iOS synth apps with/without midi sync (could be interesting to developers too)

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Today I had a time experimenting with iconnectMidi4+ midi clock sync workarounds using realtime events filter. iconnectMidi4+ by default allows a number of different midi clock sources what may lead to complete midi timing data mess. So I did complex routing and filtering to allow single midi clock source in my today's setup, which consisted of Ableton Live, ipad, ReMote SL and X50 and each of involved instruments are capable of sending different midi timing data, however I wanted to achieve just single one distributed to all destinations regardless of possible different midi timing information from various sources. Unfortunately there is no easy option to select single midi clock source in iconnectMidi4+ as it is possible with audio clock. Anyway in the end I managed to set acceptable routing and filtering, but this showed that not all iOS apps are happy in accepting midi clock data for midi sync.

So here are my findings... UPDATE

Aps, which support midi clock sync
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• Animoog
• PPG wavegenerator - arpeggiator seems unstable, but generally it works
• Drumjam - greatly implemented midi setup!!!
• Yamaha Mobile Music Sequencer
• Sunrizer - bpm drifts, sync is unstable especially if same midi clock data appear on several virtual midi in ports
• Alchemy - bit tricky, but it syncs - obviously you need to restart Alchemy after changing port settings and then it caches up

Aps, which do midi sync incorrectly
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• Magellan - midi sync is obviously incorrectly implemented - as soon as the are more than single virtual port containing midi clock Magellan sets its bpm to the value, which is the sum of bpm values in all virtual midi ports, what in practice results syncing to maximum bpm
• Samplr - midi sync is obviously incorrectly implemented - same effect as Magellan results in maximum bpm values

Aps, which I was unable to midi sync
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• Nano Studio - looks like it is not midi syncable?
• Thor - probably has worst midi implementation, despite that it is not written to support midi sync, I do experienced issues with Thor finding available virtual midi ports and connecting to them to control Thor from external keyboard. Usually there are not more that 6 midi ports showing up in Thor despite that there are lot more virtual ports available in system. Port finding and connection in Thor seemed unstable and somewhat random.


So you are welcome to complement this list with your findings.
Cheers
gj
Last edited by gjvti on Mon Aug 18, 2014 8:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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I don't think there is anything "incorrect" about an app misbehaving when you send it clock from multiple sources.
Cassini also will read double the bpm is you send it from two ports. But that's not the app's fault, it's the user's. It's easy enough to route it correctly in Live.

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Alchemy - in webpage they say pro version should sync automatically, but despite that I have pro version, I wasn't able to achieve midi sync - any other experiences?
Alchemy Mobile should sync to an external MIDI clock. Make sure you select the correct MIDI interface in the Settings menu ...

Note: it does not respond to start / stop transport commands, but the BPM counter on the keyboard bar should match up with the external tempo.

Peace,
Andy.
... space is the place ...

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Aural Chaos wrote:I don't think there is anything "incorrect" about an app misbehaving when you send it clock from multiple sources.
Cassini also will read double the bpm is you send it from two ports. But that's not the app's fault, it's the user's. It's easy enough to route it correctly in Live.
I think it is, because in the app there is no way to prevent receiving midi clock from other ports even if I select only single port to receive midi from, midi clock data obviously baypases apps port filter and is accepted from all ports anyway and bytes with the same time stamp are still taken into account when calculating bpm - I think that such implementation is not quite correct, as the same midi clock signal in two or more ports is required if I user wants to synchronize two or more apps in background at the same time. Technically similar sync effect can be achieved using different midi channels, but this requires one more additional filter (rechannelize) programmed for every app, before merging signals from all ports making setup even more complex. While it is easy enough to do routing from Live - I don't want always use Live especially when I have hardware only setup and receive midi clock from hardware synth device. Also my test showed that there are apps which handle this correctly generally by receiving data exclusively from single port, which user selects in settings.
Last edited by gjvti on Mon Aug 18, 2014 6:39 am, edited 2 times in total.

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ZenPunkHippy wrote:
Alchemy - in webpage they say pro version should sync automatically, but despite that I have pro version, I wasn't able to achieve midi sync - any other experiences?
Alchemy Mobile should sync to an external MIDI clock. Make sure you select the correct MIDI interface in the Settings menu ...

Note: it does not respond to start / stop transport commands, but the BPM counter on the keyboard bar should match up with the external tempo.

Peace,
Andy.
Well, in my test I selected the incoming port containing midi clock data, but this didn't result in changing bpm setting. Something else should be checked? I'll tray this later one more time. I receive midi clock from external device through virtual midi ports, maybe midi clock sync in Alchemy works only when clock is sent from app to app directly and doesn't work with virtual midi ports?
Tested, yes it started to work after I restarted the app so it is among syncable, thanks... and no problems with midi clock in other virtual ports :wink:

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