Plogue "Bidule"

Anyone else using this? It's like Reaktor meets Jeskola Buzz. Been enthralled with this for the last few weeks but for such a powerful yet simple program I don't hear much about it..

For those unfamiliar with bidule, check it out.

http://www.plogue.com/products/bidule/

It's also been a great learning experience, todo something like frequency modulation you have to build the whole circuit yourself and in turn understand how frequency modulation works mathematically. I've been well versed in modular environments for a long time but getting things down to a core level like this has been awesome.

bidule has never installed nicely on any of the pcs i've used. shame cuz it looks like something i'd dig.

Really hmm, whats the problem been?

i had to install it to do vst development on a mac.
i was initially interested in it because it did seem so much like buzz. after installing it i never really got on with it.
having said that, the videos on their site have kind of renewed my interest.

tapedeck wrote:i had to install it to do vst development on a mac.
i was initially interested in it because it did seem so much like buzz. after installing it i never really got on with it.
having said that, the videos on their site have kind of renewed my interest.

Yeah the older versions suck, very wonky to use no conventional modules. But it's so much like buzz it's crazy. There's a modulation device that turns any device into a peer machine, and when you build your own groups/instruments its exactly like buzz with all the sliders and knobs with no GUI. That's why I said reaktor meets buzz, because it has the interface and workflow from buzz but the core cell and instrument implementation from reaktor.

I'm really surprised its not mentioned more in terms of modular software, I only found it looking for nord modular/creamware scope alternatives. Even then it was mentioned very little.

ok, i'm back in this thread.

been using bidule standalone today because i have been playing more live shows and want more to do. i've opted to NOT use ableton live for various reasons.

time will tell how well bidule works as a vsti in reaper. however, it's really sweet standalone, too. from how it's going so far, i'm definitely happy to pay $95 for it. if only to support development that doesn't treat the end user like an as$hole.

going on vacation this next week. will spend a lot of time playing with this on the plane.

who am i kidding...i'm going home and playing with this tonight

Minor side track, but their Chipsounds VST/AU is really, really good if you like sounds like that.

I wanted something that could host but had more compositional/sequencing features so I went with Numerology 3 on OS X, but I still think I'll buy a Plogue Bidule license at some point.

i purchased this last night, kind of an impulse buy.
i've not yet made up my mind whether or not this was a good idea. it isn't playing nicely with rewire and reaper at all, and the vsti version seems to have a learn limitation. i hope i'm just missing something!

edit, their support is great. i got an answer within an hour and yes, i was uninformed regarding the "cc to param" bidule which solves vst learn issues. i'm starting to feel better about this purchase already.

oh MAN i am having a good time with this....

this is all a routing system for my launchpad, effectively turning it into a metacontroller for reaper, a monome, an advanced arpeggiator, an 8 octave keyboard, a 4-bank MPC pad controller, and 3 other undecided "modes"

each layout has its own LED behavior

Yeah man if any soft was every perfect for your approach and wants/likes it's Plogue.

Shudder to think what you'll be doing as you go deeper,

Dopeness on the LED support

You will go through points where you love/loath the weirdness of bidule. often time something specific and awesome is already built (like the 4x4/8x8 sequencer in misc), but other times you will pull your hair out like trying to make something like an envelope on looping sample to remove clicking.

And the whole respective gate/trigger thing bugs the crap out of me when I'm trying to cruise through patch building. And I'm really really suprised they didn't make any tools for complex waveforms, beyond fm/am/wavetables. Just a crazy aliased 512 point look up table, with no adjustment for any of the interpolation settings!

And watch out for bugs when using resonant filters, I and other users have documented that its almost impossible to predicabily use resonance.

care to share what you've done? i hope to release my launchpad patch for people when i'm done with it. it should be host independent and will work really well with an MPC. the arpeggiator in particular is nuts - it was an accidental discovery, too, as i was trying to implement a monome MLR style mode. the cool thing is that you can have both going at the same time.

so far i've done zero audio stuff. i'm most interested in the midi capabilities. as such it's been super stable and behaved well.

this is running in standalone mode, for audio stuff i'll use it as vst. i'm interested in the buffer delay

2 important additions that you need in that regard, imo, are the Piz MIDI plugins and Cockos ReaJS (the rest of the reaplugs don't hurt either)

both basically beef up the already stellar midi mangling capabilities of bidule

http://www.thepiz.org/pizmidi/
http://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/

reaJS is a wrapper for reaper's JS fx, which are open source and easy to edit, and contain rare and interesting midi altering fx.

Yeah for sure, I just got a new computer and have been using pure data on this one mostly. So I'll pull some bidule stuff off my mini soon.

One thing to remember is the "note extractor" and "note creator". If you use both, yôu can convert a midi signal into its raw components - **** with the numbers using math objects or whatever then use the note creator to reconstruct that mess into a midi signal. That way you could apply an LFO to the velocity, or put a comb filter on the trigger signal.

One thing to remember is the "note extractor" and "note creator". If you use both, yôu can convert a midi signal into its raw components - **** with the numbers using math objects or whatever then use the note creator to reconstruct that mess into a midi signal. That way you could apply an LFO to the velocity, or put a comb filter on the trigger signal.

i would greatly appreciate looking over a simple example project of something like this. it's definitely the next step in my use of bidule

As requested, here is a pic of one of my "goto" patches I build in any new synthesis platform Im in. Its actually a goto patch for a lot of analog modular users called "the buchla bongo" patch. You can watch videos online for days of people making similiar sounds on analog gear, as its kind of a signature sound of the genre.



AUDIO EXAMPLE: http://www.mackfisher.info/cloud/bidulelayout1.mp3

This is my "Buchla Bongo" patch with a few modifications Bidule lends itself to extremely well. I dont know how much synthesis you do, so not trying to be condescending in the comments I made on the patch. Some of the changes that only Bidule can do really easily, is how the oscillators frequency is modulating its own frequency, doing this in something like Pure Data/ Max MSP is difficult and will never be implemented properly. Also in most other "Buchla Bongo" patches its pretty random all the time, instead I used Trigger Dividers to take advantage of Bidules Mutate and Random buttons, to vary the rhythm and pattern every few bars instead of every single note.

Usually I make this into a "voice" or "group" then change it from monophonic to polyphonic x 4 to make a poly rhythm, hence why you cant see the reverb on the way out or the "random" midi trigger on the way in.

EDIT: also you cant see the Complex Ring Modulator group, which is just a ring modulator with FM Modulation/Phase Distoriton. Basically just adds a bunch of disharmonics.