The tablet – or at least the iPad – is beginning to look like a terrific accessory for lovers of MIDI and hardware. With its compact form factor, it coexists nicely with your MIDI gear and lets you focus on sequencing, perhaps moving to the traditional computer to finish up your track, mixing, and the like.

And it’s spawning MIDI sequencer apps that imaginatively explore ideas for how to create sequencing, all with an immediate touchable interface.

The latest entry: Genome MIDI Sequencer claims to be the “first true pattern-based MIDI sequencer for iPad.” The word “true” might be debateable, but it looks thoroughly full-featured, with clock sync, MIDI import / export (ideal for working with your desktop Mac or PC), and other must-have portable sequencing features:

• Hard-line MIDI support: Core MIDI, Camera Connection Kit, Line 6 Mobilizer Mk I and Mk II compatibility
• Wireless MIDI: Network MIDI support (works with Mac and, via other support, Linux and Windows)
• MIDI Clock: Start, stop / send, receive
• Lots o’ messages: Note On, Note Off, Pitch Bend, Aftertouch, Channel Pressure and CC’s
• Pattern-based; pattern changes occur on bar boundaries so song stays in sync Ed., oh, come on, where’s the fun in that?
• 16 simultaneous tracks, unlimited patterns

There’s also an on-screen keyboard interface (in case you don’t have a MIDI keyboard handy), song and live modes, incoming CC and note recording, and undo/redo for “most” actions.

Having the multichannel capability alone is a must for people with big studios.

Developer Dave Wallin says he’s been working on this for some time. An experienced dev with tools like bleep!BOX and bleep!Synth under his belt for iOS (as well as Additive and Zero Vector for desktop), he’s got a good perspective on the bigger picture.

Since Dave is a user as well as a developer (as is often the case with music tech), I asked him to tell us a bit more about the app, his thoughts on development, and how you might use this.

He even has some good thoughts, in case you’re wondering, about how this compares with and fits in with desktop studios.

CDM: This looks to me to be the most full-featured MIDI sequencer we’ve seen yet, more than just a pattern or step sequencer (though I like those sorts of things, too). That said, what other applications do you like in terms of MIDI control?

Dave: There are a couple other apps that look close in terms of functionality like Step Poly Arp, Polychord and Brainwave Sequencer. The first two are more focused on ‘performance’ imo with Brainwave being the closer. I wanted to provide some of the functionality you’d expect from a desktop sequencing app but redesign the core interface around touch and just make it simple and fun to use. My inspirations for how the piano roll works are 50% monome / [Yamaha] Tenori-on (in terms of a familiar grid and easy one-tap note entry) and 50% iPad paint application (in terms of using gestures to navigate). It also takes some inspiration from [Nintendo] Game Boy tracking apps in that I keep the octave / bar navigation locked to a grid. GMS isn’t locked into 16 step patterns and you can adjust the grid and bar length more freely than some other apps.

Ed.: Of course, at iPad app prices, you can easily pick up all the apps above, and they all have some appeal – yes, I know it’s time for another iPad app round-up. A MIDI-specific one could be fun; I’ll work on it! -PK

How are you using this in your studio – what gear are you using?

Right now I am using it with my [Access] Virus b (desktop [synth]) and a drum machine primarily. It’s great with the Virus since it can do up to 16 parts and I can save these setups and easily recall them later without having to worry about program changes or anything like that. The drum machine saves me from having to waste Virus parts on drums. With just those two pieces of gear and not much else I can make some pretty decent sounding songs. My current work flow is to jam around a bit with Genome and the gear and when I come up with something good, record some loops or tracks it and bring it over to the desktop for additional processing and arrangement. My actual studio doesn’t even have a computer in it at the moment – it’s in a totally seperate room.

At what point do you imagine people would use the iPad sequencer versus, say, the sequencer on their desktop machine?

What I have learned from my own experience and from talking to other people is that the iPad is not a total replacement for the desktop or even for a laptop, unless you’re doing some very minimal stuff. The iPad is more of a convenience and leisure device at this point. I have limited time to relax and if I can spend 30 minutes chilling on the couch, making a tune on my iPad, it’s a win for me. It doesn’t have to be a whole song – it could be some musical ideas, sounds or loops that I end up using later on the desktop or in another app.

