modular synth controller plug-ins
Silent Way is a suite of plug-ins designed for use as part of a modular analogue synthesiser system. The plug-ins produce no sound themselves, nor do they process sound - rather, they generate signals to be used as control voltages (CVs), which can be patched into the control inputs of oscillators, filters, VCAs etc. of an analogue system.
There are currently two plug-ins in the Silent Way suite - Silent Way DC and Silent Way Voice Controller. These are described in more detail below. It is anticipated that more plug-ins will be added to the suite in the future - watch the website for product announcements.
All plug-ins also feature
* full MIDI and OSC control.
* MIDI/OSC scriptability.
* sample-accurate handling of MIDI note messages.
- Silent Way DC
Silent Way DC is a simple plug-in that generates constant output signals. It is intended to be used in conjunction with parameter automation (via MIDI or directly by the host application) to generate varying signals. For example, you could use it as an LFO where you draw out the LFO waveform in your host's parameter automation GUI.
- Silent Way Voice Controller
Silent Way Voice Controller is a virtual instrument plug-in designed to directly control an analogue synthesiser by generating the appropriate CV and gate signals via an appropriate audio interface.
By listening to the synthesiser's output signal, the plug-in is able to calibrate itself to generate the appropriate pitch CV for the incoming MIDI notes.
As well as the basic pitch and gate signals, the plug-in can generate three multi-stage envelope CVs which you can feed to VCAs, VCFs etc. in your synth.
 |
Version 1.5.1 |
MacOS X UB |
(AU, VST) |
Jan 13, 2010 |
Adds two new plug-ins to the suite - Silent Way Quantizer and Silent Way CV To MIDI.
Silent Way Quantizer is a CV processing plug-in that constrains the incoming (continuous) CVs to a number of discrete values. For example, it can constrain a pitch CV to exact semitone values. This is especially useful when combined with the Step LFO plug-in in order to accurately sequence musical notes, but it can also be used with e.g. the regular LFO plug-in, or with the Voice Controller plug-in to turn portamentos into discrete glissandos.
The Quantizer plug-in is capable of loading the calibration data from the Voice Controller plug-in, in order to output accurately calibrated pitches.
Silent Way CV To MIDI translates CV signals (such as those produced by Silent Way CV Input, for example) into MIDI messages. These can in turn be used to control all sorts of software and hardware devices. Used in conjunction with, say, Silent Way LFO, the CV To MIDI plug-in provides a standalone means of generating MIDI LFOs, giving Silent Way an application to musicians who have no analogue gear at all.
Other changes in v1.5.1:
* Added 'Random Tuning' feature to Silent Way Voice Controller.
* Added ability to save and load calibration data to Silent Way Voice Controller.
|
Version 1.5.0 |
MacOS X UB |
(AU, VST) |
Nov 13, 2009 |
Adds a new plug-in to the suite - Silent Way Step LFO.
Silent Way Step LFO is a combination step sequencer and LFO generator. It shares many of the features of the LFO plug-in, but rather than generating waveforms based on simple sine, triangle etc. waves it generates a waveform that the user draws in the GUI. When the waveform is interpreted as a series of discrete values, rather than as a continuous wave- form, then the output is that of a traditional analogue step sequencer.
Other changes in v1.5.0:
* The Smooth control on all plug-ins is now calibrated in milliseconds, and has a much larger range.
* All Mac OS X versions now require Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher.
|
Version 1.4.4 |
MacOS X UB |
(AU, VST) |
Oct 17, 2009 |
Dds a new plug-in to the suite - Silent Way CV To OSC.
Silent Way CV To OSC translates CV signals (such as those produced by Silent Way CV Input, for example) into OSC messages. These can in turn be used to control all sorts of software and hardware devices.
|
Version 1.4.3 |
MacOS X UB |
(AU, VST) |
Oct 6, 2009 |
We're happy to announce the release of Silent Way v1.4.3, which adds a new plug-in to the suite - Silent Way CV Input.
