It’s not always easy to think outside of the box when trying to come up with new ideas. Sometimes we want to stray from the path, which will then lead us to something truly unique.
Coming up with that perfect hook, or riff can sometimes be a fool’s errand if those creative juices just won’t flow. And we can often find ourselves staring at a piano-roll for far too long, not getting anything done.
We’re not just talking about softsynths here either, sometimes that built-in sequencer of your favourite hardware synth just isn’t quite cutting it and you’re not quite pleased with the results.
One way to to flip things creatively is with randomly generating MIDI sequences and melodies, which is where Riffer from Audiomodern comes to the fore.
Riffer is a creative MIDI sequencer that generates random patterns and melodies for you. Designed to feed anything that accepts a MIDI signal, be that software or hardware, so it’s perfect for integrating with any setup.
The plugin affords you complete control over the all the parameters, so you can make extra tweaks to your sequences. You choose what Riffer can do for you, so scales, complexity, number of steps, start and end points, pitch, transposition, motion and measures are all at your disposal.
However, should you want to keep things completely free and loose, then there is the Infinity Mode, which is designed to keep Riffer endlessly variable and endlessly interesting.
The resultant MIDI file can be dragged and dropped for exporting purposes and in the iOS version you can send MIDI over Wi-Fi, or select CoreMIDI for inter-app communication with your favourite hardware.
Flexibility is key, which is why Riffer is available in both VST/AU and iOS formats. It’s also available now from the Audiomodern website for the price of $56/£43/€49.
Riffer features
- 53 scales from Western to Eastern tunings
- Fully customisable steps: Pitch, Duration and Volume
- Start & End loop points
- Sustain & Tie notes
- Shuffle
- Export MIDI using drag and drop
- Automatically generate sequences with the Infinity mode
