bitKlavier 3.2!
bitKlavier 3.2!
cast your bitKlavier tuning net wide via MTS-ESP...
bitKlavier v3.2 is now available, and I want to lead by thanking Davis Polito for his fine work spearheading this release! MTS-ESP tuning sharing, built-in compressor/limiter, flexible resource paths, all included in this release and introduced below.
MTS-ESP support
Oddsound recently released MTS-ESP, which allows tuning information to be shared across plugins within a DAW, or even across applications. I’m excited about this because we can now cast the powerful tuning capabilities in bitKlavier beyond the confines of bitKlavier itself—use bitKlavier to tune other instruments like PianoTeq, the synths from Arturia, even other bitKlavs, or pitch processors like Auto-Tune Slice. This includes dynamic and adaptive tunings like spring tuning, as long as the client application has been setup to receive continuous tuning changes.
Here’s a video tutorial to get started with bitKlavier and MTS-ESP:
Compressor/Limiter on main output
Some bitKlavier configurations can lead to unpredictable dynamic levels, so having a compressor/limiter on the output stage provides a bit of control. In addition, it can be used as an effect to subtly or dramatically change the sound of the instrument.
Settings for this will save with your gallery, or can be exported to individual files for use in other galleries. Note that this is of particular use to those of you using bitKlavier as a standalone application (as opposed to a plugin inside a DAW, where you can of course use other plugins to process the output of bitKlavier).
Flexible resource paths
Now you can put your galleries and so on wherever you like, including on a shared cloud drive like Dropbox if you want to share galleries across devices:
New Many Arrows Music Notes Substack
I’ve started a substack to release new music, and it will begin with a set of twelve Preludes I’ve composed for bitKlavier. We’ll also be releasing recordings of the bitKlavier Commissions that I’ve mentioned here before (by Molly Herron, Jenny Beck, Pascal Le Boeuf, Annika Socolofsky, Noah Fishman, Bora Yoon, and Nate May). Not all the music will be bitKlavier-related, which is why I started the separate substack; head on over there if you are interested, as this newsletter here will remain focused on release notifications and general bitKlavier news.
Future
We’re looking at a number of developments in the coming year. Davis is exploring drum interface possibilities for bK; he’s a drummer and has a pretty great electronic drum setup. It’s irresistible, even if a dangerous direction to explore for a program that has been completely keyboard-centric from the outset, but we’ll see where it takes us.
Along the way, Davis is working on a more generalized fx chain setup, so that preparation processing (like we have already in Blendrónic) can be more flexible and varied; another potentially big development, we’ll see!
I also have a dream that bitKlavier will be able to display Helmholtz-Ellis Just Intonation accidentals; someday…