With Genome, I think the big wins are portability and ease of use. If I want to jam with a friend, I can throw my iPad in a bag and bring it with me. Sometimes I don’t want to have to deal with all the overhead that comes with a desktop sequencing application like hardware setup, configuring plugin directories, or GUI’s that are packed to the brim with controls. GMS is very easy to plug in and get started within a few seconds.

I’m curious about your reaction to the Open Music App Collaboration Manifesto posted recently. [See Synthtopia coverage.] Any of these issues relevant to your work? What would you like to see in terms of inter-app integration?

I actually just posted some thoughts on this to their Google Group this morning. My response is here:

http://groups.google.com/group/open-music-app-collaboration/browse_thread/thread/75cdd385048fa3ce

Communicating with other apps on the same device is something that I think Genome will be very good for (after some minor updates). Right now, not a lot of apps support Network MIDI, let alone regular CoreMIDI. How well this works will depend on a lot of factors and we’ll just have to wait and see how extensively it’s adopted, both by developers and by users. I could imagine an ecosystem where you can string a bunch of apps together and make songs. The first step right now is to come up with a spec for developers to implement and maybe a way to certify that apps have implemented it properly. If done well, I think there could be some good cross-promotion opportunities to entice developers to do it and it could catch on, much like with Audio Copy did.

Had you evaluated Android at all, or other platforms?

Some work is being done to port libNUI [C++ framework] (which I use for all my apps currently) to Android, however it seems the state of MIDI on Android is nowhere near what it is on iOS. If some well known hardware makers make an accessory or if a good SDK becomes available, I would definitely look into it. GMS is being ported to a Mac desktop app and will be available in the Mac App Store at some point. The desktop version will be almost identical, except for some changes made to adapt it to work with a mouse, instead of multitouch. I think a simple, cheap MIDI sequencer will be attractive to some people and the amount of time to port it is minimal for me.

Ed.: Hopefully more to say about the state of Android MIDI soon; while wired accessories may not be as convenient, wireless MIDI, especially via Bluetooth, holds some promise. I can certainly make a good argument *against* a developer immediately rushing to support Android, but it remains something we’re watching. I also hear these computer things can do MIDI. -PK

US$12.99 in the iTunes App Store, for iPad (iOS 4.2+)

http://www.whitenoiseaudio.com/apps/genome-midi-sequencer/

http://www.whitenoiseaudio.com/

Behold the power of the Web: composition ideas become a tool, a tool becomes a means for even casual users sharing musical sketches, and a browser toy can be a window into a Turkish sound artist breeding musical DNA like some people breed strains of flowers.

Otomata is a simple generative online grid-based sequencer, owing to a number of step sequencers and Toshio Iwai’s Tenori-on, with some beautiful circular visualizations of the resulting sounds. I’m late in posting it, but in a way, that’s a good thing – in the time that this sequencer has spread around the Web, it’s spawned a small army of casual musicians producing their own videos and patterns.

And that brings me to an observation. In all the discussion of “apps” versus the Web – a discussion as old as the network itself, having appeared as “cloud computing” and various other forms before – people may be missing the point. Right now, Otomata is not an app, though iPhone/iPad and Android versions are reportedly in the works. It runs as a Flash file, which gives pretty much anyone access to it (including the majority of people on the planet who still don’t have either an iOS or Android device).

But it’s Web sharing that’s already making it powerful – people sending around links, sharing creations, and showing friends. App or not, the Web is what makes software successful these days, through YouTube views, blog posts like this one (ahem), and even casual “look what’s on my screen” sharing that results in the exchange of a URL anyone with a browser can run. Flash may not be the best rich tool the Web has ever seen, but it’s only the means to an end – the end being getting things in a connected browser.

Want further evidence? Look no further than the Facebook page, or better yet, open discussion on Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/otomata/

Great design, embodying musical sense in the structure of the tool itself, makes this a hit. And for that, you can thank “computational sound artist” Batuhan Bozkurt of Istanbul. His musical expression is generally procedural by nature, expressed as a set of rules in compositional form. Check out his terrific video on this work, as built in the open source tool SuperCollider.

