Developer Floof Audio has released Paw Control, a free MIDI plugin for Windows systems only.
I’ve spent most of the time trying to sort this one out. Paw Control had me thinking it was an instrument at first glance, at least going by the VST3i tag Reaper gave it upon initalisiation.
However, it is something a little more unique that invites experimentation. You’d also be forgiven for thinking this is just an oddball synthesizer, but that is a disservice to how it works.
Paw Control greets you with a cute little cat and a few controls that are a bit more nebulous. R, D, and U correspond to a few unique controls, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
In its simplest state, Paw Control is a MIDI filtering utility. From a modular perspective, you could use it as a quantizer.
The basic concept was inspired by a cat randomly stepping on keys, inspiring a wonderful chord progression.
The developers have sought to replicate the same experience without the robotic noises you’ll get from randomly pressing keys in rapid succession. To this end, it works quite well, adding a degree of unpredictability to things.
I also experienced a little joy when triggering the REC function to set keys coming out of a random function generator in VCV Rack 2.
R, D, and U correspond to the range of random values. R is just for random values and can go into chaotic territory at higher volumes.
D is octaves below your current key range, which comes in handy if you’re looking to add variance to your sequences without faffing about with a string of devices.
U is octaves above your current sequence and functions similarly to D. These work in concert to make sequences bizarre, unique, and more intriguing. You can also nudge things along or save key selections to the four slots given.
If you want to run this without routing MIDI to another synth, there is an internal sine synth. I’m not a huge fan of it, since there is little control. Still, it’s a novel little tool. For the moment, it’s Windows-only, but Mac support is apparently being planned.
Download: Paw Control (FREE)
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