KVR :: Mobile Apps and Hardware » MIDI out from Meteor to SampleTank? HALP! [View Original Topic]
There are 32 posts in this topic.

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DrApostropheX - Mon Apr 09, 2012 3:42 pm

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I am quickly developing a love/hate relationship with SampleTank iOS. I love the sounds, but I hate hate HATE the MIDI implementation. I can get midi to it from Genome fine, but not from Meteor for some reason. Meteor can send MIDI ok to Sunrizer and ThumbJam for example, but even using MidiBridge, SampleTank just kind of sits there like it's waiting for something.

Has anyone managed to get this working?

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J.C - Mon Apr 09, 2012 10:06 pm

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It's very frustrating, it seems that Sampletank not behave the same with all the Apps. I can't make it communicate with Meteor, don't know why. And Midibridge is always useless with Sampletank.
Actually, It communicates well with ThumbJam, Genome, Nlog Pro and that's it. Not in sync, but it's better than nothing I guess...

This App is extremly disapointing if you try to compose without computer and external hardware. It doesn't integrate in the iOS music world at all...

And I don't know what they are waiting for an update....


And why the hell, is the recorder so stupid... Would it start on the first note played, wouldn't we beg for MIDI Sync!!!!!

Sounds are great, but the rest...

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audeonic - Tue Apr 10, 2012 1:22 am

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MidiBridge definitely can control SampleTank, so if Meteor can be made to push events into MidiBridge (either by MidiBridge's own virtual input or Meteor's virtual output (I am not familiar with Meteor)) then this should work (see caveat below). There's a few tricks to getting MidiBridge to control SampleTank. These are the important points:

1. Start MidiBridge *before* SampleTank to ensure SampleTank will listen to MidiBridge.

2. In MidiBridge make sure that 'Run in Background' on prefs page is 'On'

3. In MidiBridge route the events you want to go to SampleTank to the 'MidiBridge' (output/destination on the right).

4. In SampleTank make sure 'Background Audio' in settings is 'On' (button must be highlighted in red!)

There's some information about all this in our Understanding MidiBridge guide:
http://j.mp/v7WfYC


OK, now if that still doesn't work then it may not be a MIDI problem at all but an audio engine problem. SampleTank is very unforgiving if another app changes the (shared) sample buffer size resource on iOS. Basically all sound just stops.

A simple way of testing this is to setup Little Midi Machine driving SampleTank with MidBridge and with everything playing in the background and then start up Meteor. If the LMM pattern sounds stop, then you'll know the audio engines are incompatible and unless Meteor or SampleTank update to behave nicely there is not much you can do.

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DrApostropheX - Tue Apr 10, 2012 2:24 am

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Thank you for the sympathy, J.C.! My hope is that one day, all of ST's little peculiarities will be resolved, because it really sounds great!

Thank you for the quick reply, Audeonic -- especially since I was just crying out into the void for help . MidiBridge is a really slick app. I saw the tech notes on the MidiBridge website about SampleTank (start-up order, etc.) but still couldn't make it go. I'll try again with the Little MIDI Machine test. Perhaps the audio engines just are incompatible, but at least now I have some good troubleshooting information to go on. Thanks again for the reply! MidiBridge is awesome, and the customer service can't be beat!

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J.C - Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:37 am

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Thanks for the infos Audeonic, I'll try the LMM test!

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J.C - Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:32 am

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So I did the test and it seems to confirm that the audio engines are not conpatible...

Everythung run well and then the sound stop when I launch Meteor.

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DrApostropheX - Tue Apr 10, 2012 6:04 am

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That's too bad. Maybe this is something we can propose to the IK team to fix, but I don't know if it'd involve a huge rewrite of the audio engine or is something more simple. Thank you for doing the test, though!

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J.C - Tue Apr 10, 2012 6:16 am

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The sadest thing is that I realised that there is no virtual midi capable multitrack MIDI sequencer for iPhone on the market!

I'd love to have Genome running on the 4s even without MIDI editing!

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mobetta518 - Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:51 am

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What about Beatmaker 2?

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J.C - Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:39 am

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Yes you're right sorry, but it doesn't work with Sampletank...

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DrApostropheX - Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:54 am

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Have you tried it with MidiBridge? I could have sworn I got BM2 working with ST using MB (on the iPad). It's a $9 app, but it's really slick and robust and kind of a necessity, as it turns out. I will have to recheck this again tonight to make sure... I was kind of in a ST-induced haze of frustration last night and I'm not remembering everything clearly.

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J.C - Tue Apr 10, 2012 2:47 pm

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I know that too well

Yes I tried MidiBridge, without success, but I keep trying, as the BeatMaker UI is not the most intuitive

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audeonic - Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:05 pm

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For BM2, you need to tell it to send midi to MidiBridge using MidiBridge's virtual in (not BM2's virtual out). Under BM2's MIDI SETUP (from the 'i' info box top right) make sure that the only MIDI OUTPUT selected (make sure MidiBridge is already running and MidiBridge in is connected to MidiBridge out)) is 'MidiBridge' and that this is 'on'.

