MIDISketch v0.9.7.5 [WiN]

• Product: MIDISketch
• Developer: MIDIScout
• Version: 0.9.7.5
• Format: VST3
• Requirements: Windows 10 or later
• Source: midiscout.com/plugins/midisketch

MIDISketch is a MIDI expression plugin that replaces the standard piano roll with a drawing surface for per-note pitch curves, output as either MPE data or standard pitch wheel messages. Each note carries its own Bezier-curve pitch bend, drawn by hand rather than automated through a separate lane, with a bend range fixed at 48 semitones to match MPE synth conventions. Pressure, Slide, and Pan expression lanes sit below the piano roll, each independently drawable with non-destructive LFO modulation layered on top. A synth-hosting tab loads a VST3 or AU instrument directly inside the plugin for immediate audio feedback while drawing, or MIDI can route out to a separate track for synths already placed elsewhere in the session. Searches for a plugin that draws MPE pitch bends without requiring MPE hardware land here.

Key Takeaway

Activated when a part needs hand-drawn pitch movement — glides, vibrato, glissando — applied per note rather than recorded from a physical MPE controller or built through automation clips after the fact. Displaces the workflow of recording from a Roli Seaboard or Linnstrument, or manually drawing pitch-bend automation in a DAW’s native MIDI editor one breakpoint at a time. The plugin’s output only becomes per-note independent pitch bending when the receiving synth supports MPE and has its bend range set to 48 semitones; pointed at a non-MPE synth, the curves collapse into standard single-channel pitch wheel behavior affecting all sounding notes together. Producers who already own MPE hardware and prefer playing expression in real time over drawing it by hand will find the drawing-first workflow slower for material that’s easier to perform than to sketch.

Per-Note Bezier Pitch Curves

Double-clicking a note adds pitch points along its length, and dragging a segment with Alt held converts that segment into a smooth Bezier curve rather than a straight line between points. This produces continuous, musical-sounding bends rather than the stair-stepped automation that results from drawing breakpoints without curve interpolation.

Each note’s curve is independent of every other note’s curve, since MPE assigns each note its own MIDI channel rather than sharing one pitch-bend message across all currently sounding notes. A chord built from several notes can have one note glide upward while another holds steady and a third descends, all at once, which standard single-channel pitch bend cannot represent regardless of how the automation is drawn. The 48-semitone bend range is fixed to match MPE convention rather than being adjustable per project, so a synth left at its default ±2-semitone range will reproduce the drawn curves as barely perceptible movement instead of the intended glide — the receiving synth’s bend range has to be manually set to 48 to match.

Two Output Modes, Two Different Sonic Results

MPE Mode sends each note on its own MIDI channel so pitch, pressure, and slide bend independently per note, which only functions correctly when the receiving synth declares MPE support — Serum, Vital, Phase Plant, Pigments, Surge XT, Diva, Hive 2, and Equator are confirmed compatible. Pitch Wheel Mode instead sends standard single-channel pitch wheel messages, which works with effectively any synth but applies the bend uniformly to every note currently sounding rather than to one note independently.

Switching between the two modes changes what the same drawn curve actually does on playback: a chord with three different per-note bends drawn in MPE Mode will, in Pitch Wheel Mode, instead apply only one of those bend values across the whole chord since a single pitch wheel message can’t carry three simultaneous values. This means the drawing work done for an MPE target doesn’t transfer cleanly to a non-MPE synth without re-thinking which notes can share a single bend curve. Engineers building parts for a mix of MPE and non-MPE instruments across a project need to plan curve complexity around which output mode each part will actually use.

Expression Lanes With Non-Destructive LFO Layering

Pressure, Slide, and Pan each get a dedicated lane below the piano roll, drawn directly with Bezier handles the same way pitch curves are drawn on notes, rather than being buried in a generic CC automation list. Right-clicking between two points on any expression lane adds an LFO region that modulates the drawn curve without altering the underlying points, so the LFO can be removed or adjusted later without having to redraw the base curve from scratch.

This separates the “what the curve does on average” decision from the “how much it wobbles” decision into two independently editable layers, rather than requiring every modulation detail to be drawn directly into the curve’s points. The non-destructive LFO can be baked into fixed points at any time, converting it into a static curve — useful before final export, since baking removes the ability to re-adjust the LFO’s depth or speed without redrawing afterward. Expression lanes apply per note just as pitch curves do, so Pressure and Slide differences between simultaneous notes in MPE Mode behave the same way per-note pitch independence does — and collapse the same way in Pitch Wheel Mode, since standard MIDI CC messages aren’t per-note either.

Audio-to-MIDI Tracing and Hosted Synth Workflow

Importing an audio file and tracing it converts detected pitch movement directly into editable pitch-curve points on the piano roll, turning a recorded melodic line into a starting point for further curve editing rather than requiring the curve to be drawn from nothing. This works as a sketch-generation step — the traced result becomes normal editable note and curve data afterward, not a separate locked audio layer.

Loading a synth directly into the plugin’s Synth tab routes MIDI internally and plays it back immediately while drawing, without needing a second track or separate routing setup in the DAW. This convenience comes with a tradeoff: a synth hosted inside MIDISketch isn’t simultaneously available as its own track for the DAW’s own mixing, automation, or send routing the way a synth placed directly on a track would be, so final mix-level control over that instrument happens through MIDISketch’s own output rather than the DAW’s usual per-track tools. Multiple MIDISketch instances in the same session can see each other’s notes as ghost overlays and merge them by dragging, which only matters in sessions actually running more than one instance — a single-instance project won’t have any other ghost data to reference.

FAQs