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Best touchscreen usage for AU3 synths?

TL:DR - what AU3 synths make the best use of the touchscreen interface?

I am considering switching my setup from
-iPad as sequencer, drum machine, midi router, synth + a few hardware synths to
-Laptop & Live as sequencer, drum machine, midi router and just iPad as a sound module

But with Ableton and the vsts I have, I don't really need any particular sounds. Instead I wonder, which Au3s take the best advantage of the touch screen for expressive playing?

Ideally, I would love things where I can use multiple fingers to change multiple parameters.

I couple I already have are Spacecraft, Tardigrain, that I think are obvious for this question. (really wish Synthscaper was au).

But I'm open minded to your answers, because for example, I'd also include Galileo just because I love messing with drawbars virtual or not.

Just wasn't my priority before so I have not paid attention to it a ton.

Comments

  • @Multicellular said:
    I couple I already have are Spacecraft, Tardigrain, that I think are obvious for this question. (really wish Synthscaper was au).

    Would SynthScaper LE work for you? I don't own it YET but it is on sale right now + it is Au3.

    from another thread

    @Sinthemau said:
    LE is a player, cannot create sounds, only modify them.

    And directly from developer Igor Vasiliev: Yes, but LE version can be used as standalone and as AUv3. It's lightweight and easy to use player of presets and scenes which are completely compatible with the full version. You can import scenes with samples from full version. And also LE has some additional functions that very convenient for live performance. Look at the "Tune panel"

  • Borderlands Granular
    TC-Data (there is a related synth but I have no experience with it)
    Samplr
    Animoog
    ThumbJam
    DrumJam

    They aren't AUs, but since you are using the iPad as a module maybe that doesn't matter.

    These apps are ones that designers of touch interfaces should be emulating.

  • GeoShred too

  • edited July 2019

    @Halftone said:
    GeoShred too

    For sure

    And iFretless Bass

  • Xequence Keys AU. A much overlooked feature its ability to assign cc’s to keys so that you can touch them, slide them, or touch and slide them to modulate synths, much like Animoog’s keyboard. You can also map them to the motion detector.

  • edited July 2019

    @wim said:
    Xequence Keys AU. A much overlooked feature its ability to assign cc’s to keys so that you can touch them, slide them, or touch and slide them to modulate synths, much like Animoog’s keyboard. You can also map them to the motion detector.

    Ahh I hadnt thought if midi plugins. Good idea.

    The unlimited ribbon controller aspect may be a pretty comprehensive solution.

  • @espiegel123 said:
    Borderlands Granular
    TC-Data (there is a related synth but I have no experience with it)
    Samplr
    Animoog
    ThumbJam
    DrumJam

    They aren't AUs, but since you are using the iPad as a module maybe that doesn't matter.

    These apps are ones that designers of touch interfaces should be emulating.

    I guess what I dont know about those is if they can save their states via apematrix. Thats what I would be using to change presets via program change. And then I guess, would they remain open when I switch away? May be less than ideal but not a dealbreaker.

  • Patterning 1 & 2 and similar sector based loop systems can be wonderfully hands-on and observable at a glance and I find the - screen for Spacecraft Granular Synth very "dive-in-able" and intuitive . Also, strange as it might seem to most proper keyboard players - I actually like some of the screen-based keyboards like KB-1 and the latest offering from Blue Mangoo - can be very good for strings and brass and other things that slide about. No Roli Rise but at 5% of the price you get 80% of the result in time .. and that's an excellent use of screen space.

  • @Soundscaper said:
    Patterning 1 & 2 and similar sector based loop systems can be wonderfully hands-on and observable at a glance and I find the - screen for Spacecraft Granular Synth very "dive-in-able" and intuitive . Also, strange as it might seem to most proper keyboard players - I actually like some of the screen-based keyboards like KB-1 and the latest offering from Blue Mangoo - can be very good for strings and brass and other things that slide about. No Roli Rise but at 5% of the price you get 80% of the result in time .. and that's an excellent use of screen space.

    Thanks. Definitely ones to consider.

