iPad + SCOPE: looking for inspiration

[petal]

I am now the lucky owner for "the new iPad" and know it has great potential as a midi/osc-controller, but I'd love to hear how other SCOPE owners has made good use of the iPad's potential together with SCOPE. I use Cubase 4.5.

Lemur for iPad looks very interesting (especially the physics engine it comes with) but do you think it is worth the 50$ they are asking for it?

Cheers,
Thomas

[dawman]

I know you can write your own really custom stuff because a friend uses LASS and has every articulation, listed and can switch to and fro by touch only, quite nifty.

[jksuperstar]

Compared to any other controller, Lemur is extremely flexible and also powerful, since it can do many sequencing tricks on it's own (no computer, so it can controller hardware directly). So, it's price is probably very worth it if you make use of it. The original hardware version cost $2000 US. $50 is big for an app, but small compared to the original.

If you use Ableton, TouchOSC is really nice, and integrates well. Costs less, too. This allows you to make custom surfaces like Lemur.

Then there are sound sources. I usually switch between TouchOSC and TC-11 for control and sound making.

TC-11 is one of the best touch-based synths I've seen. Really fun for textures and pads. it's display is completely unique, but makes playing scales nearly impossible...but that's not what it was designed for.

Anything by Wizdom Music (SampleWiz, MorphWiz, Geo, etc) is really nice. They spend a lot of effort making sure the app is smooth, and takes full advantage of the touch screen.

[jksuperstar]

Oh, I'd also keep my eye on CopperLan, for the upcoming Scope 6 ...

[astroman]

absolutely correct: Lemur is the holy grail of controllers
well worth the bucks and afaik the only app using a PC/Mac editor for design
that's pretty cool, as it keeps the footprint of the runtime slim

the network dialog of Lemur with it's design counterpart gives an impression of how future IOS apps may control external hardware.

Geo Synth is one of my favourite entry module for notes and melodies (as a non-keyboarder)...

if you want a crude yet smart midi sequencer with some history mojo...
shell out another $50 for the Fairlight CMI, it's too cute
you get the original sounds too, but expects some decrease on the analog front.

some of that can be compensated with Celmo's guitar/bass amp stuff
(fits perfectly to the iPad's slightly crisp tone for many sound apps).

standalone synth app to mention is AniMoog

cheers, Tom

[jksuperstar]

TouchOSC has a MAC/PC editor, and the author, I believe, joined the Lemur team to help port that to iOS. But it has no internal capabilities for sequencing, physics, etc. it is purely a "static" controller. (ie - you can't even sequence movement of controllers, like you can with Lemur). Lemur does everything TouchOSC does and more, but TouchOSC does have some nice Ableton control templates that are far simpler and more effective than the Mu templates for Lemur that also control Ableton. But, again, Lemur/Mu can then go beyond...

One other great synth app is the Moog Animoog. The keyboard on that is absolutely great, with polyphonic aftertouch, XY pad, mod/pitch/glide wheels, and is re-configurable (based on key & scale type) to show only the notes in that key...which allows you to play it like a theramin, but stay in key! It's so good it doesn't need much in terms of external scope effects, EQ, etc. But it is still inspirational.

[petal]

OK - Thanks for the input guys, it is much appreciated.

I do have TouchOSC already (been an iPhone owner for a while now), but I believe Lemur is what I'm looking for.
I was hoping for a few more unknown interesting controller apps, but ok

[astroman]

I often use MidiPads for MPC type input, but just because I lacked the time to fiddle with Lemur yet
(wouldn't buy any such stuff after Lemur, which is also the most responsive of the pack)
but there's another goodie I forgot: Loopy HD
unfortunately the examples on YT aren't so hot...
nice for live-looping snippets

cheers, Tom

[sharc]

I was hoping for a few more unknown interesting controller apps

A few options there ...none as comprehensive as Lemur though

TB MIDI Stuff
MIDI Touch
MIDI Designer Pro
Yamaha Faders & XY Pad
Yamaha Keyboard Arp & Drum Pad

and of course TouchOSC which is what I use as I couldn't justify spending that sort of money on Lemur for the small screen of my Touch 4G.

Also worthy of a mention on the MIDI front:

MidiBridge is great for merging and filtering MIDI data as well as making connections between multiple apps.
FreEWI is a free MIDI event mapper from the same developer.
ThumbJam can be a useful MIDI and OSC controller.
NodeBeat HD is an interesting generative sequencer.

As for synths ...apart from Animoog (which is great) I'd recommend:

Sunrizer
Addictive
Grain Science
Alchemy
and although it's Eden synth doesn't quite stand up to any of those, last but not least I'd have to give a special mention to NanoStudio which is my favourite music app. Brilliant little sketch pad with a great workflow.

[siriusbliss]

I'm investigating V-control for controlling Scope rather than automating Samplitude.

It depends on how well the Mackie control configuration works with Scope, since initial tests with Samplitude are redundant until Magix finishes their so-called new automation/controller scheme.

But V-control looks promising.

Greg

[sharc]

V-Control does look very interesting. It's $50 which may seem a bit steep to some - we really are spoiled with so many good quality cheap apps. At least there's a free version to give a chance to try it out and decide if it's worth splashing out for the pro upgrade.

Has anyone else tried the free CopperLan app?

It looks like CopperLan integration could be great for Scope, but to me the app seems really sluggish and unresponsive.

[sharc]

In case anyone missed it, those links I posted above are from idesignsound.com which is a really good website for keeping up to date with audio production related iOS apps and hardware.

[valis]

I second sharc's recommendation of nanostudio (v2 currently) as a sketchpad. I find it more 'inspiring' than it's main competition Beatmaker 2 for some reason, the synth sounds that I can generate and the ease of control & switching between things more than evens out what Beatmaker 2 has in terms of depth. Then again I'm on an iPhone 4S and find beatmaker2 completely cluttered to use there.

I use Octave as my RTA sometimes (running off my main board with an l-pad to attenuate the signal and whitenoise/pinknoise/1hz osc calibration to insure levels are matched.) Though there are several more expensive options that offer more features it doesn't use FFT so I find it more responsive & accurate, at least as far as an iPhone goes.

iMaschine is fun if you have midi input but I find it lacking for standalone use since it's very rudimentary in its recording of input (automation & 'playing' of notes/pads). Nanostudio offers the same immediacy with far far more options to edit your results...but toss in an iRig midi (or maybe the Alesis dock for iPad) and iMaschine can still be a handheld sound source clocked to your other gear/software.

Touchosc was already mentioned, and while I don't own Lemur (since no iPad) I do find a lot of use for Touchosc both as a Logic controller (it's had *native* Support as a HUI control surface since 9.1.2 which means it picks up track changes and plugin focus etc) and to integrate with OSC support in Max4Live & Reaktor. I haven't felt wanting for a sequencer so it does the job there fine.

Garageband also gets a mention because while it's not exactly inspiring in its own right, now that you can edit the results it's a decent sketchpad for Logic users. Compose something when lying around or outside the studio and you can bring it into Logic and swap out the Apple equivalent to a refill soundset for something more custom and get to work with finer edits & your engineering etc. Ie, the iOS equivalent to "I always compose on the piano before writing a tune" for the Logic using set.

[petal]

Ahh great, more suggestions - thanks a lot, and keep them comming

I've bought Lemur, and it looks very promising.
I have owned nanstudio for quite a while now, without really using it though.
And just yesterday I bought StepPolyArp, which I hope will produce good inspiration, while creating synth patches.

I've been looking for a site like: http://www.idesignsound.com/ so thank you very much for bringing it to my attention.

cheers!,
Thomas