Last Updated on October 1, 2019 by Andrew Culture
Mixed In Key have released version 3.0 of their popular (and award winning) Captain Melody software. We’ll be writing a full review soon, but in brief Captain Melody is a suite of plugins (and standalone programs) that helps producers and songwriters who don’t have what might be called ‘traditional musical theory knowledge’. Which we imagine is almost all musicians.
We’ve been really impressed with what we’ve seen of Captain Melody so far and we’re not the only ones. None other that David Guetta has made it public that he used the beta version of Captain Melody 3.0.
New features for version 3.0 include:
- The Idea Box
A function for test driving variations to rhythm, cadence, complexity and other aspects of melody. - Tension Editor
An interesting colour based tool for creating (and releasing) tension in compositions. - Pencil and Paintbrush for MIDI
This feature works a little like manual note placement on the piano roll on most DAWs. Adding this function should help Captain Melody users feel a little bit more ‘at home’. - Importing of MIDI files
This is the development we’re particularly looking to trying. If you’ve got the seed of an idea you can now import the midi into Captain Melody to flesh out your ideas. - Random function
By clicking on a dice icon inside the software you can randomly generate brand new ideas. - Magic Record
This new function allows the user to ‘jam’ ideas within the software. - Compose with Spotify
On paper this feature sounds particularly wild to us. Captain Melody somehow trawls the hits on Spotify and brings the magic back to your DAW. - MIDI send
In previous versions of Captain Melody running through ideas aurally meant choosing one of the soft synths built into the software. Now you can send MIDI out to the huge array of vintage synths you wish you owned.
The more jaded among you may read news about significant upgrades like this with mounting financial dread. We often read articles about software updates that end with a sting in the tail – the sting being that existing users have to buy a new licence to get the latest updates. This is NOT the case here. Existing Captain Melody users get a FREE upgrade to version 3.0! Huzzah!
Find out more about Captain Melody…
