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What is the best iOS piano that accepts MIDI in?
I've been running a number of piano apps through Stratmosphere Cloud Reverb via AUM and have getting some really impressive results.
However, I would never be confused with @LinearLineman — in fact, if he weren't such a gentleman he would laugh at my pitiful attempts at playing.
So, I'm searching for the best piano app that accepts MIDI in.
Your thoughts are most appreciated!
Comments
Ravenscroft and Korg Module American D are my favourites.
There was a poll on here about a year or so ago.
You could probably pull it up in the Search.
I think Ravenscroft won for apps , and I think the Salamander Sound Font was the overall winner.
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/39388/best-grand-piano-piano-shoot-out-update
If you have something like AudioLayer already, I would import the Salamander piano into it (a free very high quality piano sample library ) before investing in Ravenscroft. It is easier on the CPU and compares quite favorably in sound quality. You want the full salamander and not the slimmed down version.
Audiolayer typically goes on sale at 50% off for Thanksgiving, and again for Christmas.
What else is it good at?
I see I have Grand Piano auv3 already, but I don't believe that has MIDI functionality...
Ravenscroft might go on sale for $18 on Black Friday. Great deal. Also the acoustic grand in BeatHawk is quite good. I don’t believe I would laugh at anything you might come up with. Try me!😉
Load it into AUM and tap the 3 lines to the left of the app icon. That will show you the MIDI sources.
Yes @LinearLineman!!!
I just remembered how you had mentioned the quality of the acoustic grand in BeatHawk!
That could be a solid option on Black Friday sale, but Ravenscroft for $18 would certainly be an even better deal.
Perhaps you can provide some video chat lessons!
Damn! That's cool!!!
The free pianos on SoundFonts 4u are pretty good. BS-16i and the SoundFonts app are good for playback. I love the BeatHawk piano too. The acoustics in Pure Synth Platinum are fine in my book too.
But I’m not a piano player so don’t trust me.
Does SoundFonts accept MIDI in as well, @wim?
Yes.
PureSynthPlatinum seems to have an interesting selection, as @wim suggests. The upright in app is quite good. @SNystrom. Do you have that?
PureSynthPlatinum? No @LinearLineman.
But I have SoundFonts and a number of other apps mentioned above.
Sadly I'm also a MIDI neophyte — especially with AUM.
Will have to do some YouTube AUM MIDI searches tonight to get up to speed....
As always, I'm truly amazed at how (in a matter of minutes) the simplest to most difficult iOS music questions are solved — thanks to the deep knowledge base of our forum members! 🙌🏻
Thanks to all of you!
Yes. I can't think of an IOS piano app that doesn't accept MIDI except for one of the
child's screen toy like apps.
SoundFonts with the pianos from SoundFonts4u is a great place to start price wise ($2).
Ravenscroft is where you want to end up quality wise ($36 with periodic 50% off).
CMP Grand Piano ($15) is rarely mentioned and has ben around for a long time but I'd throw it into the list of good MIDI pianos with the usual suspects. Crudebytes makes it and they have another product called Colossus Grand Piano that is free with 10 IAP pianos and EP's
ranging in price from $10-50. The more money the larger the sample/layers provided.
Damn, that's a ton of options, @McD!
Either I misread the AppStore descriptions or most piano apps seemingly don't mention MIDI capabilities in their descriptions.
I've got SoundFonts, so I'll work with that, but after years of hearing rave reviews of Ravescroft, I'll probably break-down and get the best.
That demo of the acoustic grand from BeatHawk sound incredible as well, but it has so many interface anomalies that it would probably be better to avoid the inevitable headaches and go with the awesome one-trick pony.
If you have BeatHawk that Grand Piano is a good purchase and they also have 50% off sales
about twice a year. Black Friday is 13 days away and many products actually get discounted a few days early to be on sale on Friday.
Using the Beathawk piano doesn't involve much in the way of interacting with Beathawk. To set up from scratch you just load the AU, start a new empty song, open the first pad to the keyboard, then load the instrument. After that you just play it with incoming midi.
I do prefer just to use a sound font (seems like it'd be lighter weight) or Pure Synth Platinum. But Beathawk as a sound module isn't any harder to set up than either of those. But ... that BH piano is just right for some things in my mind.
I probably need to do some more exploration with BeatHawk in AUM.
Typically I use it as a stand-alone, so I'm not that comfortable with it in AUM.
It seems like the BeatHawk grand would probably be the best bang for the buck purchase vs Ravenscroft — especially since I don't see myself using it as a solo instrument.
Since I need to save for what I hope will be a huge Overloud Black Friday sale, that sounds like a reasonable option.
If you like saturating your pianos with reverb, I'd go the SoundFonts4u route in SoundFonts
for $2. There are many pianos of all sizes at that site. For the listeners the Salamander Garnd was the favorite here o the forum. It's brighter than the Ravenscroft and piano players tend to prefer a digital instrument that's a bit darker but in AUM you can EQ anything. For some like @LinearLineman he wants it to respond across a wide range of touch (velocities that impact tone/EQ) and have a convincing stereo image. Additional
touches like sympathy string resonance and pedal noise adds to the bargain. The Colossus
Piano has Hermiode Tuning that pitch shifts the 3rds in chords to make them more "in tune"... a real piano can't do that unless someone implimented auto-tuning servos on every string.
The Piano is an amazing instrument and the EP's are also powerful instruments for creativity using 10 fingers and one foot.
The red piano on Colossus was the only one that interested me. Decent price and size. @McD, did you mean the Brown piano? It’s the large gb one and fifty bucks.
Well, the Salamander has definitely been highly praised, and you're right, @McD, if I'm going to be saturating it with reverb, it's hardly worth popping for the most pristine tone when it's just going to get defiled in the end, anyway!
That's pretty fascinating about the pitch shifts in Colossus. You never cease to amaze me with your incredibly wide breadth of knowledge across the entire spectrum of iOS (and general) music insights.
That is the reason why I often refer to you with reverence as "The Professor."
A tiny bit of low mid boost on salamander yields something very similar to Ravenscroft. Salamander is not particularly bright and it is full-bodied enough that eqs can tweak it to be brighter or darker without denature good it much. To use the full salamander, you do need to be running it in something that disk streams (like Audiolayer). Not all the sound font players stream from disk.
Thanks for that tip, @espiegel123!
The equalizer is is my favorite tool while playing guitar, so it makes perfect sense to use it on piano as well.
I recommend PureSynthPlatinum @SNystrom, especially if it goes on sale. No app tool kit is complete without it!
I’ve been very happy with the way Ravenscroft sounds both stand alone and the way it sits in my mixes. Its own reverb is perfect for regular piano stuff but through Stratmosphere it’s other worldly. I know I’m not the only person to say that but I have a code From the developer to give away for Stratmosphere and I think I’m going to do exactly that for the demo - it’ll stand up on its own I think.
@LinearLineman which of the IAPs are necessary with it
@SNystrom,if you have NeoSoulKeys and BASSalicious, none really. I got the uprights pack, which I like for a humbler change of pace.
Thanks!