Arpeggionome for iPhone

iPhone version of ArpeggionomePro arrived to the AppStore. 

SAN FRANCISCO — May 14, 2013 — Arpeggionome for iPhone transforms your iPhone into a new and expressive musical instrument.  Design intricate patterns of musical notes, then trigger those patterns at different pitches and speeds with an x-y matrix.  Tilt the iPhone for accelerometer-controlled pitchbend and volume, and with the 'MIDI Upgrade' in-app purchase, control other iOS MIDI apps, external MIDI gear, and computer software like never before.

Until May 31st it's just 0.99$

Putting it all together

In the last several weeks there were few things happened that really made music production process on the iPad much more complete.

First GarageBand came with Audiobus support and on the same week Audiobus achieved 100 apps that support technology. Which means that Audiobus now is the standard technology in iOS approved by Apple.

Then Auria was updated with time stretch and sidechain functions (there's no side chain compression yet - but ProC will support Auria sidechain in the next release).

After SampleTank (with great sounds library) and FL Studio (not a great as a DAW but very good sound library) were updated with Audiobus. So now it can be controlled with virtual midi and recorded in other apps via Audiobus. IK Multimedia (developer of SampleTank) also updated their effects app - AmpliTube. 

Few days ago NanoStudio announced to implement AudioBus.

And finally iMini - iPad reincarnation of MiniMoog was updated with Audiobus and Virtual Midi support. 

With so many great apps like SampleTank and iMini and DAWs like Cubasis, Auria and BeatMaker 2 the music production environment on iPad is becoming more and more advanced each week.

Ingui vs Ingui - Jam 06

New great Jam from Ingui vs Ingui

iMini (MiniMoog for iPad) and Tabletop

Today we've got unexpected news from Arturia - their first app for iPad: iMini.

And that's also a big day for Tabletop. Few months ago they integrated with iMPC (you can use it as internal device inside Tabletop) and with iMPC they received one of the best drum samplers. And today they launched integration with Minimoog - one of the best synths of all time reincarnation for iPad.

Let's start with Minimoog (iMini) first.

iMini is recreation of legendary Minimoog synth. iMini is based on same technology as desktop version - Mini V.

iMini comes with fantastic sound and over 500 presets made by the top sound designers. One of the great features is that you can transfer presets between MiniV and iMini.

iMini doesn't support Audiobus, Virtual Midi or Audiocopy (there's no internal recoder there), there's no sequencer there but it is Tabletop-ready. Which means that you can use Tabletop sequencer, recorder and other devices with iMini. 

iMini also comes with nice effects: delay and chorus. And inside Tabletop it can be used as effect (there is audio input that can be connected with other devices) to process other sounds through fantastic moog-style filter, delay and chorus effects. 

To use touch screen advantages, iMini has two XY pads that can be assigned to control most of the parameters of the synthesizer.

Traktor DJ from Native Instruments

Traktor DJ is iPad version of well known Native Instruments Traktor. It worth seeing the video than reading features list.

Guitar, Lemur and Live: JAM 04 INGUI VS INGUI

Drum and Bass on iPad

It was pretty difficult to make drum and bass beats on iPad with Cubasis or Auria because there's no time stretching there and it is hard to combine and layer drum loops with different tempo there.

But with GlitchBreaks you get all you need for DnB. It automatically adjusts the tempo to the loop and you can play with 4 loops assigned to the pads switching between your loops on the fly.

Here's short video on how DnB beats can be made on iPad. 

I used DM1 for main Snare and Kick, GlitchBreaks for complex beats, Magellan for bass, Animoog for FX and Cubasis to put it all together.

Soundfonts player bs-16i on the Audiobus

If you are using DAW or MIDI sequencer with Virtual midi support (like Cubasis or Genome) you'll like this app. 

bs-16i is the Soundfonts player and Soundfonts are small sample libraries created specially for wavetable-based synthesizers. 

The app itself doesn't give you any specials - it is just SF2 (soundfonts files) player with keyboard and some controls (filter,lfo, midi routing).

