I’ve been really enjoying using the Deep Expressor plugin for modifying my guitar sound before sending to amp plugins like TONEX and MixBox. But I was a little surprised to discover that it doesn’t process anything below the tracker’s range. It’ll pass e.g. a C2 note thru, but not apply its effects to that note.
Is there a reason for that?
In playing with that a little bit–just trying things–I was really surprised to find that the Transposer plugin also has a weird quality of its own. It seems to work on audio as well as on MIDI notes, regardless of the tracker’s range. That is, if I add a +1 octave Transposer to an MG3 Chain, my guitar’s audio C2 note comes through just fine–as an audio C3. (Just as if I’d added an outboard octave up audio effect like a POG.) And if I transpose down an octave, I hear a C1. I can see that the tracker clearly doesn’t produce a MIDI note for that incoming audio C2 in either circumstance, but here what I thought of, mentally, as a MIDI note transposer, is clearly acting as an audio transposer.
So my question there is: am I seeing this right? Does the Transposer always operate on the incoming audio regardless of tracking? And if it does, does it also transpose the MIDI note it sends to an Instrument? Or does it simply send the MIDI note from the transposed audio note?
And I suppose, since this discovery has my mind reeling a bit all over again, I should ask this third question: are there other built-in MG3 plugins that have quirky features like that? I think Gain might do something similar, always acting on audio (does it also act on MIDI notes? now I’m curious) even on notes below the tracker’s range. (I’d love to see the Gain footswitch, though, be a true gain boost, and not just a mute switch…just wishing there. )
Anyway, whoa, some interesting revelations there, and as always I’m curious to understand it better.
Oh no, I may have spoke too soon! I was doing some MG3 T&E in the standalone iOS app when I discovered this really, really lovely feature of the Transposer plugin operating on all audio. But when I went to stick MG3 into AUM as a plugin, it has no effect on the audio! Deep Expressor still works in the plugin, and Sweetspot, and Gain still works as a mute button, but not the Transposer. Noooo!
@JamO, I do hope this is merely an oversight that might constitute an easy update to add to the plugin, as I think this is a fabulously useful feature for the guitar sound. In trying to make Audiobus do the things I wanted it to do, I inadvertently discovered just how useful the MG3 plugin can be in being a manager for sending different guitar sounds to amp plugins, and being able to have a very viable octaver on-board, in the form of the Transposer, is just a killer feature.
And let me say I have been seriously enjoying working with iOS again, as I’ve actually had some time with an M3 iPad now, and wow, what a difference. Moving to AUM over Audiobus promises to do several things that really kick it up a(nother) notch, and with MG3 in the mix, this is some serious fun.
Yes, I’m aware of this. The Deep Expressor still doesn’t quite fit into the whole framework right now, but there will (hopefully soon) be some successor for it
As for the first question, yes, all pitch modules (except Retuning) works in both audio and midi domains, even complex the HEX specific ones.
Well, FTR, I’m pretty impressed with Deep Expressor so far (and I feel like I’ve only just now begun to dig into it). I think I just now figured out that MG3 plugin doesn’t like to have two Deep Expressors in different instances running at the same time (gives some static on the pluck tone). At first I thought it might have been having two different trackers running at the same time (e.g. MIDI Guitar on instance A and MIDI Bass on instance B), but that cleans up nicely when I remove one of the instances’ Deep Expressors.
And now I’m just curious: is the Transposer working on audio in standalone, but not in plugin–is that somehow related to Deep Expressor?
I can’t wait for Deep Expressor update!
Today for me fits very well in the picture so I cannot imagine what could be next!
Let Ole do his magic (again) wait and see…
Technically speaking, you can run more than one Deep Expressor (DE) module simultaneously on macOS (haven’t checked on iOS) but moving the controls on one DE instance will be reflected on the other.
the C interface we used for making it way back then probably used some STATIC declarations. any STATIC stuff will cause a wormhole between different plugin instances, noticed this quirk with my own work a few years ago.
Regarding audio pitch shifting not working for you in the plugin version:
I think it works iff you don’t put any MIDI OUTPUT or any VST/AU instruments in the chain.
This happens as MG try to be clever and optimize away any pitch shifting when there are VST/AU instruments because these instruments will disregard any audio anyway. But also the MIDI OUTPUT is considered an instrument (which is maybe something to be addressed).
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