Project6 1.2.0.0

Project6 1.2.0.0

An 8 × 8 bank of looping sample pads, launched on the bar, for macOS, as a
VST3 and an Audio Unit.

What changed since 1.1.1.0

• Projects travel. Each pad's file is now saved inside the project, so a
  project sent to someone else opens with every pad playing, whether or not
  they have your files. The copy in the project is the one that plays, so a
  project always sounds as it was saved; to pick up a sample you have edited
  since, drop it on the pad again. Moving, copying or swapping pads takes the
  saved copy with it.
• Factory samples folder. Files in /Users/Shared/Project6/Samples — the
  same path on every Mac — are not copied into projects, because every copy
  of Project6 can have them. The installer fills that folder when a release
  ships factory samples.
• Clear a pad: right-click (or Control-click) it and choose Clear pad.
  The file leaves the project too.
• "File not found" is now told apart from "could not be read" on a pad
  whose file has gone.

Projects saved with earlier versions still open, reading their files from
disk as before; save them once in 1.2.0.0 and their files are saved in too.
Projects saved with 1.2.0.0 open in earlier versions, which ignore the saved
files and read from disk.

Projects are larger by the size of the files on their pads. In REAPER,
which saves the plug-in's state at every undo step, a project with many long
WAVs may make editing feel slower.

What it does

Drag a .wav onto a slot and click it to arm it; it comes in when the
transport crosses the next grid line, and stops on the line after that. Each
pad picks its own grid — 1/1, 1/2, 1/4 or 1/8 of a bar, so everything
nests and a 1/8 pad and a 1/1 pad start together on the downbeat. A box above
each column launches that whole column at once.

A slot can hold a .mid instead, looping on the same grid and playing out of
its row's MIDI output — row A on channel 1 through row H on channel 8 — with a
transpose of up to two octaves in place of a level bar.

Each row sums through its own fader, and there are nine output buses: the
main stereo mix plus a per-row direct out, tapped before the row fader, so
the fader balances the mix without changing what leaves for the desk.

Which pads were armed is saved with the project, and comes back armed. A pad
whose file has gone missing since it was saved comes back dark rather than lit
and silent.

Installing

Download Project6-1.2.0.0.pkg and open it. The installer offers the
formats separately:

/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/Project6.vst3
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/Project6.component

Quit your DAW first — a running host holds the old copy open. Signed with a
Developer ID and notarised by Apple.

Requires macOS 10.13 or later.

Two host quirks, neither of them this plug-in

• In REAPER, use the VST3. REAPER never asks an Audio Unit whether it has
  MIDI output and never sets a callback for one, so a MIDI pad's notes have
  nowhere to go there. The plug-in emits them; the host is not listening. The
  VST3 works in REAPER and the AU works in Logic.
• Apple's AUMIDISynth goes silent at a transport loop point and stays
  silent until the transport is stopped, while the MIDI goes on arriving. Use
  a different synth if you loop.

Both were traced property by property rather than guessed at;
PORTING-NOTES.md §0 and §0a have the investigations.

Uninstalling

A .pkg never will, so:

sudo rm -rf /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/Project6.vst3
sudo rm -rf /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/Project6.component

Checksum

SHA-256: 037556410110d5d03e9f2f2987d4d381d0c70d2b5f10c746648261526b4f4a95

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Copyright 2026 A. E. Cobley. CC BY-SA 4.0.
VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.