Order of apps should be MidiBridge, SampleTank and then BM2.

Of course, do the LMM test that you did with Meteor with BM2 to make sure the audio engines are happy with each other. I don't currently have a device (not at the office) with BM2 and SampleTank to do this test on, sorry.

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J.C - Wed Apr 11, 2012 12:26 am

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Thanks a lot for your help Audeonic, I really appreciate it!

I followed your advice and achevied to make BM2 to send MIDI to ST. Unfortunately the sound is not clean, there is a lot of "noise" or interferences. I tried to switch between low and ultralow latency in the ST settings but the problem still remain.

The LMM test ist negativ with BM2, so there is maybe another audio engine compatibility issue here...

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audeonic - Wed Apr 11, 2012 12:51 am

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Yes, this happened to me too (noisy sound from SampleTank) when I was developing MidiBridge. Here's a crazy suggestion (this worked for me). If you have Arctic Keys, then run this in the background. It also changes the sample buffer size but to a value that SampleTank likes and that some other apps will work with too.

You'll need to experiment in the order to make this work (if it will work) by bringing various apps into the foreground and then backgrounding them again until there is a combination that might work.

I'm considering adding a feature to MidiBridge that forces (and keeps forcing) the sample buffer size to a certain value but I'm not sure if it will work or will cause more problems than it creates. Right now I'm concentrating on new MIDI features for MidiBridge but if I have some time I might look into this.

Of course all this stuff is completely bizarre in 2012!

If you do experiment with running Arctic also and you find something works, let us all know. If you've had enough of all this workaround experimentation and just want to make music instead, then do that too!

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DrApostropheX - Wed Apr 11, 2012 2:23 am

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Thank you for all your suggestions and tips and tricks! I now know a lot more than I did before about how the iPad handles audio and MIDI. You're right, it's pretty insane to be worrying about all this in 2012, but for those of us who would sync our 4-track tape recorders up to a Mac running Opcode or whatever in the 1990s (usually with a MIDI interface that cost almost as much as an iPad does now), it's kind of fun in way to recapture that whole "this would be cool to do... but will it work? It will!" spirit.

And thanks to devs like yourself and others who are actively engaging the userbase, it may not be too long before we're at a point where we won't have to ask if it'll work or not anymore, because it just will

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J.C - Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:03 am

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I tried some combinations of Apps on an iPhone 4S.

So far it seems that the BM2 audioengine is always taking over the others, resulting in noise in the ST output.

Arctic Keys work perfectly with ST, until I open BM2. Same with Thumbja and Soundprism Pro.

Note that Alchemy is absolutely not able to do whatever with ST, it just crash...

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J.C - Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:14 am

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I was able to control ST on the iPad 2 with BM2 on the iPhone, over wi-fi through MidiBridge, it's not what I was looking for but it clearly show that it is not a MIDI problem at all.

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DrApostropheX - Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:56 am

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Thanks for doing all this legwork... maybe SampleTank's issues aren't so MIDI-related as I thought. Maybe the addition of a "high" audio buffer latency setting would help?

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J.C - Wed Apr 11, 2012 4:24 am

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Maybe...
I think they aren't the only ones wo have to work on this, some companies achieve to write Apps wich perfectly intergrate in iOS, and take benefits of the last improvements, others don't.
It never was a big deal to make iOS Apps communicate with the outside world but I really believe that the future of iOS music is in the ability to only work on the device itself, this is the real challenge and the new market, still waiting for a leader. IOS device are far more than just controllers or sketchpads.
Today we are just slowed by devs that are not seeing or willing to see that.
Come on, it's really not a big deal to implement (correctly and userfriendy of course ) VirtualMidi or a decent synchronisable audio recorder.

The (maybe) forthcoming Audiobus feature IS a bigdeal, but dealing correctly with MIDI on iOS??? We shouldn't have to ask for that, are we talking about "pro" Apps or not?
They can charge me 1 or 2$ more if they want

But I know that it's "still early, I'm confident in the future and smile

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DrApostropheX - Wed Apr 11, 2012 5:46 am

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I agree with that! It can be fun to be a "pioneer" but sometimes you just want things to work. I can say, though, that IK seem genuinely committed to improving their iOS products. They were a leader in that area and I think it was only recently that they just got passed-by (feature wise, their apps really have no equal in sound quality -- based on my limited experience) by some of the smaller, more nimble devs (I'm blown away by ThumbJam for example). I think with just a little time, they will catch up again. SampleTank is a good, solid product now, but someday soon with just a few tweaks it'll be a great, KILLER product.

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Peter - IK Multimedia - Wed Apr 11, 2012 7:01 am

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If there is an alleged issue with the way SampleTank deals with MIDI (it is pretty standard being a Core MIDI app and all, after all) please report it to support and they will verify what is a bug, and gather what is a feature request. This too is pretty standard in getting bugs fixed and features implemented. So please do so. You may also be contacted by Obi but the best way to get things happening is to report them to support.

