Ableton Forum

It's ok, a little cramped on the iPhone, but I guess thats to be expected.

I'm starting to get a little Meh on the music apps too. They're interesting and fun for a bit, but none of them really holds my interest long. And I've yet to record anything that I end up keeping for long, despite a lot of time trying to do so. We'll see, maybe I'm just in a funk.

Tarekith wrote:It's ok, a little cramped on the iPhone, but I guess thats to be expected.

I'm starting to get a little Meh on the music apps too. They're interesting and fun for a bit, but none of them really holds my interest long. And I've yet to record anything that I end up keeping for long, despite a lot of time trying to do so. We'll see, maybe I'm just in a funk.

I'm curious, as in my short time on this forum you've come across as a guy who knows his shit and probably has the means to acquire whichever controllers/accessories seem useful:

1. Are you using any USB/MIDI controllers or recording into Live or another DAW, or just using the apps on their own with whatever touch controls and recording capabilities they have?
1b. If you are plugging cables into your iThings, which ones, and what does the configuration look like?
2. Do you have an iPad as well?

(I'm not asking because I don't know how it could be done, and I already have my own set of opinions about CCK vs iRig/MIDI Mobilizer vs IODock, etc. I'm just interested to hear how people are using this stuff.)

1. Are you using any USB/MIDI controllers or recording into Live or another DAW, or just using the apps on their own with whatever touch controls and recording capabilities they have?

>>> Mostly I try and rely on the touch controls that the apps have built in. I look at something like the iPad as a self-contained musical instrument on it's own. I've used a midi keyboard with the CCK a few times, though to be honest, if I'm going to go that route, I'd rather just use the softsynths I have on my computer and skip the hassle of recording the iPad.

Plus, apps like Animoog rely on things like simulated Polypressure for playing dynamics, and very few midi keyboards send polypressure these days. <<<

1b. If you are plugging cables into your iThings, which ones, and what does the configuration look like?

>>> See above. For the most part I look at iOS apps as self-contained instruments, that I can play and record the audio output from in real-time ala Animoog, Sunrizer, Bloom, etc. Or, I use the DAW type apps like NanoStudio, GarageBand, or even the iMS20 to create grooves or songs in their entirety. These are standalone compositions, or parts to be used in other songs once saved/exported and brought into Live. <<<

2. Do you have an iPad as well?

>>> Yes, iPad2 and iPhone4.

Honestly the biggest issue I have with a lot of iOS apps so far is that too many rely on mimic'ing hardware-styled interactions, and in many cases I think it ends up not working well on a touchscreen. Things like knobs just plain suck to control on the iPad, it's not accurate, and it just feels like you're trying to play a hardware synth stuck under a piece of glass (as Martin Delany likes to say). Animoog for instance, it's brilliant except for the fact that they felt the need to use those old-school style Moog knobs for the effects, path, filter section. Or the iMS-20, which is insanely good sounding and powerful, but a right bitch to program with those little knobs and needing to "flick" things to get any sort of of detailed fine-tuning of parameters. And you can't see exact parameter values, because often your finger is covering the read outs for parameters just as you are trying to dial in a sound.

The other issue, is that many apps try too hard to be all-encompassing and do TOO much, again to the detriment of a touchscreen style work flow. I think NanoStudio is one of the most powerful apps on iOS, but the more I use it, the more I realize that I spend 80% of my time jumping around in various screens just trying to record and edit a simple part. Constantly having to focus on navigating between parameters and sequencer editing. Something like Electrify is a lot better at this, but still relies a little too much on methodology that suites a computer and mouse paradigm.

They may be simple, or even too recognizeable, but Bloom, Trope, and Bebot are some of my favorite apps, just because they really take a whole new approach to control and creation of sound that doesn't rely on what we did in the past. They use an input method that truly suites the idea of a small touchscreen, allowing you to be expressive and not being complicated at the same time. <<<

Thanks for the thorough reply. I've been trying to come up on a cheap Novation X-Station (aftertouch, audio in for fx processing, battery powered, works as a USB interface)—80-90% of why I want it is Animoog/Sunrizer (and whatever comes next).

You might want to try out Nodebeat/Nodebeat HD—very much reminiscent of Bloom, with a bit more specific control over what's going on (so it ends up being less purely generative). Certain colors always represent the same tone or type of percussive sound, depending on whether they're driven by a circular melodic node or a square percussive node. You also have little lines that appear between the nodes so you can see what's controlling what.

Totally agree with just about every point you made, I'm trying learn Max/Processing fast enough to make kind of a TouchOSC with controls that don't pretend to be physical controls before someone else beats me to it. I'm also growing weary of that touch encoder dance I have to do with each new app. ("Does this thing want to be dragged up-down, or left-right? Okay, maybe I have to do sort of a twist? Okay, this seems to be working, now we're past 180º, and now it's going…backwards? Awesome.")

Yeah, I have NodeBeat HD, though admittedly I've only messed with it briefly. Sort of a poor man's Reactable in some sense Though to be honest, between my Machinedrum and MicroTonic, I'm pretty happy on the drum side of things these days.

