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MusicWonk is essentially the same program as ArtWonk, but without the animation graphics components. The MIDI and general algorithmic functionality of both programs are identical, and file formats are compatible between the two programs.
MusicWonk™ produces MIDI music based on algorithmic processes in real time. You compose by connecting "modules" - graphical objects that represent functions and processes - adjusting the parameters and instantly hearing the results as you go.
"Interconnecting the modules
is a drag and drop operation. Making edits is as easy as you'd want it to be.
You can't connect signals that are incompatible. I've seen lots of graphical
programming environments, such as MAX and KYMA. This program has no peer in
this area of graphical interactive program development."
Howard Moscovitz - Electro-Music.com
review of ArtWonk
MusicWonk will drive MIDI synthesizers, soft synths and sound cards directly, effectively "playing" them in real time or optionally responding to user or environmental parameters; it will also record directly to a standard MIDI file that can play your synth or card directly or can be imported into your notation based sequencer.
If you use a modular soft synth you will instantly feel at home with MusicWonk because its modular design and interactive, real time feedback working loop is similar. But MusicWonk is not a soft synth that creates the audio; it is a MIDI generating program that drives your soft synth, sound card or MIDI sound module as if you were playing it from a keyboard.
What makes MusicWonk different from most MIDI music creation software is that it is always active, always live. When you make a change in MusicWonk, you hear it instantly. So the program feels more like a hardware synthesizer than a notation based MIDI sequencer. In fact, MusicWonk was designed to work alongside softsynths, hardware synths, and sound cards as an extension of their real time control. So creating the flow of music and selecting the sounds on your synth becomes a fluid interactive process where you are always hearing each change you make when you make it.
Click here for full size screen shot.
Free Download
MusicWonk is available for free as a full featured player. You can create module patches and you can load and play demo patches and patches created by others, but you can not save the patches (although you can save the .mid MIDI files you create). There is no time limit on the player, and at any time you can purchase a license key to enable the module save menus.
Online Help & Tutorials
MusicWonk has easy to use browser based online help. Tutorials in the manual help you get started, plus there is an ongoing series of tutorials available from the Tutorials Page.
Flash
Tiny Tutorial shows you how to get started.
View our extensive Sequencers
Tutorial.
Browse
the Online Manual.
Printable PDF Manual.
Use Stand Alone or With Notation Based Sequencers
Music you create with MusicWonk can stand by itself as full compositions, and it can also be imported into your notation based MIDI sequencer. Without changing your existing setup any more than you would to add a processor or soft synth, you get a fresh take on your music, including the ability to create riffs based on non traditional patterns such as DNA sequences, stock market trends, star maps, or virtually any other algorithmic process or data source.
Real Time Ultra Arpeggiator
With MusicWonk you can accept MIDI input from your keyboard, process it in innumerable ways, then send it out to your soft synth, sound card or MIDI sound module with no perceptible lag. This gives you an incredibly flexible tool for building ultra arpeggios that can take input notes and controller movements and generate complex musical phrases and effects, providing independent real-time control over rhythm, duration, accents, chord density, pitch bending, tonal variation, panning, repeats, randomization, etc.
Computer System Requirements
MusicWonk runs on all Windows operating systems from Windows 98 on, including XT 64, Vista 32 and Vista 64. You also need a sound card or MIDI interface. Most sound chips built into PCs and laptops will work fine. SoundBlaster and similar cards, as well as Emu and other pro and semi pro sound cards work well also.
Software Synthesizer Compatibility
MusicWonk is compatible with all known software synthesizers. Most soft synths do not have their own MIDI drivers, and therefore require a program called a MIDI Loop Back in order to run them with MusicWonk or any other MIDI control software. A MIDI Loop Back gives you a set of virtual patch cords, where you can send the output of MusicWonk to a Loop Back input, then connect your soft synth to the same Loop Back output. These programs are available as free downloads, they are easy to install, and once installed they are trouble free. MusicWonk works very well with any of these free MIDI Loop Back drivers. If you don't know which to use, we recommend MidiYoke.
Hubi's MidiLoopBack (Win 95/98 only)
MidiYoke (Win98/2K/XP/Vista)
Maple MIDI Tools (Win98/2K/XP/Vista)
Nerds.de LoopBe1 (Win2K/XP/Vista)
Sonic
Foundry's Virtual Midi Router (Win98/2K/XP)
VST/VSTi
MusicWonk works very well with popular VST host software such as REAPER, Cubase, Ableton Live, Sonar and FL Studio/Fruity Loops , or the free Wavosaur. Since the output of MusicWonk is a live MIDI stream, essentially an algorithmic keyboard player, it is not a VST application itself. But the VST host programs have MIDI inputs and outputs that can easily be set up to distribute the MusicWonk MIDI stream to the hosted VST and VSTi modules.
