EnTrain
Drum-Driven MIDI Rhythm Generator
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EnTrain is available on Gumroad: https://brettdooley.gumroad.com/l/entrain
It is free. Enter $0 and download it.
If you feel like supporting it, donations are appreciated. I promise to buy coffee
with it.
Rhythm is a conversation.
EnTrain lets your drummer do the talking.
It listens to the energy of a live drum kit or drum machine and uses it to drive
a probabilistic rhythm generator. The drummer controls the dynamics. You hold
the chords. EnTrain builds the sequence between them.
The output is split across four independent voices. It is not a loop player.
Nothing repeats the same way twice. The rhythm breathes with the performance.
What It Does
EnTrain is a drum-driven MIDI rhythm generator that turns a drum track into a
dynamic arranger.
You feed it two MIDI streams: one from your chord instrument and one from your
drums. It analyzes the drum energy across three frequency zones (low, mid, and
high).
It splits the generated notes across four independent MIDI channels: Bass, Core,
Top, and Tom.
The generator can:
- Fire notes based on the dynamic energy of specific drum zones
- Snap generated notes to active chord tones or play freely
- Utilize global density, syncopation, and swing controls
- Drop ghost notes for added texture
- Carve out deliberate rests using Negative Space
- Break out of stagnant loops using Anti-Repetition detection
How It Works
Insert EnTrain on a MIDI track. Route its four MIDI outputs to different synths.
Set the Drum channel to match your kit and the Chord channel to match your keys.
Start the DAW transport and hold a chord.
High drum energy means more triggers and louder accents. Low energy means fewer
triggers and softer output. The bass voice tightly follows the kick drum through
the low energy curve. The snare drives the core voice through the mid curve.
Global controls allow you to fine-tune how the rhythm generator reacts. You can
adjust the decay and sensitivity of each drum zone so the synths respond exactly
how you want them to.
Negative Space adds random rests to create breathing room, while Anti-Repetition
forces variations when a pattern gets stale. Use them together to keep the output
moving.
Compatibility
Windows only. VST3. Verified in Reaper.
EnTrain is a MIDI effect plugin: MIDI in, MIDI out, no audio. Not every DAW
routes MIDI through plugins correctly. If you are not on Reaper, it may work or
it may not. You will need to sort that out for your setup.
I built this because I wanted a rhythm section that reacted to human energy
instead of a rigid step sequencer.
If it makes your synths groove with the kit, that is the point.
Brett Dooley
See my other midi vst: https://brettdooley.com/midivst/