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J.C - Wed Apr 11, 2012 7:26 am

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Yes, maybe I'll do that, maybe...

Because thinking about it, what am I gonna say to them?

That they should implement Virtual Midi, which would automatically resolve 99% of our issues?
Come on! How coudn't they know that!

That they should test their App with the most used Apps in the prosumer segment before putting it on the maket?
That would be insulting!

I hope that I'm wrong but when I see the iRig MIDI ad each time I start ST I think that for IK SampleTank is more a mean to sell more accessories than anything else. not sure they are interessted in making it fully usable for an internal use on tne device.
Again I hope I'm wrong, ST has no rival in sound quality but that's it.

It could be so much more and it's so obvious...

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DrApostropheX - Wed Apr 11, 2012 7:41 am

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I think part of the issue too is that we're kind of in uncharted territories here in terms of how we expect iOS applications to interact. For what is advertised, SampleTank delivers 100%: you can use your external midi controllers to play it, you can play it via the virtual tappy keyboard, and you can record 4 parts within the application. It all works very well.

I can appreciate from a developer's standpoint that it would be a little frustrating to have the expectation goalposts moved on you the way they have been: now people expect to have their sequencers and synths play nice, where that might not have been the expectation a year ago.

So for what it says it does, it does well, which would make this not a support issue. This is more of a feature-request issue(and Obik is doing a great job documenting those!!!): the expectations as to how we'll use the product have changed and it's exciting to think about the ways SampleTank will adapt and grow to meet those ever-evolving expectations.

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Peter - IK Multimedia - Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:00 am

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No, we're committed to making it a great app not just sell more accessories. Why is Virtual MIDI a problem solver when we're using the accepted standard Core MIDI? Does that show a problem with SampleTank or other apps or general music/MIDI on iOS? I'm still not seeing a list of clear issues with SampleTank here, but again reporting these issues to Tech Support would be the best way to get change... if indeed these are problems with an app that follows Core MIDI standards? If we are not doing so, support needs to know.

What you would say is this: What exactly the problem is that you are having. Go from there.

EDIT - Obi has reached out to many via PM so please get back to him, J.C., with the particulars and we'll get your requests in the hopper. We are aware of some obvious ones but more "votes" for them makes them even more obvious...

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J.C - Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:16 am

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It's not an issue. It's a lack of feature.
To answer that ST support CoreMIDI is not enough.

CoreMIDI is made to communicate outside the device, it just thanks some genius guys like Audeonic that we can do the trick to have CoreMidi to communicate with some other Apps on the device.

Would you implement the now world famous VirtualMidi feature would you make ST able to communicate with all the major players of this industry without all the hassles we are facing.

Oh, you didn't know that??

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DrApostropheX - Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:23 am

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I'm also not sure at this point how many of these difficulties (not issues, per se) are due to incompatible audio engines -- or rather, audio engines competing for the same limited resources on the iPad -- between the DAW and other audio programs (it's not just SampleTank). Maybe they're not MIDI issues at all.

I saw that iZotope just published an ebook on iOS audio programming. I wish I was an engineer so I understood it, but it looked like there might be some good info in there. http://www.idesignsound.com/development-izotope-ios-audio-programming-guide/

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audeonic - Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:02 am

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Hello Peter,

I have replied to Obi's PM (I was one of the lucky recipients) and outlined that someone on the IK dev team needs to (ahem) get in tune to what us OMAC devs are doing. SampleTank's virtual/wifi CoreMIDI implementation needs a little bit of enhancement. Not that I should be complaining as I have sold a few MidiBridge copies because of its shortcomings, so no hurry fixing it!

The audio engine issue would also be solved if IK was involved with OMAC since that's another area we collaborate on.

In any case, I have sent on a bit of good (I hope) information to Obi to pass on to the IK dev team. Thanks Peter and Obi for opening up some communication channels.

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J.C - Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:07 am

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I answered him too.

Thanks.

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DrApostropheX - Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:20 am

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See, now, THIS is why I *LOVE* KVR! Devs working together to make things better for us users. Thank you Audeonic and IK -- your response over the past few days has been terrific. Based on Audeonic's repsonse and troubleshooting walkthroughs, even if I didn't need MidiBridge and didn't own it, I'd be buying it now just on general principle (but I think everyone needs it because it's an awesome product and I already do own it, so I guess I'll need to buy something else you make ). And the fact that IK is willing to contact us directly to ask what we want is pretty impressive as well (even to 10+ year IK customer like myself). This (hopeful!) collaboration has given me a lot more confidence in the IK product line as well.

Hooray for KVR!

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ObiK - Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:39 am

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Thanks for everyone's patience and thoughtful replies to my PMs. Just getting all this info in order for the rest of the IK Team!

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Peter - IK Multimedia - Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:09 pm

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Great, glad everybody is communicating, this is great. I know that Obi will get all the appropriate information sent to the right people. Awesome.

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There are 32 posts in this topic.