But when you combine this with Audiobus, Virtual midi and huge choice of free SF2 files in the Internet - it is gold.

The app itself has low CPU consumption so it plays nicely with Audiobus and other apps running.

Read this 13 pages thread on KVR forum to find links to cool SF2 files. 

As long as SampleTank doesn't play well with background audio and with other apps like Cubasis, bs-16i is a great addition to expand your iPad sound library.

Cubasis updated with Audiobus support

Cubasis DAW was updated with Audiobus support. Now as it supports both virtual midi and Audiobus you can use external apps like Animoog, Magellan, NLog Synth, iPolysix, iMS-20 and others as VSTs.

For each new device added to Audiobus Cubasis creates new audiotrack with Audio-in from that instrument.

Auria with Audiobus support

So it happened finally... 

Auria - first professional DAW for iPad updated with Audiobus.

There are two versions of Auria: Auria (full version for 50$) and Auria LE (limited version for 25$). Auria LE with Audiobus support was already approved by Apple and it is available in the AppStore.

Auria full version was submitted by WaveMachine Labs. but not yet approved by Apple (it should happen very soon - maybe in just few hours).

As Auria is memory consuming app it recomended to run it with Audiobus on iPad 3 (new iPad) or 4th generation.

Also there's an issue with buffer size so you should first run Audiobus and only after that launch Auria. Read this Audiobus blog article.

Want to know more about Auria and other DAWs for iPad will support Audiobus - read this review. 

Auria LE with Audiobus support

Best midi apps for iPad

As more and more apps arriving with Audiobus and Virtual Midi support I listed here best apps that allows you to control other apps with Virtual MIDI. There are different types of such apps: MIDI controllers, arpeggiators, sequencer etc. So I choose most essential apps for each category.

With these apps you can control other iOS music apps: synths, samplers, drum machines (like Animoog, Magellan, Sunrizer, SampleTank, DM1, DrumJam and others) or PC/Mac Desktop DAWs (Ableton Live, Logic, Cubase, Studio One, Reason).  

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The most important midi app: Midi Bridge

Midi Bridge allows to link different apps (that support midi) with each other providing great routing and filtering features (see more details and screenshots here).

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Best MIDI sequencer: Genome MIDI sequencer

With Genome you can create unlimited number of patterns on 16 midi tracks. Each track can be routed to send signals via different MIDI channels (combine this with MIDI bridge and you get unlimited routing capabilities with different external devices and internal apps). 

There are two views of the app: song view (where you can create and run new patterns, play patterns from different tracks) and pattern view where you can draw notes and automation curves (for velocity, modwheel, program change and even for custom cc's).  By the way song view supports midi learn so you can launch patterns from other apps or from external midi controllers. 

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Most beautiful MIDI controller: MIDI Studio

MIDI studio comes with really nice looking MIDI surfaces. One of the great features are drum pads with velocity controlled by accelerometer. Customizable knobs and faders (you can customize midi messages data like channel, CC, value) allows you to change existing templates. 

And wiith pro-upgrade option you can create your own surfaces from the big library of different elements. All the elements: x/y pads, knobs, buttons, faders look like real hardware controllers. 

And if you are looking for Mackie-control surface you can buy via in-app store great template for Mackie.

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Most creative MIDI app: Arpeggionome pro

With Arpeggionome pro you can create arpeggios with just finger touch. XY pads provides you control of note value and note length (all customizable) and with accelerometer you can control velocity. Highly tweakable parameters allow you to design arpeggios of different kinds from simple one-two notes to the complex ones (use key, scale, number of notes, step distance, note style, octave range and style and others to construct nice sounding and sometimes unexpected arpeggios).

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Best MIDI arpeggiator: StepPolyArp

With StepPolyArp you can make arpeggios of any kind. You can customize any note and run arpeggio by playing note or chord in the real time (it can also receive midi notes via external devices). 

Steinberg new app - Cubase iC Pro

Steinberg brings new app - it is remote control for Cubase. I think those who use Cubase will appreciate this. With such attention to iOS (second app in just a bit more then one month) Cubase soon should be desktop DAW of choice for mobile musicians. See official video.