Generative MIDI engine
Dolmen
Keep the bars that work · roll the rest
What it does
It writes bars, you keep the good ones
Give it a key, a scale and a feel. It generates a bar of MIDI in that key, using your own library as source material if you point it at one.
Then the part that matters: lock the steps that landed and regenerate everything else. Locked notes survive every roll, transpose with a change of key, re-snap to a change of scale, and are saved with the project. Ten good notes and six rolls is a very different experience from a dice throw.
When you have something, drag it onto a track. It becomes an ordinary MIDI region. Dolmen has no further involvement and no claim on it.
In detail
The parts worth knowing about
Locked steps
Click a step to keep it. A locked silence counts as a decision too, so you can carve out space and keep it. The lock count is shown on the panel, and one click clears them all.
Your MIDI library
Point Dolmen at a folder and it indexes every file in it — label, pack, role, key, bar count — and lets you browse by any of them. It reads the key from the notes rather than trusting the filename.
Apply key
Any source file can be transposed into the key you are working in, with one click and one click back. The original is never modified.
Hand edits
Drag any note's pitch, velocity or length directly on the panel. Edits apply to what is playing now; the next generate replaces them, which is deliberate.
Follows the host
Takes tempo and transport from the DAW. Start, stop and loop behave the way you expect, and there are no stuck notes when you stop mid-bar.
Light on the machine
No allocation on the audio thread, verified with instrumentation and a sanitiser rather than assumed. It will not be the reason your session crackles.
Getting it running
In your DAW
Logic Pro
Make a software instrument track and load any instrument. Click the MIDI FX slot above it, then Audio Units → Takt Audio Labs → Dolmen. Press play.
Ableton Live
Drop Dolmen on a MIDI track as an instrument. On a second track holding your sound, set MIDI From to the Dolmen track and arm it. Live cannot host Audio Unit MIDI effects, so this routing is how every MIDI generator works there.
Anything else
Load the VST3 as an instrument and route its MIDI output wherever you need it. It emits silence on its audio output by design.
A short video of the Ableton routing will live here before launch. It is the one thing worth showing rather than describing.
Privacy and updates
Offline by default
No account, no cloud, no telemetry, no analytics. Nothing you make in Dolmen is sent anywhere, and the plug-in works with your network switched off.1
How you get updates
Updates are free within the current major version. When one is out, Dolmen says so in its settings menu and points you back to this page. The download link on your original receipt always serves the current build, so there is nothing to buy again and no key to enter again.
Your licence and your saved projects carry across untouched. A session written with one version opens in the next with the same seed and the same pattern.
| Formats | Audio Unit (MIDI effect), VST3 |
|---|---|
| System | macOS 11 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel |
| Windows | Planned, not promised |
| Licence | One purchase, up to three machines, moveable |
| Activation | One time, with the key from your receipt. No account, no ongoing checks |
| Updates | Free within the current major version |
| Support | [email protected] |
How activation works. Your receipt includes a licence key. Paste it into Dolmen once and it activates — that is the only moment it needs an internet connection. After that it never contacts anything again, with or without a connection.
Three machines per licence. If you sell a Mac or a drive dies, release the slot from inside the plug-in yourself; you do not need to email anyone and there is nothing to wait for.
- Two exceptions, both small. Activating your licence contacts our server once, at the moment you paste your key in — the only time anything about your purchase is transmitted. After that, Dolmen asks taktaudiolabs.com once a day whether a newer version exists. That is a request for a public file: it carries nothing about you or your machine, and if you are offline it simply doesn’t ask, and nothing about the plug-in changes. Nothing else ever leaves your computer, and you are welcome to confirm every word of this with any network monitor. Back to the text