idea: iPad Virus TI app

[Timo]

Originally Posted by MBTC

I'd prefer to see Access get the hang of basic VST DAW integration fundamentals that seem to have escaped them so far, and until Kindergarten is graduated the big leagues might be a way off, but as a creative idea, tablets offer a lot of future with regard to touch.

Sounds like you were personally unlucky with the TI and your computer set-up. However plenty of others don't have problems. Which TI OS were you using? Did you talk to Access support?

Wrong thread though.

Back on the actual topic, just scored an iPad and the first app I made a bee-line was the Korg iMS-20 and also iElectribe. The iMS-20 is great fun, very bold and fat sounding, albeit a tad fiddly. Less impressed with the iElectribe, it's very limited.

Going to try hooking up the iPad to MIDI before commenting on the iMS20 any further. Great though the iMS-20 is (you couldn't really expect to get any better for a tablet application and such a low price, notwithstanding the price of the iPad to begin with of course) I still dreadfully miss real knobs and buttons.

A tablet is great for messing around with but darned fiddly, limited, and restricting in use if external MIDI controllers ain't supported.

That said, Virus Control would be much easier to use due to its modern tabbed nature, larger controls and clean layout, rather than displaying all knobs at the same time as on the iMS.

However, you'd want to play the Virus with one hand and control the iPad with the other.... You may as well just use the knobs on the actual Virus to begin with! That's what they're there for. Don't be scared of using them.

Unless you meant a dedicated iTi|2 application for iPad (like Korg iMS-20) for people without a TI.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Timo

Sounds like you were personally unlucky with the TI and your computer set-up. However plenty of others don't have problems. Which TI OS were you using? Did you talk to Access support?
Wrong thread though.

I don't recall the TI OS version, it was shortly after they released a 64-bit Windows driver, and that might have been part of the issue. I won't go too far with this here because as you said not the right topic, other than to say I have read on this forum of users with 64-bit VC woes as recently as the last few days, and I'm hoping that as 32-bit becomes completely passe, everything will just work on 64-bit Windows (maybe it already does? It was over a year ago that I tried to get my Ti2 Desktop working correctly in FL). Either way, when I see indications all VC / driver issues are up to speed I will likely either just get a Snow instead of a desktop or maybe wait to see what Access releases as their next gen Virus.

Back to iPads, I was mostly commenting that making great sounding hardware seems to be more Access' forte than software integration, so I do worry a little about them expanding into other software ventures until their existing software commitments are tightened up. In other words if they put a dedicated multi-touch controller on the Virus itself it would likely work like gangbusters since they are then not at Apple's mercy for iOS release testing and what not.

About iPad-specific synths, I'm sure we will see lots of "fun" (i.e. novelty) type synths emerge for tablets at first, but long term some of them could evolve into very serious instruments, particularly as tablet processors get more powerful.

For now, I think a lot of people are viewing it as a modulation controller that might offer musical possibilities not yet realized on typical synth modulation controllers. Many synths have had simultaneous X-Y axis controllers, which is in effect the same thing as controlling two synth knobs at once, except requiring one hand to do so instead of two. One possibility that comes to mind with a tablet is X+Y axis + tilt of the pad itself to various angles thus providing another dimension of modulation with a single hand. It might require a special stand for the iPad (and I may be wrong but I think the gyroscope in the iPad can do this out of the box), but if you can imagine not only having the changes taking place by your fingers on the surface, but also by tilting the pad itself forward, back, left or right using the wrist joint. This means simultaneous adjustment of potentially many more parameters than even four hands on tradional synth knobs could accomplish, but with one hand (you still need to keep one hand free to play the keys .

Just a thought.