ModMate plug-in

ModMate is a MIDI effect plug-in designed to make it possible for musicians with only basic MIDI controllers to use Airwave V3, a pair of new sound libraries for Spectrasonics Omnisphere developed by Belgian DJ and sound designer Laurent Véronnez (aka Airwave) and John "Skippy" Lehmkuhl.

The Airwave V3 sound libraries are unique in that four distinct MIDI CCs (continuous controllers) can be used to affect the sound in real-time:

For the very best experience, you should use a hardware MIDI controller which provides multiple MIDI CCs, preferably in the form of touch sliders, as on the excellent Maschine JAM, or Sonic Logic 3 for iPad. For people who are not yet ready or able to buy these very nice hardware MIDI systems, I created this simple plug-in, which lets you at least get started with Airwave V3, using just the standard controls available on nearly all MIDI keyboards: pitch bend and mod wheel.

Update history

Downloads

Regular MIDI-Insert versions
"Instrument" versions

A few DAWs (most notably Cubase) don't support third-party "MIDI insert" plug-ins. For these, we have to have versions of the ModMate plug-in that declare themselves as "instrument" plug-ins, even though they produce no sound. How these are used is highly DAW-specific; check the manual for your DAW.

UPDATE: See this page for Cubase details.

Installing and using on a Mac

Audio Unit version: Copy the file ModMate.component to your ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components folder. On recent versions of macOS, you must log-out and then back in again (or restart your Mac) before the ModMate plug-in will show up in DAWs such as Logic Pro X.

VST and VST3: If your DAW requires VST plug-ins, copy the file ModMate.vst to ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST and/or the file ModMate.vst3 to ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3, then restart your Mac before opening your DAW.

Installing and using the VST versions on a Windows PC

Copy the appropriate .dll (VST2) or .vst3 file to whatever folder your DAW uses to find plug-ins. Windows DAWs vary a lot; refer to the manual for your specific DAW. If your DAW is 64-bit (nearly all recent ones are), use a 64-bit version of the plug-in; use the 32-bit version only if your DAW is an older 32-bit program.

Note that ModMate is a MIDI Insert Effect plug-in, which needs to be connected so so it processes the incoming MIDI data before it reaches any VSTi instrument plug-ins on the same track, unlike regular audio-effect plug-ins are connected to the VSTs' outputs. Windows DAWs all have different ways to set this up, and there are a few that don't support MIDI effects at all, so please check the manual for your specific DAW.

Basic usage

The four large rectangles on the right of the GUI show the output levels for MIDI CC's 1, 2, 4, and 67 (top to bottom). The six narrow vertical rectangles on the left show the input levels (from your MIDI controller) for pitch-bend up (pbUp), pitch-bend down (pbDn), and mod wheel (modW), as well as MIDI CCs 2, 4, and 67 (ignore these if your MIDI controller has only pitch and mod wheels). To the right of each of these indicator strips are four checkboxes; checking any box connects that input to the corresponding CC output. Try it; it's easier to use than to explain.

If you don't check any of an input control's four destination boxes, the control's data will be passed through the plug-in unchanged, so you can use that control normally.

If your DAW supports it, your selections on all the checkboxes can be saved as a preset, and will normally be saved automatically as part of the track settings in a saved project. This has been tested with the Mac AU version in Logic Pro X and with the VST version in Reaper 64-bit.

Advanced features

You can click/drag in any of the vertical indicators on the left, and the plug-in will respond as though you had operated the corresponding input CC, and will generate CC output messages for whichever output CCs are checked for that input. You can also click/drag in any of the horizontal indicators on the right, and the plug-in will generate the corresponding output CC messages.

You can right-click or ctrl-click any colored slider labels to choose the CC number from a list of standard controller names, e.g. "Breath Controller". You can also choose "Channel Pressure (mono aftertouch" to map monophonic aftertouch (on input or output) as though it were a MIDI CC.

Alternatively, you can double-click any of the colored slider labels (not pbUp or pbDn) to change the corresponding MIDI CC number. You may type any number between 1 and 127; you don't have to put "cc" at the start, but it's OK if you do. You must press *Enter* to confirm the change.

If you have a MIDI controller with knobs or sliders pre-assigned to MIDI CC numbers other than those used by the Airwave V3 libraries, you'll want to change the input CC numbers along the top of the plug-in window, to whatever CC's your controller outputs.

If you're using ModMate with an software instrument or library which is set up to respond to MIDI CCs other than what the Airwave V3 libraries use, you'll want to change the output CC numbers to the left of each large horizontal indicator.

If your DAW supports it, your MIDI CC assignments can be saved/restored in presets, along with the checkbox settings.

Acknowledgements

 

VST is a trademark and software of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, used under license.

This is free, open-source software licensed under the GNU GPL v3. Source code (excluding only PlugInGuru branding graphics) available at https://github.com/getdunne/modmate.

This program is built with JUCE, also used under GPL v3.