I think over time we'll see more developers willing to try new methods of control and input on touchscreens. It's still very much in it's infancy and I think a lot of them are just playing it safe or focusing still on how 'pretty' things look. Some of the more thought out control schemes ala Electify, Touch.DJ, etc are rather boring to look at, and I think that probably scares some developers.

beats me wrote:

starving student wrote:riddle me this, a friend of mine just bought me animoog as a little gifty, my friend does not own an ipad and I do not own an ipad but I will in the nearest of not that near but pretty near for someone who was planning on waiting near future, my friend told me that she had to use her apple id, and apple birthcertificate and apple driverslicense blah blah just to get the damn thing to download into her itunes app that she doesn't even use.
ok
my question is when I get my ipad am I going to have to resurrect steve jobs and go all sam and dean from supernatural on his ass just to get that one app that decided the purchase of the ipad for me to work with said ipad, since the app was not purchased with my own apple secret code
or will they make it painless for me to enjoy the app?

You lost me when you said she downloaded it to her computer. I have no idea what she did there, but here’s what she should have done.

Next to the button you click to buy anything on iTunes there’s a pull down menu and from there, there is an option to Gift. Select that and then you gift it to the email address connected to the Apple ID of the person you are gifting it to. There’s a few more steps that are self explanatory.

You’ll then get an email letting you know somebody gifted an app to you. From that email you can download it to your iTunes library on your computer. Once you get an iPad it will install it.

damn....it.....i knew it, well I'm not going to stand for any apple id hassles so they better just clean up my mess when I email them, she's in a different country than i am right now and she says she only sees the app in itunes. I could I suppose ask her to redo it but then that wonderful piece
of window washing ware would end up costing $2 and I can't have that now, even if I would have bought it at $30

God bless her heart for the effort, but if she did buy it for herself on her computer thinking she could just email you the app later, then that shit won’t fly. I’d give her the dollar back and show her how to do it the right way

.

Why can't she email the file? Can't she do the locate on disk option?

starving student wrote:

beats me wrote:

starving student wrote:riddle me this, a friend of mine just bought me animoog as a little gifty, my friend does not own an ipad and I do not own an ipad but I will in the nearest of not that near but pretty near for someone who was planning on waiting near future, my friend told me that she had to use her apple id, and apple birthcertificate and apple driverslicense blah blah just to get the damn thing to download into her itunes app that she doesn't even use.
ok
my question is when I get my ipad am I going to have to resurrect steve jobs and go all sam and dean from supernatural on his ass just to get that one app that decided the purchase of the ipad for me to work with said ipad, since the app was not purchased with my own apple secret code
or will they make it painless for me to enjoy the app?

You lost me when you said she downloaded it to her computer. I have no idea what she did there, but here’s what she should have done.

Next to the button you click to buy anything on iTunes there’s a pull down menu and from there, there is an option to Gift. Select that and then you gift it to the email address connected to the Apple ID of the person you are gifting it to. There’s a few more steps that are self explanatory.

You’ll then get an email letting you know somebody gifted an app to you. From that email you can download it to your iTunes library on your computer. Once you get an iPad it will install it.

damn....it.....i knew it, well I'm not going to stand for any apple id hassles so they better just clean up my mess when I email them, she's in a different country than i am right now and she says she only sees the app in itunes. I could I suppose ask her to redo it but then that wonderful piece
of window washing ware would end up costing $2 and I can't have that now, even if I would have bought it at $30

Apple might refund the $1 if she writes support and explains her ignorance to the process and Apple in general.

My friend once wrote Apple support stating he wanted to upload an episode of Lost back to Apple and wanted a refund because he found the episode extremely disappointing. And yeah he knew exactly how stupid that was so for him and for Apple. He got a response saying they couldn't do that.

God bless her heart for the effort, but if she did buy it for herself on her computer thinking she could just email you the app later, then that shit won’t fly. I’d give her the dollar back and show her how to do it the right way

.

Why can't she email the file? Can't she do the locate on disk option?

Sure, she COULD, but it won't be authorized to run on your stuff, so it's still for nothing.

It sounded like even though they still have to fix the id situation, she was having problems sending him the actual file in the meantime; wasn't sure she knew about the rt. click "locate on disk". Whataver, he doesn't even have an ipad yet.
Have you seen that fucked up chan pic in the dhilsabek thread?
Also I don't care how Jobs treated people in the past as mentioned earlier. Lay the smackdown.

@ starving - i am totally broke right now except for 2 one dollar bills in my pocket. you can have them; i get paid tonight. PM your address.

H

It's one dollar yo. Save face with the friend and tell her to send it to you in an email and that you'll "take care of it", then create your own iTunes id (you don't already have one you heathen?? ) and buy the thing yourself before the price goes up.

Oh, and you can insert "Find your way into the 21st century" anywhere within the previous instructions.

gee whiz, this is the thanks I get for bringin you guys another sacrafice for your cult.
this was the first time she or I made a purchase from the app store, it couldn't have been
simple like go to moogs site and buy/download nooooo she had to learn your kinky
apple secret handshake before she could even tell that the app had downloaded. Not only
that but it was the first time she had even used itunes itself, she just got her first mac
a month ago upon my recommendation.... this reminds me I bought her an ipod for $150
2 years ago for her birthday and I kid you not, he has had it sitting on her desk for 2 yrs
and she hasn't used it once, there is literally no music on it, but she still borrows my ipod
from time to time

brrrrr shake it off....shake it off