Voltage control from my Mac with Silent Way
July 20th, 2009
I’ve just come across the most wonderful plugin.
It isn’t an effect plugin. In fact, it does not process audio in any way. What it does do is turn any DC coupled audio interface into a CV interface for analogue synths.Those of you who know what that means will understand its significance, so I won’t elaborate here.
There are other things of this nature on the market; MOTU came out with Volta recently, but Volta has several things going against it, not the least of which is that it apparently doesn’t work with a G4. It also requires an iLok, which is not very nice.
So, I was overjoyed when I found an alternative in Silent Way, which is made by Expert Sleepers—makers of some fantastic sounding and very creative effects plugins, many of which are high up on my software wish list.
I haven’t spent enough time with Silent Way yet to give it a proper review, but so far it works, and I am very pleased. The actual setup will vary somewhat depending on what software you are using the plugin with, but Os at Expert Sleepers was very helpful and I got it going very quickly after a slight initial confusion.
One thing I have been experimenting with is driving the analogue synths with a software-based sequencer called Numerology. This offers all sorts of possibilities, and you can slave it to the audio sequencer of your choice for perfect synchronisation!
To make a good thing even better, my engineer designed an interface to amplify the balanced signal coming out of my MOTU 2408 MkII to get a larger voltage range, compatible with 1V/oct synth inputs. We now have the VCS3 working over nine octaves, and fully in tune, as well as the Prophet 5 and ARP Odyssey.
Remarkably, this software costs less than £40, and is compatible with many audio interfaces, so you might already have the hardware you need. I recommend it highly.
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