The GridFather [VST/AU] Random MIDI Grid Sequencer

The GridFather brings the AutoGrid-MIDI concept to non-Live users, as it is a regular plugin (AU/VST/VST3 for Windows and macOS).

The GridFather is a Midi FX / Synth plugin (depending on what DAW you're in), that sends random grid synths patterns to 8 different MIDI channels, one note at a time so they never plays simultaneously.

I's a huge timesaver for building interesting patterns with different sounds, or sequencing arpeggios or basslines, making sure they don't overlap whatsoever. The resulting MIDI can be recorded onto the DAW and further tweaked afterwards to fit best to the track, The GridFather is not intended to creat full tracks, though it can be used for live performance to generate evolving patterns without needind too much work on stage.

The GridFather offers the following parameters:

• Control of the 8 channels probabilities of playing.
• Time allocation control between four different time divisions from 1/32 to 1/2, including dotted notes
• Ability to slow down the whole device up to 64 times using the "multi" parameter (providing up to 32 bars long notes to trigger arpeggios or full patterns on the target tracks for example)
• Minimum and Maximum length per note (as a percentage of each time division)
• Minimum and Maximum velocity per note
• Note probability (to insert some random silences and thus play with density)
• Multiple input notes handling (and choosing randomly between them at each step)

• Configurable sidechain feature to prevent notes from playing downbeat
• Hold feature to have the plugin keep going until transport is stopped or another key/chord is pressed
• Ability to transpose every note from the root incoming note, up to 2 octaves above root note, and down to 2 octaves below, with per note degree proba (from 1st to 12th note), and per octave probability
• Ability to directly load a given scale to instantly map the note degrees probability (60+ scales provided in a dropdown menu for example to directly select a major scale, or an 7th arpeggio, ...)
• Ability to have phrases per channel (to have sub rhytmic patterns play on one channel before switching to the next one), with weight per phrase length (from changing at each note to 8 bars long phrase running on each channel)
• Fully automatable parameters

Set-up and choice of plugin (AU/VST/VST3 and SYNTH/MFX) strongly depends on the DAW and OS, as it is necessary to create a MIDI loop for the patterns to come back to the DAW (using IAC bus under OSX, and loopMidi for example under Windows), but it is also possible to control hardware synths with it, provided they can be set to listen to midi channels 1 to 8.

The plugin has been tested inside:

• Apple Logic Pro 10.5 / 10.6 / 10.7 (MidiFX AU using IAC bus)
• Cubase Pro 11/12/13 (VST/VST3 both Windows and OSX, using IAC or loopMIDI, and Cubase Input Transformer capacity)
• Bitwig 4/5 (internal routing)

Cakewalk (internal routing)

• Cockos Reaper (internal routing)
• Image Line FL Studio 21+
• Presonus Studio One Professional V5 (may work in non Pro and probably in V4, not tested though)
• Tested under Pluginguru Unify (didn’t do the test myself so I cannot provide any help unfortunately)

These DAWs can be used as well but limited to one channel only, as they lack the proper routing features:

- Ableton Live 10.1.X and 11.X (VST/VST3, though limited to 1 channel only, as Live does not handle multiple channels outputs, even in v11). If you’re running Live, it’s better to consider AutoGrid MIDI which provides all features of Th GridFather within a M4L device.

! Note that some hosts will only work on the VST2 version, the VST3 not being able to output anything. As well, depending on your host you will use the MFX (MIDI FX) or the SYNTH version of the plugin, all these are identical except for their packaging, and are provided to adapt to as many hosts as possible.

It should work with pretty much any DAW that can output MIDI data and filter incoming MIDI per channel.

User manual for set-up is provided of course with your purchase and there is a full walkthrough of V1.8 on my Youtube channel there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjNdI8Cm0zQ

And the tutorial for V1.7, including a full set-up for several different DAWs, a must see if you haven't yet experienced midi effects plugins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGXDmLyvgt0

V1.8:

• Complete User Interface Redesign
• Added syncopation
• Added per phrase length weights (instead of min/max)

V1.7

• added multiple notes input
• added hold
• added sidechain
• added per octave proba and octave root lock

V1.4:

• added random engine freeze
• added dotted and triplets
• added 3x/6x/12x on slow down
• improves timing accuracy (down to a few samples)