Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Using Polythemus to turn (mono) Shockwave poly while retaining MPE functionality (demo, 5 mins)
This is a cool hack. I’m still seeing whether it can be perfect or not, but it is pretty cool as is. This will make me use Shockwave a lot more.
As always folks, please take the 10 secs needed to open this in youtube instead of your browser and give it a bit of love with the old thumbs up button, thank you
Comments
Good work, @Gavinski ! Gave a thumbs-up on YT.
Good stuff! Appreciate it. I think this is a very cool hack too
I’ll be very curious, by the way, if someone who knows more about midi than I do, and who has both these apps, can see if they can figure out how to make this more predictable. As I mentioned earlier, it can sound brilliant, but at other times is a bit glitchy or just makes no sound. This doesn’t seem to be (at least entirely) related to exceeding 8 notes of polyphony. Would actually be very interested to see if Kai could see if he can come up with a more stable tweak.
no way to do it with only AUM settings?
Hey, u mean to play a mono synth as poly? Haven’t thought deeply about it but I can’t think how it would work, can you? @MAtrixplan
Thank you for the demo @Gavinski!
Folks that have Mozaic can also do this trick by downloading and installing the PolyMono script here. The script supports 4 channels out of the box but can be adjusted to any number.
Oh thanks! I have mozaic, will check that out. I'll be curious if the mpe pitchbend still works
I can’t make it to work with the Mozaic script. Poly, yes but no MPE. I’ll pretend shockwave is a wind instrument.
Right on! Thanks for testing. So now I know I didn't waste my money on Polythemus after all, sweet.
This makes me wonder too whether something could be done to Mozaic to make it more mpe-friendly @brambos
Mozaic doesn't need to be enhanced for MPE. It has all it needs. Individual script writers have to take it into account. Many (myself included) don't think about MPE all that much and so don't add that complexity to their scripts.
MPE is a bitch to figure out how to handle as it allocates channels all over the place. Sorting out where they should go is tough, and not very effective anyway unless you're using MPE synths.
I haven't looked at the PolyMono script, but I'm guessing it deals only with notes, not CC messages. Again - not a limitation of Mozaic, just not a focus of the script.
Thanks a lot for the clarification Wim, good to know
@Gavinski I now looked at the script by @brambos and fixed the MPE issue by also re-mapping channels for the other MIDI messages. Also added more UI goodness and bling.
The new PolyMono 2.0 script is here - or also in ZIP format.
And yes, @wim is right that MIDI processing is typically orthogonal to MPE, though Bram has added a command so that a Mozaic script could identify itself as an MPE controller. However, that is not what this scriptlet is doing - rather the converse.
Have fun!
Did not look close enough, @Tones4Christ, and misidentified you as author. Might not have messed with the script if I had realized it was by the Bos!
Oh wow, cool! Man, gotta love this forum. So many talented and generous people. Big up.
@Tim6502 for some reason can't get either of these downloading. Always get the message 'couldn't download'. It's not on patch storage?
Thanks a lot @Tim6502 for the updated script!
Would be great if you could add some different voice allocation modes as “rotate”, reassign, reset,..
@Tim6502 If you do add a rotation mode, you're welcome to incorporate any of the code from my script, Poly It Up Channel Rotator, the main algorithm of which was written by @_ki . It combines the "round robin + next free" modes from Polythemus. I don't know much about MPE controllers.
https://patchstorage.com/poly-it-up-channel-rotator/
@Skyblazer and @Synthi - thanks for the ideas and references! I shall mull this over before revising and pushing something to Patchstorage.
@Gavinski - let me know if you have been able to download - this apparently works with Safari but e.g. not with Firefox.
Have some epic fun loading different patches into the Shockwave channels and using the Mononoke Pads to control them!
@Tim6502 download worked on safari, thnx! Will try to check this out later.
The script is now at patchstorage here.
Description:
Roll-a-Poly distributes incoming MIDI notes over channels 1-N allocated dynamically.
It is very configurable and controllable. MPE channel mapping is followed.
As you construct your Polysynth, ensure each monomorphic synth listens to its channel.
Thanks, @Skyblazer and @brambos for the foundation (and for Mozaic in the first place!).
Of note, this script will always output on channels 1..N, though you can select N with a knob. The pads correspond to the output channels and show the active note and the channel it came from.
You can add to your fun by using different synthesizers or patches. You exercise control by hitting on a pad, which will then direct the next note to be played from that channel.
Nice @Tim6502 Big thanks!
Thanks!!!
You can have a real fest taming all manner of MPE synths polyphonically. I have enjoyed using Bram Bos' Mononoke pads not only on Shockwave, but also on Volt, BLEASS Alpha, FRMS, and BB17 binaural synth.
Thanks! Huh, I didn't even know Bleass Alpha had had an mpe update. Does it do all 5 mpe tricks? Most don't do release.
Long video on BLEASS Alpha here - though have not followed the MPE details, which are not as obvious in this synth as compared to some others. Mononoke Pads are just an MPE subset, also.
Nice wiki, first time seeing that too, must study later
@Tim6502 Awesome script! I updated Poly It Up's description with a link to Roll-a-poly. It's got a lot of features that I had thought about adding to mine, but decided not to, in order to move on to developing the rest of the microtonal tuning script that it was also a foundation for.
Thank you for the generous remarks @Skyblazer!