If you can tear yourself away from playing with this wonderful toy, you can get deep into genetic code for musical composition and spectacular SuperCollider creation.

http://www.earslap.com/projectslab

Rapid iteration? Quick contagian? Generational evolution? Hmmm… sounds a bit like what’s happening on a larger level as creations like this spread around the Web. But it’s a heck of a lot more fun than genetic engineering … or the plague. So play away, Internets.

Tons of additional information and goodness on Batuhan’s site:
http://www.earslap.com/projectslab/otomata

Thanks to Max (and others) for the tip! (Max actually suggests trying this with multiple tabs open!)

For those of you just joining us, Max for Live is an interactive environment that incorporates the full Max/MSP/Jitter inside Ableton Live, with the addition of hooks that allow it to integrate with and control Live, and to make Max creations look like Live devices. Individual artists have begun using Max for Live, and we’ve seen some free downloads, but less of its use as a development platform. The problem is, your target audience must own both a full version of Ableton Live 8.1x or later, as well as the paid Max for Live add-on.

Max Fuel from Ableton soundhouse Puremagnetik nonetheless reaches out to just those people with a US$38 bundle of instruments. While they’re Max for Live devices, they’re not editable. (This demonstrates that it is possible to lock down patches made in Max for Live. An earlier draft of this story got this exactly wrong.)

Unfortunately, that means in a way, you get the worst of both worlds – you have to buy the development environment, but then you can’t use it to see what’s happening inside the patch. For projects like this, it seems some sort of “player” for Max for Live is badly needed. It could still be a nice pack of stuff for existing M4L users, though.

Here’s what’s included – two instruments:

• Bump – A mono synth with a generous, easily controlled feedback section
• Stick – A drum instrument based around classic FM synthesis, ready for use in Drum Racks

…five audio effects:

Drop – A multiband device where each band receives a percentage chance of being heard

Jumble – An audio processor with the same delay/feedback portion as Bump

Marx – A rebranded Spectral Mixer, setting different volumes and interactions for the signal’s quiet, mid and loud portions

Veer – A flexible pitch shifter with a dry/wet control for the output.

Yell – A rich multiband distortion

…and three control devices:

• el Effo – A versatile low frequency oscillator/step sequencer
• Multiplexd – A single knob that proportionately controls up to 4 plug-in parameters, simplifying automation or MIDI control of multiple parameters
• Side Chainer – A robust converter of any audio signal into a modulation signal

Even with built-in side-chaining for some devices, it’s especially nice to see the side chainer, and of course an LFO/step sequencer is something Live users have wanted for a long, long time.

You need Ableton Live 8.1.4 and Max for Live; standalone Max/MSP won’t work with these bundles.

This is “Max Fuel, The First,” so obviously more bundles are planned.

http://www.puremagnetik.com/maxfuel/

So, I’m curious – does this model appeal to you? Does it make you more likely to purchase Max for Live?

In other paid patch news, the wonderful Paramdrum for Reaktor from Peter Dines has just gotten a big update with a nice, new skinned interface; read more on Pete’s Noisepages blog:
Skinned Paramdrum Now Available for Reaktor 5.15 (non beta)
ParamDrum Update: now with Jonathan Style skin, new sample maps!

…and, of course, even Reaktor remains an option for Ableton Live, albeit without the Live-controlling powers or other integration.

Let us know what you think of these offerings in comments.

The tricky thing about introducing a new feature is that you almost immediately hear from users about other features that would go well with that feature. (There’s a children’s story that goes this way.) The folks at Cakewalk have done what I think is a pretty amazing job of working through a big feature list, and throwing in additional goodies users get without even asking. They’ve also listened to users and been thorough in fixing issues – some quite particular – in 8.5. The result is that SONAR 8.5.2 brings a mature version of some significantly-changed features, and an unusually significant amount of stuff for a “point” release. If 8.5 was beginning to feel like 9.0, 8.5.2 definitely does.

Flash back for a moment to SONAR 8.5 and updates, which made enough of an impact among die-hard Cakewalk lovers that we started to see bizarre fan videos about it. As previewed back in September, 8.5′s banner features were a step sequencer, an arpeggiator, a Matrix View grid for triggering MIDI and audio clips (yes, reminiscent of a program that rhymes with Sable Bun Drive), a new sampled drum instrument, AudioSnap for tuning the timing of audio, and nice new effects strips.

