The latest version of Mac OS X, “El Capitan” is up and running at Blue Cat Audio.
So far, so good, all plug-ins and standalone application are running smoothly, without a glitch (including Audio Units in Logic Pro X).
While the update is probably not recommended for all (check that you host applications and audio interface drivers are compatible for example), your Blue Cat Audio plug-ins should not be a problem!
What about you? Have you migrated yet? What’s the story so far?
With more and more people switching to Windows 10, we have been asked a couple of times, so we though it was worth a blog post about it!
Yes, our audio plug-ins and host software are all compatible with Windows 10.
As you can see on the screenshot above, it has been tested and validated on Windows 10 machines, so it’s not a problem to upgrade!
Of course, before making the switch you should check that your audio interface and other software is compatible with the latest version of Windows, but you should at least be safe on the Blue Cat Audio side :-).
Starting with version 1.7, Blue Cat’s PatchWork supports external side chain with most DAWs.
In this tutorial we’ ll show how to use the external side chain input with Pro Tools to feed a sub-plug-in hosted inside PatchWork with the side chain signal. Continue reading
On Mac, Blue Cat’s PatchWork standalone host application will run by default in 64-bit mode. This lets the application access as much memory as possible and load 64-bit plug-ins. However, some legacy plug-ins are available only as 32-bit binaries.
In order to use these plug-ins, you can either use a third party bridging application such as SoundRadix’s 32Lives, or simply run the application in 32-bit mode. You will however not be able to load 64-bit plug-ins anymore.
The New Payment System on www.bluecataudio.com
We are glad to announce that we have just put in place a new payment solution to improve your shopping experience on www.bluecataudio.com.
With this new solution, you can choose to pay via PayPal or Credit Card, whatever your country of residence (there used to be limitations in some countries on Credit Cards with the former solution).
As a reminder: we do not store credit card information or passwords on our website. All transactions are securely processed by our payment services provider.
Once the payment has been processed, you will receive your invoice and license information by email, so please make sure that your email address is valid!
If you haven’t received any news from us within an hour, our emails were probably blocked by a spam filter. Please contact us so that it can be resent from another server.
It looks like it’s now time for you to check our December Deals!
As shown some time ago for the Mac, today’s tip shows you how to organize your plug-ins on windows, in order to find and load them quickly into Blue Cat’s PatchWork or MB-7 Mixer.
As you will see, It’s no rocket science, and this will greatly improve your experience and reduce the time to load your plug-ins.
Spending Too Much Time Looking For Plug-Ins?
Some people have been asking for the capability to load the plug-ins directly from the menu instead of having to open an Explorer Window. While this may be added in the future to our software, be aware that it may never beat what you can already do today with the Windows Explorer or Finder, as you will see below… Continue reading
Since the release of Blue Cat’s PatchWork 1.6 yesterday, we have been asked a couple of times what it is possible to do with the standalone version of the software.
So here is a brief overview and a few ideas about how Blue Cat’s PatchWork standalone host can be used! This is of course not exhaustive, so feel free to comment this post and tell us how YOU use it! Continue reading
Did you know that you can use AAX plug-ins as MIDI Effects in Pro Tools? AAX plug-ins can receive MIDI events, modify them, and send them to another plug-in. Yes, it’s possible!
As an example, let’s see how to apply a simple MIDI effect on incoming MIDI events to control a virtual instrument. We are using here Blue Cat’s Plug’n Script, a plug-in that lets you write your own audio and MIDI scripts, for both the MIDI effects and the virtual instrument:
Using the setup above, you can play “live” the instrument and record the performance on the MIDI track. Once this has all been recorded, an extra step is required before playback, because events will have been recorded twice (the original MIDI events on the first track, and the MIDI events after the MIDI FX on the other track):
As you may have understood, if you want to use many MIDI effects at a time, making connections and enabling/disabling monitoring with all these additional MIDI tracks can become frustrating. So if you want to make things simpler, you may want to do all MIDI routing inside Blue Cat’s PatchWork. This does not limit you to VST or Audio Unit virtual instruments, since the PatchWork plug-in lets you route MIDI events to its own AAX MIDI output, but you should be able to use just a single MIDI track instead of many, if you want to chain MIDI effects.
Easy MIDI Routing and Filtering with Blue Cat’s PatchWork
Your VST or Audio Units plug-ins folder looks like a huge mess? Having a hard time finding your plug-ins when loading them from Blue Cat’s PatchWork or MB-7 Mixer? Organize them!
Originally posted on the forum by ninox_rufa, this is our tip of the day. Organize your plug-ins in the finder, without modifying original install locations for optimal compatibily AND faster plug-ins lookup:
1. Create two new folders somewhere convenient on your system. I’ve created them in my Music folder in my Home directory (~/Music).
2. Label the new folders as “1 Synth Plugins” and “2 Effect Plugins”.
3. Drag them into your Sidebar Favorites section to make them available as shortcuts.
4. Go to your VST and/or AU plugin folders (/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST or /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components)
5. Right click on each plugin you want and choose “Make Alias”.
6. Move these aliases to your new folders.
Here you go! You can now access plug-ins quickly using the shortcuts:
Additional Tip: use the Finder’s categories to assign different colors to your plug-ins, and find the right plug-in even faster!
It took several years of research and development to get there (more on that later)… So we are really glad to unveil a new plug-in that brings an entire audio and MIDI programming environment right into your favorite Digital Audio Workstation (DAW):
Blue Cat’s Plug’n Script is a scripting plug-in that can be programmed to quickly build custom audio and MIDI effects or virtual instruments, without quitting your DAW. With this plug-in, you can write your own real time or offline processors or instruments, with very little knowledge about programming.