Silent Way

This fixes an issue with some 64 bit hosts, notably Presonus Studio One.

This is a 32 & 64 bit release compatible with ProTools 11, as well as maintaining compatibility with ProTools 10.3.6.

�� Added Silent Way Logic Project.

�� Added controls for Interface Categories.

�� Silent Way Step LFO can now be reset and/or triggered by MIDI notes and/or incoming CVs.

�� Added ‘Gate Length’ control to Silent Way Step LFO.

�� Added ‘Random’ feature to Silent Way Step LFO.

�� Silent Way CV To MIDI, VST version, can now output MIDI direct to the host.

�� Silent Way CV To MIDI can now output MIDI directly to Silent Way Learner.

�� Silent Way Learner now supports MIDI polyphonic pressure messages.

�� Added ‘SMUX Proof’ mode for Silent Way ESX-4CV Combiner.

�� Fixed Silent Way Learner, VST and AU versions, to correctly output silence.

* Added a new plug-in: Silent Way Function. SW Function applies simple mathematical operations to incoming CVs. It is intended to be particularly useful in conjunction with the forthcoming ES-6 and ES-7 modules.
* Added "Calibrated" mode to Silent Way Follower, allowing it to use calibration profiles generated in SW Voice Controller, for accurate pitch tracking from incoming audio to your analogue VCOs.
* Added "Transport2" sync mode to Silent Way LFO. Like the existing Transport mode, but stops when the host transport stops.
* Added a “Transfer” button to Silent Way Soundplane and Silent Way Follower, allowing one click transfer of a calibration from Voice Controller to another plug-in that uses is, without having to save the calibration to disk and load it back in.
* Added support for the Expert Sleepers ES-5 module to Silent Way Sync.
* Added sustain pedal support to Silent Way Voice Controller.
* Fixed a bug that would cause Silent Way Follower to lock up the host application.

AAX format

Public beta of Silent Way AAX.

fixed a problem that prevented use of the plug-in status bar (mute, presets etc.) in Cubase Mac OS X 32 bit.

added the ability to skin the colours of the various graph elements in the UIs (e.g. envelope displays).

�� Added 5 new plug-ins: Silent Way ES-5 Controller, Silent Way ESX-4CV Combiner, Silent Way Follower, Silent Way Learner and Silent Way Soundplane.

�� 64 bit support (OS X and Windows).

�� New GUI look.

�� Added skinning - fully customisable GUIs.

�� Added MIDI learn for easy remote control from MIDI control surfaces.

�� Added new OSC control features for trivial setup with popular OSC apps such as TouchOSC.

�� All plug-ins are now installed in a single bundle (OS X)/dll (Windows).

�� Numerous other small fixes and enhancements.

fixed Logic AU validation of 64 bit SW Quantizer and SW Soundplane

fixed sending of OSC (from SW Learner and CV To OSC) in 64 bit

implemented OSC path copy to clipboard (in Learner UI) in Windows

plug-in UIDs are now stored with the song file (so OSC paths remain consistent after a save/load)

SW SMUX wasn't working in Logic, now fixed

SW Soundplane now saves its calibration with the song

SW Learner now stores its outgoing OSC path and the MIDI controller mappings

Changes in beta 5:

new plug-in: SW Learner, providing centralised MIDI learn and OSC support.

new plug-in: SW Follower, providing pitch and envelope tracking

new plug-in: SW Soundplane, providing support for the Madrona Labs Soundplane instrument

v2 beta 5 now uses a Silent Way v2 licence.

- v2 licences are available to purchase now.

- v2 is $59.

- an upgrade from v1 to v2 is $20.

- if you purchased v1 in 2012, the upgrade is $10. Contact Expert Sleepers for a discount coupon.

- a new Licence Manager (1.0.18) is required

SW Sync in beta 5 now has the same Logic bug workaround as v1.7.3

SW Sync has new parameters: Mute Clock, Multiplier and the option to invert signals when using an ES-5 or ESX-8GT

SW Trigger has an envelope multiplier (as in the Voice Controller)

there's now an effect version of SW Trigger which can be triggered by incoming CV (this is useful when using the Step LFO for sequencing, so you can derive an envelope from the LFO's gate output)

This version adds a workaround to the Silent Way Sync plug-in for a Logic Pro bug which could cause erratic clock output.