Matrix View, an ambitious new feature, was admittedly not entirely baked when it shipped, and saw a set of performance and functionality fixes with 8.5.1. But with 8.5.2, nearly all of those banner features get improved, with additional bonuses, to boot. Some of my favorites:

• 70+ new impulses for the lovely Perfect Space convolution reverb
• Swing individual arpeggiators
• Combine Matrix View cells with probabilistic Step Sequencer patterns for some generative music-making
• Drag cells from Matrix View into Track View – a bit like going from Ableton Live’s Session View to Arrange View, but in a more conventional DAW workflow

The full list of enhancements, tweaks, and fixes is utterly enormous. Now, of course, it would have been nice to see 8.5 ship with some of these issues, but I will say Cakewalk has shown some attention to detail and gotten quite a lot right. I’m finishing up a review of 8.5x based on the 8.5.2 version now. So, as I polish that off – any remaining questions you’d like answered?

Rather than just review the tool, as well, I’ve been working in my own material and with the folks at Cakewalk to share some tips, so stay tuned.

SONAR 8.5.2 Update Changelog
SONAR 8.5.1 Matrix View Update
8.5.2 Update on the Cakewalk Blog

SONAR 8.5, I’m sure at some point, was to be SONAR 9. There’s an enormous amount of functionality in this release. But I think the surprise is some of the stuff that won’t necessarily appeal to the widest audio production audience. Here’s a DAW that’s adding unusual new features for arranging tracks, putting an integrated arpeggiator on every track, beefing up its step sequencer (really), and dumping a bunch of class LinnDrum samples into the package. Those are the kind of treats we like in these parts.

SONAR is really a “DAW” in the traditional sense. It does everything. It doesn’t hide features. Given a choice between taking something out and putting something in, it puts the thing in. It has a lot of knobs and buttons. There are positives and negatives to the approach – it’s the reason some readers of this site return to software on game machines that has more in common with early Amiga software. But if you like the feeling of a packed studio, a tool like SONAR can be terrific. As much as I love Ableton Live for sound design and live performance, I find myself returning to something like SONAR for arrangement.

Even with its competitors packing in features, SONAR 8.5 is a tool that really loves MIDI, just as other software focuses on audio. And it’s one of the best-performing tools around. Because it’s so well-tuned for Windows, that means you can drop it onto a wide variety of PC hardware without spending a lot of cash. Most importantly, it could be the first software on any platform that convinces you to try a 64-bit OS – just at about the time you may be doing a fresh install of Windows 7.

Here’s a first run-down of what’s new in 8.5 that I’m personally most interested in:

MIDI lovers, step sequence and arpeggiate away. Every single instrument loaded in SONAR now has a step sequencer, and every track an arpeggiator. The new step sequencer has a lovely pane for controllers, deep control over each step, and probability controls. It could be reason enough to give SONAR 8.5 a try on its own. And yes, this does indeed take SONAR into FL Studio territory – but with a more conventional DAW bringing those kind of features together. FL users probably won’t be impressed, but if you longed for FL-style pattern sequencing but wanted to maintain an existing DAW, this could be for you.

Drum sound goodies. Session Drummer 3 has long been a nice virtual drum tool, and now improves routing and mixing to come closer to what it feels like miking a new drum. But let’s skip the acoustic kits and get straight to the electronic ones: yes, there’s an 808 and 909, as you’d hope given Cakewalk is now “Cakewalk by Roland” but there’s also a 707, a 727, and a Sequential Circuits Drumtraks and Linn Electronics LinnDrum. Oddly, you still have to look at a picture of a photorealistic drum kit – I’d like to see a visual representation of that LinnDrum, please. But it’s nice to have these sounds, unless you have a really big budget for eBay. There’s 2.5 GB of content, but I’ll skip to these files if I can.