  • edited July 2019

    Velocity Keyboard for playing expressively. Also, why not add a second iPad to control the first one and/or Ableton.

  • edited July 2019

    @nondes said:
    Velocity Keyboard for playing expressively. Also, why not add a second iPad to control the first one and/or Ableton.

    That is definitely an idea worth considering.

    My main plan here is basically to have Ableton playing the main rhythm parts, usually just drums and bass, and I'll be playing keys with two hands or keys with the right hand and messing with knobs or the touchscreen on the right hand.

    Another option I've considered is adding a launchpad. That'll free the iPad to just be a cool expressive synth module.

    And my initial experiments with Xequence keys and pads are promising. Thanks @wim for reminding me of that option.

  • I've been going in this direction too - I'm mostly just using my iPad connected via IDAM (or sometimes Studiomux) as a sound module and with Velocity Keyboard as an MPE controller. A much cheaper alternative to a Linnstrument :smile:

  • edited July 2019

    If you play guitar or bass - GeoShred is a perfect MIDI controller for any synth.
    Velocity Keyboard is very good too.

  • edited July 2019

    @SashaPonkratov said:
    If you play guitar or bass - GeoShred is a perfect MIDI controller for any synth.
    Velocity Keyboard is very good too.

    I'd say GeoShred is almost perfect - as it doesn't do velocity properly like velocity keyboard - yes it can do the standard iOS keyboard fudge of using vertical position to represent velocity - but that is not as intuitive as simply hitting harder if you want to go louder. That's why I swapped over to Velocity Keyboard - though I do use GeoShred sometimes still - mostly for the sounds.

  • Just thought I’d resurrect this. It seems that almost all of the truly innovative surfaces on apps, whether synths, FX or midi, are still mostly only on IAA apps - Samplr, TC-11 etc, or apps that can host AUv3s but aren’t themselves auv3, like Musikraken.

    Velocity Keyboard is quite a good surface but the fact that it doesn’t save state properly means it doesn’t actually have full AUv3 functionality, as far as I’m concerned. I want something that will open up in the same scale I left it in when I open an AUM session. Actually Geoshred can’t even do that, you need to set up the scale every time or save patches in certain scales. (The devs would like to fix this but it is some kind of Apple problem related to parameter trees that is a bit beyond my pay grade).

    I see so many devs making apps that blindly emulate hardware and don’t make even basic good use of the touchscreen never mind truly creative use in the way the above-mentioned apps, and others like Gestrument, do.

    So have any good AUv3 apps come out in the past few years, in this regard? Mononoke is one that springs to mind.

  • Of course Spacecraft, Tardigrain, and the others mentioned earlier.

  • How about touchscaper?

  • @Identor said:
    How about touchscaper?

    Ah, good call and one that I had completely and utterly forgotten about, and never really learned to use but absolutely should.

  • JammPro another one I need to dig into

  • @Gavinski said:
    JammPro another one I need to dig into

    I have used JammPro a couple times, and i found it to be more gearing towards HipHop and Jungle style Beat mangling.
    I never raped the app to experiment with unconventional loops, like in a style of Squarepusher.

  • @Identor said:

    @Gavinski said:
    JammPro another one I need to dig into

    I have used JammPro a couple times, and i found it to be more gearing towards HipHop and Jungle style Beat mangling.
    I never raped the app to experiment with unconventional loops, like in a style of Squarepusher.

    Yeah that was my impression from first playing with it but I also wondered to what extent it might be tweaked to do other things.

  • I’ll just throw out there that fugue machine is a much more “playable” sequencer than I often see people using it for. Any parameter change goes into effect on finger release, which makes tweaking live and within the rhythm of the song very intuitive.

  • @FriedTapeworm said:
    I’ll just throw out there that fugue machine is a much more “playable” sequencer than I often see people using it for. Any parameter change goes into effect on finger release, which makes tweaking live and within the rhythm of the song very intuitive.

    That's always a feature I like and which far more things could use. Glad to see the likes of Ooda, AU:Dub etc using these, it annoys me that so many apps that would benefit from that feature don't use it, as it is surely not hard to program and so clearly useful for live performance.

  • TouchScaper is interesting

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