Hello friends
I wanted to (1) let people know about a very interesting feature of Native Instrument's Maschine mk3 controller in relation to Aalto (and other VSTs), (2) point out an issue, and (3) ask if anyone has ideas for a workaround.
Maschine lets you Lock up to 64 snapshots of, they claim, the entire state of the machine - all VST parameters and settings and routings. And then you can either instantly switch between these while the software is running, or Morph between them, for a duration of time from half a bar to 16 bars. (Since you can make the BPM setting as low as 1 BPM, you could do a morph that could take up to a minute and four seconds.)
I really like setting up different parameters in Aalto, making a Lock of them, and them Morphing between them on the fly.
But.
I notice that all the knobs in Aalto with continuous values morph beautifully. Unfortunately, some of the things I'd most like to gradually morph between settings of, such as the knobs and sliders with discrete values, like Voices, and Waveguide Frequency, and also all the modulation depth attenuverters, do not morph. I'm not sure if their settings don't get captured in the first place, or if they do get captured, but don't morph successfully. I'll investigate that.
I am not really directing this question to Randy because I don't think it's his problem, and I don't think it's my place to ask him to solve it. Really I'm pointing out to the community that at least one piece of software out there allows capturing and (partially) morphing between Aalto parameter settings (and those of Kaivo and Virta and other VSTs).
(Reason allows you to send all manner of sequencers and complex LFOs and other modulators into Aalto, or any VST, and exposes every parameter very clearly, so you can route extra modulation to your heart's content. Just FYI.) (I also understand that if you buy the $30 VST module in VCV Rack, you can also send all manner of CVs into Aalto, and then route the audio signal through whatever other modules you please. I haven't tried that.)
OMG this is verbose. Sorry.
Friends, (1) I wanted to let you know that this fun feature is available with partial functionality in Maschine mk3, (2) do you have thoughts about making other Aalto parameters morph, and (3) have you found other software environments that allow morphing or control of Aalto parameters in ways you've found creatively useful and/or fun?
Thank you everybody. All best.
Christian