64 bit support (Windows and Mac OS X)

new UI design

skinnable UI

* A new plug-in, Silent Way Sync, is added to the suite. This takes the DIN sync generator from the ES-4 Controller plug-in and expands on it to become a general purpose clock/trigger/sync plug-in.
* Fixes various issues with parameter automation and GUI updates.
* Fixes the ES-4 Controller plug-in's response to MIDI channels (previously it would respond to mes- sages on any and all MIDI channels) and adds a 'Channelise' capability to the MIDI Out section.

* Added a Trigger Length control to Silent Way Voice Controller and Silent Way Trigger.
* Fixed a bug in the behaviour of Newest note priority mode in Silent Way Voice Controller.
* Added Trigger Length controls to Silent Way ES-4 Controller, allowing the 40 independent gate outputs to operate as triggers instead.

The AU Generator variants of the Silent Way DC, Silent Way CV Input, Silent Way LFO and Silent Way Step LFO plug-ins have been replaced by AU Instrument variants, so as to be compatible with AU validation under OS X Lion.

Added a 'Reset By Note' option to Silent Way LFO, allowing the LFO to be reset by incoming MIDI note-on messages.

Added visual feedback of the LFO's position in its cycle to Silent Way LFO.

Added a 'Create ES-4 Calibration' button to Silent Way Quantizer, removing the need to load a suitable calibration file when using the Quantizer with the ES-4 module.

Made a slight adjustment to the ES-4 Controller's input processing to match that in the Silent Way Voice Controller and Silent Way Quantizer.

This version adds two new features to the Silent Way Voice Controller plug-in:

'ES-4 mode', allowing direct use with the Expert Sleepers ES-4 module without routing through the ES-4 Controller plug-in.

a transpose setting.

This version adds an 'output configuration' option to the VST versions of the Silent Way Voice Controller plug-in (Mac OS X and Windows), allowing the plug-in's outputs to be presented to the host as either a 6-channel bus, three stereo busses or six mono busses.

This release adds a new plug-in: Silent Way SMUX.

Silent Way SMUX provides a hack to workaround the reduction in channel count over ADAT connections when running the audio system at 88.1/96kHz.

When using an audio interface to produce your CVs that is connected via ADAT (for example, the Expert Sleepers ES-3 Lightpipe/CV Interface), and when the audio system is being run at a 'double speed' rate (typically 96kHz), the number of audio channels that can be sent down the ADAT connection is reduced from the usual 8 down to 4. The 4 double-speed channels are multiplexed onto the 8 ADAT channels - this system is usually referred to as 'S/MUX', or sample multiplexing.

The Silent Way SMUX plug-in gets around this reduction in channel count by providing a complementary multiplexing scheme, which takes 4 channels of CVs and combines them onto 2 channels of the double-speed audio stream. When the ADAT output is then decoded by a normal-speed interface (such as the ES-3 mentioned above), the channels are demultiplexed, and so you get your 4 channels of CV back again.

This release adds support for the Expert Sleepers ES-2-2 module to the Silent Way CV Input plug-in.

Also added is a 6 channel variant of the Silent Way AC Encoder VST plug-in, for convenience of use in Cubase where a 6 channel bus is being used for the Silent Way Voice Controller plug-in.

This update adds multipliers the Silent Way Voice Controller's envelopes, allowing for very long or very short envelope times.

This update increases the maximum range of the Silent Way Voice Controller's pitch bend function.

This update extends the range of the Silent Way LFO's Beat Divisor parameter down to 1/128th notes. This addresses a problem with setting up the VST versions of the plug-in to output DIN Sync.

This update adds a VSTi configuration of the Mac OS X and Windows VST versions of the Silent Way Voice Controller plug-in, so the plug-in can now be used either as an instrument or as an effect.

We're happy to announce the release of Silent Way v1.5.2, which adds an important new plug-in to the suite - Silent Way AC Encoder.

Silent Way AC Encoder removes the need for a DC coupled audio interface and lets you use Silent Way with almost any audio interface. The two requirements are

* your interface must have balanced outputs (almost all do).
* you need to make some special cables.

The cables are a very simple job, well within the scope of anyone with basic soldering skills.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

* 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.

This update addresses an issue where the GUIs would appear in slightly the wrong place in Cubase.

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

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.

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.

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.