Mixed In Key today unveils Captain Plugins, a new series of plugins to help music composers and music producers write new music. “Captain Chords” enables musicians to write new chord progressions inside their favorite DAWs like Ableton Live or Apple Logic. “Captain Melody” allows the creation of melodies and rhythmic hooks, and “Captain Deep” enables the creation of rhythmic basslines.
Captain Plugins are built on the principle that music should not be made in isolation. Every plugin in the Captain series can communicate with each other when running inside the same DAW. Captain Chords can send MIDI data to Captain Melody and Captain Deep. This creates a collaborative experience when writing MIDI music, because making a change in one plugin will automatically transpose the change to other plugins.
For example, creating a new chord progression inside Captain Chords will automatically sync the chords to Captain Melody and Captain Deep plugins. This communication between plugins is seamless and automatic, and allows for faster songwriting and music production.
The technology in Captain Plugins is based on 12 years of Mixed In Key’s music analysis experience.
Mixed In Key invented the “Harmonic Tension” engine to analyze the relationship between the chords, melody, and bass. The engine keeps the entire song in key, while giving musicians total freedom in writing music that stays cohesive with the rest of the song.
Captain Plugins allow musicians to:
• Discover different chords by jamming out on the computer keyboard. One touch of a keyboard button plays the entire chord
• Automatically transpose the song to any Key and Scale, even after the composition has already been written
• Apply different rhythms to melodies, basslines and chords
• Write arpeggiated melodies that stay 100% in key with the song
• Add basslines that follow the chords
• Add complex voicings to any chord, add passing chords, add 7th, 9th and other notes, add
thickness to any chord, split the chords and resize them
All plugins allow real-time routing to other VST plugins, such as LennarDigital Sylenth1, Xfer’s Serum, Native Instruments Massive and Kontakt, and much more. Customers can also drag-and-drop MIDI directly from the Captain plugins into their favorite DAW’s workspace. Hardware output is also available: using the DAW, customers can route Captain Plugins to their favorite analog synths such as Minimoog Voyager, and all other analog hardware that supports the MIDI protocol.
Every plugin in the series comes with its own collection of custom sounds. Customers can sketch musical ideas and hear the results using modern, fresh sounds that were inspired by the last 10 years of Beatport and Spotify charts. The plugins also offer Echo, Reverb, Filter and other ways to tweak the sound design.
Captain Plugins represent a significant step forward in producing music. For professionals, Captain Plugins offers advanced tools to generate the structure of the song, and write MIDI parts faster and better. For beginners, music theory becomes more accessible and easier to understand and visualize. All the relationships between melodies, chords and basslines become visually clear. The goal of Captain Plugins is to help artists break through creative blocks and get inspired to write their next hit.
The introduction price of $79 US dollars includes instant downloads for Captain Chords, Captain Melody and Captain Deep. Early customers will also get a free upgrade to Captain Hook, Captain Play, Captain Beat and another secret plugin to be announced. The software is available worldwide for Mac only. The Windows version will be released later this year. Customers with a Mac license will receive the Windows version for free upon release.