I think your harsh and dismissive assessment misses the point of the purpose of this software. To expect small developers to be able to anticipate every possible bug as they grow their program can only choke creativity. There won’t be any limitation on VSTis then.
In the not too distant future Rapid Composer will itself be a VSTi instrument like Consequence, Catanya, Hypercyclic, etc., to run inside Cubase. For the time being I export my midi into Cubase. This is a compositional/ music creation tool, not a sequencer per se. It’s part of the KISS philosophy of music production. I’m working on the arrangement, not the timbres. I run using either my Roland sound modules or GM soundfont banks. That said, I could care less about the VSTi implementation. Have you contacted the developer? I have received prompt responses from him and on a couple of occasions he has sent me an executable with a bug fixed pending the next release. I understand the developer is busy porting it at this time and has stated in the forum that it’s going very … if it states it supports VSTi, it should. Check out the webpage and try the … a Mac version should be out within a few weeks. It is a new small company in start up that is doing the advances in midi that I always hoped an autocomposition would do. I am obviously extremely excited about this program. Short of Synfire from Cognitone … at about $1200.00 US … there is nothing like this perfect partner for Cubase. But with the possible exception of flexiphrase in Halion 4 and Halion Sonic, does little to aid the ‘composing/ arranging’ side of things. Didn’t like that one? Keep on morphing till it creates one that works as you want … in perfect harmonic and rhythmic step with our original phrases.Ĭubase is a fantastic program and the unquestioned leader in MIDI manipulation. When you set up two musical phrase you like in your sequence … say a way you want an 8 bar section to open in the first bar and how you want it to end in the last bar … ‘phrase morphing’ will automatically fill in a harmonically correct, musically smooth bridge between the two phrases following any chord changes you’ve selected. I think it’s most outstanding feature is ‘phrase morphing.’ ‘Phrase morphing’ is incredible.
When you get it to sound like you like, you export your composition as a type 1 smf with all your actual notes, controller and patch info, etc, for loading into your DAW. You also have controller information easily editable in the composition window for each track and little macros that do things like change the playback to legato or stacatto or velocity curves, etc, on a ‘phrase by phrase’ basis. There are about 25 scales with modal variations of most. There is a fantastic collection of chords with their harmonic neighbors available in a drop menu to make chord alterations.
At this point they are not notes, but harmonically correct phrases correctly played in the key or chord of your composition as controlled by that section of the composition. Basically you drag and drop the phrases on top of the composition tracks. You can also ‘plastically’ change these phrases once they are in the composition window without changing the phrase from the library. There are special ones for chords, basslines, etc. Then you have a library of musical phrases that you can also edit or add to by importing sections from existing midi files. In a nut shell, when you lay out your composition by chord progressions, you can add as many midi tracks as you want … up to at least the basic 16 (I haven’t tested beyond that). They all have their strengths and charms … including a few being free.īut RapidComposer takes everything to a different level … and one I find much closer to what I always wished for in a midi composition program.
Third, … since we’re not all musically educated … I’ve tried a lot of ‘autocomposition’ software programs like Band In A Box, Jammer and Ntonyx, and harmony programs like Harmony Navigator, Harmony Assistant, Harmony Improvisator, ChordSpace and Melody Palette. That’s the main reason I prefer Cubase over the competition and a reason I follow this forum. Second, while I know this is a Cubase forum … and this post will probably get moved to the Lounge pretty quickly, I also know that there are a lot of folks here that are interested in midi composition. And, yes, this is gushing fanboy in the first throes of infatuation. (Edit: I forgot to add that the developer is working on a VSTi plugin version, expected to be implemented shortly.)įirst, I have no financial interest in RapidComposer … unless having purchased the LE version and wanting the development to continue is a financial interest.