ESCAPist

ESCAPist – MIDI FX (VST3, CLAP, AUv2, M4L)

ESCAPist is a MIDI effect (MIDI FX) arpeggiator built on a bouncing ball. Hold a chord and a ball starts bouncing inside a set of spinning rings. Every bounce plays the next note of your chord's arpeggio, louder for harder hits. Each ring has an opening: when the ball slips through, the ring breaks and the chord sounds. After the last ring the chord rings out across three octaves, and 1.6 seconds after the ball flies out a new set of rings starts.

Rings, Gap, Spin, Gravity and Energy shape the physics: how many rings there are, how wide their openings are, how fast they turn, how strongly the ball falls and how much it speeds up on each bounce. Wear widens a ring's opening a little every time the ball hits it, so the ball always escapes. Seed sets the layout of every round, so the same settings and chord replay the same performance.

Order (Up, Down, Up Down or Random) and Range (1 to 4 octaves) decide which note comes next. Quantize keeps the free physics timing or moves notes to a 1/32, 1/16, 1/8 triplet or 1/8 grid, and Spread rolls every chord from low to high over up to 300 ms.

Change the chord while holding keys and the ball keeps bouncing with the new notes. Release every key and play again to start over from the first round.

Highlights:

- A ball bouncing inside up to 8 spinning rings, one note per bounce

- Note velocity follows the strength of each hit

- A chord on every broken ring and a three-octave chord after the last ring

- Rings, Gap, Spin, Gravity, Energy and Wear physics controls

- Up, Down, Up Down and Random order over 1 to 4 octaves

- Free timing or 1/32, 1/16, 1/8T and 1/8 quantize

- Seed for repeatable rounds

- 10 animated views, a portrait layout, 10 presets and a dice for random settings

ESCAPist only generates MIDI, not audio.

Place it before an instrument, or route its MIDI output to an instrument track. In Ableton Live with Max for Live, place the ESCAPist device before an instrument on the same MIDI track.

Formats (MIDI FX):

VST3 / CLAP / AUv2 / M4L

Compatibility:

macOS 12 or later

Windows 11 or later

For problems, questions, or feature requests:

leestrument@gmail.com