Silent Way CV Input is something of a breakthrough in audio interface-based computer/CV interaction, since it lets you get your CVs back into the computer (most other CV-generation software focusses entirely on generating CVs). Moreover this plug-in has no special requirements on the audio interface, and so is not just usable by those with DC-coupled interfaces.
This release also fixes an issue with the AU Generator versions of Silent Way DC & LFO (added in v1.4.1) when loaded as mono plug-ins.
|
Version 1.4.1 |
MacOS X UB |
(AU) |
Sep 29, 2009 |
The new versions add an 'AU Generator' variant to each plug-in, which can be used in Logic on software instrument tracks at the start of the signal chain.
|
Version 1.4.0 |
MacOS X UB |
(AU, VST) |
Sep 26, 2009 |
* Added Silent Way Trigger plug-in.
* Added smoothing option on all outputs of all plug-ins.
* Added 'swing' feature to Silent Way LFO.
* Added portamento feature to the Voice Controller.
* Fixed a bug that would very occasionally cause the GUIs to be corrupted.
|
Version 1.4.2 |
MacOS X UB |
(VST) |
Sep 26, 2009 |
This update addresses an issue where the GUIs would appear in slightly the wrong place in Cubase.
|
Version 1.3.0 |
MacOS X UB |
(AU, VST) |
Sep 6, 2009 |
The major new feature in this release is a polyphonic mode for the Voice Controller. Other changes:
* Added a per-envelope Reset To Zero control, which controls whether the envelopes always start from zero when triggered, or whether they start from their current value (which is the common behaviour in hardware envelope generators).
* Updated all plug-ins for the font changes in OS X 10.6
|
Version 1.2.0 |
MacOS X UB |
(AU, VST) |
Aug 30, 2009 |
This release adds a new plug-in to the Silent Way suite - Silent Way LFO. As you might guess from the name, this plug-in is a low frequency oscillator device. It offers a variety of waveforms, tempo sync, and can be combined with the control outputs (e.g. envelopes, velocity) of the Voice Controller plug-in to achieve effects such as vibrato that fades in during each note.
|
Version 1.1.0 |
MacOS X UB |
(AU, VST) |
Jul 30, 2009 |
• The Voice Controller AU now has an effect variant so it will work in Digital Performer.
• Added new OSC commands (registerOSCPathForParameter() and registerOSCPathForParameterNormalized()) added, primarily for compatibility with TouchOSC.
• Output configuration changed from a set of drop-down menus to a full matrix of knobs.
• Envelope scale parameters removed, since the same functionality is now offered by the output matrix.
• Added new 'velocity' output.
• Added velocity-based scaling of envelopes.
• Added Hz/V calibration mode.
• Areas of the full MIDI note range note covered during calibration are now filled with 'wrapped around' values from octaves that are covered.
• Added note priority modes (last/low/high) and retrigger modes (on/off).
• Added 'panic' button.
• Fixed some incorrect envelope triggering behaviours.
• The 'trigger' output is now slightly longer than before (it was previously a single audio sample).
NB the reworking of the output configuration unfortunately means that v1.1.0 of the Voice Controller is not preset-compatible with earlier versions. If you install this version and then load up a song that already uses the Voice Controller, some of the settings (notably the envelopes) will be wrong. This is something we usually go to great lengths to avoid in Expert Sleepers plug-ins, but we felt it was acceptable in this case as most workflows will involve using Silent Way to control a synth which is then recorded as audio before moving on - so to some extent storing presets is irrelevant, since you can't store the state of the synth along with it.
|
Version 1.0.2 |
MacOS X UB |
(VST) |
Jul 4, 2009 |
The VST versions (Mac and Windows) of Silent Way have been updated to v1.0.2.
These are identical except now the Voice Controller plug-in is no longer a VSTi. This makes it possible to use in Cubase, since Cubase has problems routing audio to virtual instruments.
NB if you were successfully using v1.0.1 (e.g. in Live) you may find you need to slightly reconfigure your song files to take account of this change. We apologise for the inconvenience.
Loading...
Commercial Software
Senseney Music Inc. Wichita, 45 km
