Niall Moody Pedalboard - great free plugin host for Mac and PC

Started by sixeight, November 20, 2011, 10:05:27 AM

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sixeight

I just discovered pedalboard, a free plugin host and use it on my Macbook.

You can download it here:
http://www.niallmoody.com/apps/pedalboard2

Pro's:
- very fast switching between patches
- flexible setup of both AU and VST plugins
- flexible with Midi through use of Pizmidi plugins
- patch change up/down through midi cc. I now have assigned patch change to my GK up/down switch. Together with the midipipe script I posted earlier, it works like a charm.

Con's:
- it has crashed on a few occasions
- no switching of patches through program change. I have contacted the author of the programme about this.

So far I have used AU lab on my Mac book. Pedalboard is much better, as it supports VST and allows flexible routings of plugins.



Elantric

#1
Great app and I see  the author has many other MIDI / VST / OSC apps too.

http://www.niallmoody.com/apps

QuoteTogether with the midipipe script I posted earlier, it works like a charm.

Post a link to this please.

sixeight


Jim Williams

I downloaded and tried it in Ubuntu Studio running under wine. I worked great and I found it to be similar to a program I tried called VSTHost. In some aspects VSTHost has more features and it will change programs/patches via midi but Pedalboard is a much more attractive program. here is the link:
http://www.hermannseib.com/english/vsthost.htm
and a screenshot:

Skype: (upon Request)

Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

sixeight

Vsthost is also very good. But it is windows only. Pedalboard is OSX compatible.

Jim Williams

Yes I know I just was commenting on the similarities. If you use Crossover you can get some Windows apps to work, however If I had a Mac I don't think I would miss too many Windows apps. Everything that I use has a Mac version. For my host needs I use Kore 2. With Kore 2 you have great built in synth sounds and you can host all your other VST plug-ins. It wil also respond to control change from midi and change patches with your pedal board. most other host apps I just try them out so I can give feedback on them to the forum. With the exception of Forte 2 from Brainspawn, I purchased it for the purpose of live performance with Windows. I switched to Ubuntu Studio though and find it to be a much better OS. I will eventually get a Mac and I wont need to depend on Wine for windows apps in the future.
Skype: (upon Request)

Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

sixeight

Is the latency acceptable with wine?
With pedalboard on an old Macbook I am down to 3 ms.

Jim Williams

I found the latency much less in Pedalbard 2 and it seemed to perform better. I did a side by side comparison with the two yesterday and VSTHost did not perform well even-though it has far more features. I the creators of Pedalboard 2 implement program changes and midi routing they would have a great tool for live preforming.
Skype: (upon Request)

Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

Elantric

Just for grins - here's another VST Host that claims low latency,

http://console.jp/en/

sixeight

As for midi routing. The Midi tools of pizmidi are very good. You can find them here:

http://www.thepiz.org/pizmidi/

I use midi channelize and transpose a lot with pedalboard.

sixeight

#10
The author of pedalboard is one fast programmer. I requested some new features a few days ago, and already the new version is out. Unfortunately  :'( it doesn't seem to run on my Mac (OSX 10.5.8.) Is anyone able to check if it runs on their Mac? The PC version seems to work OK.

Here are the new features (Program change, background running and tempo tap on my request 8)):

v2.06
-----
- Custom plugin names are now updated when patches are loaded.
- Fixed patch changing via MIDI (& OSC?) not working when the main window is
  not focused.
- Made sure patches saved pre-2.05 do not place plugin windows outside the
  screen.
- Patch Organiser move commands now update the selected row more sensibly.
- Added option to have main transport respond to MMC commands.
- Fixed some dialogs not taking on the colour scheme's window background colour.
- Added toggle to switch patches via MIDI program change commands.
- Fixed connections being drawn wrong when plugin names have been changed.
- Fixed plugins' edited names persisting between patches.
- Made sure connections stay behind plugin components once connected.
- Added global tempo per patch. This is solely for the benefit of delay plugins
  etc. which can make use of it to set sensible delay times. It is not a full
  implementation of VST (etc.) time info structures. Plugins which require
  information about bar starts, current ppq etc. are out of luck. Until I've
  figured out how the app itself conceives of time those features are not going
  to be added.
- Can now hold shift while dragging a connection to automatically connect all
  audio connections between the two plugins.
- Can set tempo by tapping (either via a GUI control or via a
  keyboard/MIDI CC/OSC command: see the Application Mappings window).
- Refactored creation of mappings so they don't register themselves in their
  constructors.
- Added 'Save as Default file' option (current file saved as 'default.pdl'
  inside the Pedalboard2 settings folder (<user>/AppData/Roaming/Pedalboard2 on
  Windows, <user>/Library/Application Support/Pedalboard2 on OSX)).

sixeight

I already received a fixed version from the author of pedalboard. Works like a charm now. Don't kmow when the fixed version will be on his website, but it shouldn't be long.

sixeight

New version of pedalboard is out on the website. It also resolved the issues of going into deadlock when changing patches too fast.

Elantric

Pedalboard2 (v2.14)

Pedalboard2
A VST (plus AudioUnit on OSX) plugin host designed for live use. Based on the JUCE 'audio plugin host' code, heavily modified to better suit my purposes.

Key Features:

Modular patching.
All plugin parameters can be manipulated in real time via MIDI CCs or Open Sound Control messages.
Any number of patches can be queued up and rapidly switched.
Note: Pedalboard2 development is currently on indefinite hiatus. See here for details.

Download for Windows (4.87MB)
Download for OSX (5.41MB)