Silent Way is a suite of plug-ins designed for use as part of a modular analogue synthesiser system. The plug-ins produce no sound themselves, nor do they process sound - rather, they generate signals to be used as control voltages (CVs), which can be patched into the control inputs of oscillators, filters, VCAs, etc. of an analogue system.

There are currently two plug-ins in the Silent Way suite - Silent Way DC and Silent Way Voice Controller. These are described in more detail below. It is anticipated that more plug-ins will be added to the suite in the future - watch the website for product announcements.

All plug-ins also feature:

• Full MIDI and OSC control.
• MIDI/OSC scriptability.
• Sample-accurate handling of MIDI note messages.

Silent Way DC
Silent Way DC is a simple plug-in that generates constant output signals. It is intended to be used in conjunction with parameter automation (via MIDI or directly by the host application) to generate varying signals. For example, you could use it as an LFO where you draw out the LFO waveform in your host's parameter automation GUI.

Silent Way Voice Controller
Silent Way Voice Controller is a virtual instrument plug-in designed to directly control an analogue synthesiser by generating the appropriate CV and gate signals via an appropriate audio interface. By listening to the synthesiser's output signal, the plug-in is able to calibrate itself to generate the appropriate pitch CV for the incoming MIDI notes. As well as the basic pitch and gate signals, the plug-in can generate three multi-stage envelope CVs which you can feed to VCAs, VCFs, etc. in your synth.

New in 2.1.0

• Bugfix for issue where Silent Way Follower locks up the host application.
• Added a new plug-in: Silent Way Function
• Added "Calibrated" mode to Silent Way Follower
• Added "Transport2" sync mode to Silent Way LFO
• Added a “Transfer” button to Silent Way Soundplane and Silent Way Follower
• Added support for the Expert Sleepers ES-5 module to Silent Way Sync.
• Added sustain pedal support to Silent Way Voice Controller.

New in 2.0.2

• Bugfix for a problem that prevented use of the plug-in status bar (mute, presets etc.) in Cubase Mac OS X 32 bit.
• Bugfix for blank UI problem in Cubase.
• Added the ability to skin the colours of the various graph elements in the UIs (e.g. envelope displays).

New in 2.0

• Now official version
• 5 new plug-ins: Silent Way ES-5 Controller, Silent Way ESX-4CV Combiner, Silent Way Follower, Silent Way Learner and Silent Way Soundplane
• 64 bit support
• New and customizable GUI
• MIDI Learn
• New OSC control features
• Single bundle installer
• Various other fixes and improvements

New in 2.0 beta6

• fixed Logic AU validation of 64 bit SW Quantizer and SW Soundplane
• fixed sending of OSC (from SW Learner and CV To OSC) in 64 bit
• plug-in UIDs are now stored with the song file (so OSC paths remain consistent after a save/load)
• SW SMUX wasn't working in Logic, now fixed
• SW Soundplane now saves its calibration with the song
• SW Learner now stores its outgoing OSC path and the MIDI controller mappings

New in 2.0 beta5

• new plug-in: SW Learner, providing centralised MIDI learn and OSC support.
• new plug-in: SW Follower, providing pitch and envelope tracking
• new plug-in: SW Soundplane, providing support for the Madrona Labs Soundplane instrument
• v2 beta 5 now uses a Silent Way v2 licence.
• v2 licences are available to purchase now.
• v2 is $59.
• an upgrade from v1 to v2 is $20.
• if you purchased v1 in 2012, the upgrade is $10. Contact Expert Sleepers for a discount coupon.
• a new Licence Manager (1.0.18) is required
• SW Sync in beta 5 now has the same Logic bug workaround as v1.7.3
• SW Sync has new parameters: Mute Clock, Multiplier and the option to invert signals when using an ES-5 or ESX-8GT
• SW Trigger has an envelope multiplier (as in the Voice Controller)
• there's now an effect version of SW Trigger which can be triggered by incoming CV

New in 2.0 beta

• 64 bit support (Windows and Mac OS X).
• New UI design.
• UI skinning.

New in 1.7.0

• Added a new plug-in, Silent Way Sync. This expands the DIN sync generator from the ES-4 Controller plug-in into a general purpose clock/trigger/sync plug-in.
• Fixes various issues with parameter automation and GUI updates.
• Fixes the ES-4 Controller plug-in’s response to MIDI channels (previously it would respond to mes- sages on any and all MIDI channels) and adds a ‘Channelise’ capability to the MIDI Out section.