# In the queue...

- Site: Analog Industries
- Author: Chris Randall
- Date: 2006-02-01
- URL: https://analogindustries.com/2006/02/in-the-queue/

![In the queue...](https://analogindustries.com/images/blog/bs_screenshot.jpg)

Man, what a month. While I was waiting for _my_ Intel iMac to show up, I whipped out the product you see pictured above, BigSeq, which is an analog-informed gate and filter sequencer. I have the Windows version done, and when my iMac shows up (which, according to UPS, will be any minute) I'll start work on the OSX VST/AU. Don't know how long this one will take, but not too long.

In other news, work proceeds on porting our OSX products to UB. We're about 90% of the way to having a building method for our products. One issue remains, and when that's solved, we'll start pumping them out. We've also got Discord 2 and another product which I'll talk about when the feature set is, well, set. So the next couple months will be interesting on the AD front.

I'll have a full review of the Intel iMac tomorrow, theoretically. Assuming it works at all, and UPS didn't stick a forklift fork through it or anything.

## Comments (16)

**InvisibleMensch** (2006-02-01):

If you need a midi step sequencer, try seq-303. It's ancient but it works...

**Chris Randall** (2006-02-01):

"have you considered making presets an automatable parameter?"

They are in any host that can do so (e.g. Cubase/Nuendo.) Don't know what you use, but that's a host thing.

-CR

**Muff Wiggler** (2006-02-01):

woah....can we have more info about this 'analog informed' unit?

Will it be designed to drive my Blacet stuff, via MIDI-Interface-to-Mobius? I'm sure you could test something like this.

Wouldn't probably excite me were it not for the fact that I'm doing modular stuff now (thanks in no small part to you dammnit).

Am I alone in wishing there was a PC interface that could emit gate and CV?

**Chris Randall** (2006-02-01):

No MIDI out on this. I thought about it, but the method by which you perform such things in VST is not supported by hardly any hosts, and in AU it is basically impossible. So it would be a feature that is hard to impliment, yet useful to almost nobody.

As for features, it has VCAs on left and right channels, which are driven by the top two rows of switches. The bottom row activates the filter, the frequency of which is controlled by the sliders. It's pretty simple in operation. I'm pretty proud of the filter, which sounds excellent. It is a Hal Chamberlain 2-pole design, with an overdrive stage added, and it really has some whomp in the low end.

-CR

**Muff Wiggler** (2006-02-01):

ah sounds very nice then! I didn't think it would do effect processing, my impression from your pic and brief description was of a sequencer type box thingy only. This is pretty interesting (hey, have you seen Tiny God Murmur Pro? "sort of similar" in some of these concepts, I love that plugin. A lot like a Z.Vexx Seek Wah as well.)

Anyway, is Cubase/Nuendo the only one? I use a few VST plugs that emit midi (mostly the xoxos stuff and SonicBytes ERA) that I send outwards to hardware, and wish there were more. I think it would be worth doing. Ha!

**Ataru** (2006-02-01):

isn't the AudioRealism BassLine able to output midi to logic by opening up a new midi out port or something like that? I don't own it so I'm not exactly sure but I know that Logic pops up a notice everytime you set one up as an instrument to let you know that the number of midi ports has changed.

a standard for plug-ins to accept controller inputs and output their own would make me a super happy musician. Reason has been out for how many years now and this isn't standard across the board?!?

**Chris Randall** (2006-02-01):

BassLine is an instrument. AU has a mechanism for that. Getting MIDI to a plug is also not impossible, but as everyone knows, getting MIDI to an insert effect in Logic is damn nigh impossible.

We generally go for the lowest common denominator that works on every host. Thus, since getting MIDI _from_ a plug isn't impossible, it's different in all the hosts, and a lot don't allow it. So, we skipped that feature. I wasn't entirely sure how useful it would be anyways. If you're just sending a bunch of note-on messages to a synth, it's easier on the CPU and your mental processes to use the step/grid editor in your DAW. Opening an audio track and using an insert effect to do it is kind of cutting off the nose to spite the face.

-CR

**Muff Wiggler** (2006-02-01):

yes...except for cool algorhythmic generators like Talent. Hard to do that kinda thing in an editor window :)

**shamann** (2006-02-01):

Talent only runs as an instrument, though, where as this one works as an effect, so it becomes a very different process to make MIDI Out work.

There would have to be a separate build of BigSeq as a MIDI-generating instrument for it to make any practical sense, and then it could only be a 16-step sequencer as the VCA/VCF stuff would be useless in most hosts. Which would be kind of pointless, in the end, especially since Chris has said in the past that AD is only an effects maker.

**Muff Wiggler** (2006-02-01):

fair enough...i can easily see that side of things too

**Suit & Tie Guy** (2006-02-01):

i want to buy this plug in.

**Suit & Tie Guy** (2006-02-02):

one thing:

presets? have you considered making presets an automatable parameter?

**niall** (2006-02-02):

DP morphs between preset snapshots quite nicely.

so, would you say that this has a big briar MuRF-analogue?

**niall** (2006-02-02):

s,has,is,g

**thesimulacre** (2006-02-02):

mmm...I like it when it seems my wishes are manifest as soon as I forget about them. Thank you for developing something that is at once useful and really hard to find. My only suggestion, if you could implement it easily enough, would be a "timing" adjustment knob, whereby sync issues can be corrected. Just -0.5 to +0.5 beats according to host tempo.I guess it could be used for evil as well, but that's an end-user issue.

My $0.02,
James

**Chris Randall** (2006-02-02):

We've hit feature freeze for this release. If it does well enough to warrant it, we've got a couple ideas for the second go-round, and that was something I had considered.

-CR