTfx's too)
Cymatics (maybe should be no. 3 in lieu of Initial Audio): they almost totally had broke bad when they put out Cymatic Keys and Cymatic Aurora. They redacted those two VSTi plugins, and rebranded themselves. Notable Mentions: all their WAV rompler sample Trap and R&B kits
P.S.: Please keep in mind the developer has to be Urban Music specfic - not a non-subgenr-specific developer that made a plugin with 6 presets dedicated to Trap for example.