Easier-to-edit audio. I gave Apple deserved props, I think, for making Flex Time’s implementation in Logic 9 elegant and allowing squishing of audio materials around. But what frustrated me about their tool was that you couldn’t take your warped audio and do other stuff with it. AudioSnap 2 could blow it out of the water. SONAR had this going before, but I frankly found some of the selection tools and interface a little off-putting. The UI has now been cleaned up, the Transient Tool makes it easier to grab trasients in your audio, and selection looks better. You can do tempo detection, mapping, and syncing, so that this is useful not only for smooshing around your recorded audio but also mapping it to a tempo. And most interestingly, the transients you find in Audio Snap can be integrated with the new Step Sequencer. There are also audio fidelity improvements for working with vocal, reed, and brass instruments.

A Media Browser brings files together. MIDI patterns, audio loops, grooves, and such can now be dragged-and-dropped into one place. That’s not a new idea, of course, but having custom presets for different locations is a welcome improvement (and why is it so hard to get other browsers to do that)?

A new way of improvising arrangements, “Matrix View.” A cell-based interface for non-linear triggering of audio and MIDI clips sounds like Ableton Live. But think of this more as an alternative way of trying out arrangement ideas. Because it loads from RAM only and not from the hard disk, and because SONAR is built more as a studio tool than a live tool, I don’t expect it to be a Live killer. But if you’re happy with the SONAR workflow and want to try out ideas in its environment, it could still be useful. (Cakewalk’s Project5 went a similar route, with similar results.) It’s just about the only copy I’ve seen of Ableton’s Session View, and it really does feel like a copy, so for that reason it’s probably the change I’m least interested in in SONAR. I do think there are other features here that are far more original, though.

You get strips for working with vocals and drums. For vocals, the VX-64 is a combination tube-emulation mic pre + de-esser + compressor/expander + tube EQ + doubler + delay + output strip, which I already loved after seeing it bundled with the VS-100 hardware. For drums, the PX-64 is a combination pre + transient shaper + compressor + expander + contour EQ + delay + output strip – so, roughly the same thing, with some drum-specific tweaks. Cakewalk has done a lovely job with these strips, and they could be the sort of thing that justifies SONAR’s investment. I can’t imagine not liking the PX-64 having enjoyed the VX-64, both for its audio quality and the ease of drag-and-drop routings.

Why you may finally go 64-bit. The BitBridge XR plug-in not only lets your 32-bit plug-ins work on the 64-bit operating system, but gives each of them 4 GB of RAM for up to 128 GB of RAM. That’s possible on the Mac side with Apple’s Logic – but only with its sampler, not with third-party plug-ins. And SONAR ships with a lot of 64-bit plug-ins in the box, not to mention that major vendors like Native Instruments are providing support.

Improved performance, Windows 7 ready. You can now hotswap audio and MIDI interfaces without restarting, and audio and stability are improved. And when you do get the Windows 7 upgrade – which, based on my research so far, you will want to do from either XP or Vista – SONAR has been rigorously tested. I don’t want to just repeat that without supporting evidence, though, so stay tuned for a separate story.

I still don’t think SONAR is for everyone – though, of course, I don’t really think anything is for everyone. (That’s the marketing people’s job, to claim that one product solves everyone’s problems.) Sitting in front of SONAR’s interface can still feel like getting into a jumbo jet cockpit. The Matrix View is not – and is apparently not intended to be – a replacement for Ableton Live’s live performance features. Open as SONAR is, I think it has new competition from the extensible architecture of Reaper. And, of course, all of this is meaningless to Mac users – though I hasten to add, while the Mac faces a tough 64-bit transition ahead, Windows users can grab SONAR, clean install 64-bit Windows 7, and possibly barely notice anything at all aside from a whole bunch of gobs of memory.

But I’ll say this: it’s funny how a few subtle changes can change how you think, but the combination of brilliant effects, this ridiculously-powerful step sequencer, and the possibility that AudioSnap really nails audio manipulation has me taking a second look at SONAR. Expect more details later this fall. (I’ll be writing this up for CDM and not Macworld for obvious reasons.)

Upgrades for existing SONAR 8 users are US$79 (Studio) – US$99 (Producer). If you purchased SONAR after July 1, the upgrade is free. For new users, SONAR is $499 for the Producer edition with the extra effects and instruments, or $299 for Studio without them. (But, really, I think you want the Z3TA+ synth; you’ll just have to trust me on that.)