AIR Ignite?

[Jake Jackson]

I spent most of yesterday leaving Vista behind and installing Windows 8, which seems stable and loads Ignite cleanly.

I agree that Ignite is at least partly a way of promoting the new M-Audio keyboards. (And they may succeed in promoting one to me, since I do need\want a small keyboard on my desk for testing sounds.) On the other hand, AIR appears to be an independent company, not owned by M-Audio. My hope is that their arrangement with M-Audio will let them later release a version free from the M-Audio restraint. Ideally the vst version.

But I'm seeing its other limitations as a feature, largely for kitchen table composition. I could use just a guitar or keyboard to do several takes of a chorus, for example, and then mix and match with several takes of a verse. Of course one can do this in Cubase, etc, but I like the way Ignite lets the user drag clips around without having to worry about tracks. A fun thing for people new to digital recording, but also a nice work flow for working up a song. (The sounds are more than decent, too. Limited in terms of velocity layers, as might be expected with a free program, but well-recorded. The electric guitar in the demos is convincingly raw.) Still exploring the program, really, while finding my way around Windows 8.

[UniformedServices69]

The company InMusicBrands,is the parent company for AIR & M-Audio...as well as Alesis,Akai Pro,Numark,Alto Pro,Sonivox,Ion Audio and MixMeister.

That being said,AIR has formed a partnership with Avid/M-Audio & as such,I imagine that they each receive their ancillary benefits...whatever they may be.

As for Ignite's sounds-I concur,as there are quite a few usable instruments in Ignite..such as a few synths,basses,acoustic drums,guitars(particularly the ambient one) & a few others.
Most,if not all the VST's in Ignite,I believe,are scaled down versions of Pro Tool's VST's..which is why they are quite good in quality.

Eventually,I would like to buy the AIR Axiom 61(comes with Pro Tools Express)..as Ignite has wet my appetite for Pro Tools(which is yet another reason,why I think Ignite was created).

[Ivan_C]

Hmmm... it looks like an iPad sequencer for computers. Have I missed something ?

[Jake Jackson]

Hmmm... it looks like an iPad sequencer for computers. Have I missed something ?

This video covering the arranger in Ignite may suggest ways of working with it. Yes, a simplified sequencer, but one with decent sounds and a free-form arranger view, with simple ways to combine snips into groups that can be connected or moved around:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

Looks good to me, but I do understand that it might not be ideal for creating something with many, many instruments.

[elwoodblues1969]

For the skeptics,I think it's important to mention,that the instruments that are included in Ignite,are very much on par with the sounds that came with Presonus S1,when it was first launched(& it's a $400 DAW).

It's important to note also,that the file size of the Ignite download,is 825MB...which is staggeringly impressive,for a 100% free DAW program.

[samara@AIR]

The rotary knobs from my Oxygen 49 doesn't respond...

Hi there from AIR!

If it is a second generation Oxygen keyboard (blue, not silver) it should work just fine. You will need to set the Preset on the Oxygen keyboards to Preset 10. Then you should be good to go.

Let us know if you have any additional questions.

Many thanks,

Samara

[samara@AIR]

The bad news, which I added to my first post: As far as I can tell, Ignite requires a recent M-Audio keyboard. There does not appear to be a way to assign a midi driver to it, and thus it does not register midi input from another keyboard. A nice program, but not a program for all.

Hi all,

Here is the official list of M-Audio keyboards that feature auto-setup and auto-mapping support in Ignite:

Keystation Mini 32
KeyRig 49
Keystation 49es
Keystation 61es
Keystation 88es
Oxygen 25 (blue)
Oxygen 49 (blue)
Oxygen 61 (blue)
Oxygen 88 (blue)
Axiom II 25
Axiom II 49
Axiom II 61
Axiom Pro 25
Axiom Pro 49
Axiom Pro 61
Axiom AIR Mini 32
Axiom AIR 25
Axiom AIR 49
Axiom AIR 61
Venom

We do not have manual mapping for controls in 1.0.

Hope this helps,

Samara

[Numanoid]

The bad news, which I added to my first post: As far as I can tell, Ignite requires a recent M-Audio keyboard. There does not appear to be a way to assign a midi driver to it, and thus it does not register midi input from another keyboard. A nice program, but not a program for all.

Don't think so.

I installed Ignite, then plugged in my Akai MPK Mini controller, and didn't even need to assign it, I could play the keyboard straight away.

[Jake Jackson]

The bad news, which I added to my first post: As far as I can tell, Ignite requires a recent M-Audio keyboard. There does not appear to be a way to assign a midi driver to it, and thus it does not register midi input from another keyboard. A nice program, but not a program for all.

Don't think so.

I installed Ignite, then plugged in my Akai MPK Mini controller, and didn't even need to assign it, I could play the keyboard straight away.

Well, I'm either doing something wrong, or by accident, your keyboard is compatible. I'm using a Yamaha CP300, and with the current settings it works fine with any other music program that I try.

Which keyboard controller did you specify when you downloaded the program?

[Numanoid]

Well, I'm either doing something wrong, or by accident, your keyboard is compatible. I'm using a Yamaha CP300, and with the current settings it works fine with any other music program that I try.

I've got a Korg MicroKey 37 midi controller as well. Plugged that in, and that also worked straight away with Ignite, no need to assign it. The Mod and pitch/wheel also got automatically assigned.

So as midi keyboards from both Akai and Korg seems to work with Ignite, it looks like the problem could be CP300, and not Ignite.

[Jake Jackson]

Well, I'm either doing something wrong, or by accident, your keyboard is compatible. I'm using a Yamaha CP300, and with the current settings it works fine with any other music program that I try.

I've got a Korg MicroKey 37 midi controller as well. Plugged that in, and that also worked straight away with Ignite, no need to assign it. The Mod and pitch/wheel also got automatically assigned.

So as midi keyboards from both Akai and Korg seems to work with Ignite, it looks like the problem could be CP300, and not Ignite.

My mistake. I've revised my note at the start of this thread to say that some keyboards appear to work fine.

Now I'm left wondering why the CP300 could not work with it, but smaller keyboard do work with it. I'm using an M-Audio usb to midi cable. Do the keyboards that are working just use a standard usb cable, by any chance?

[Jake Jackson]

Update:

Ignite DOES work with non-M-Audio keyboards. However, it apparently requires a keyboard that connects directly to the computer with a usb cable. (NOT a usb-to-midi cable, such as M-Audio's Uno cable, but instead a simple usb cable, through which it will send midi data.) At first, my Yamaha CP300 did not appear to work with it. However, after I installed the Windows 8 usb drivers and directly connected the CP300 to the computer with a simple usb cable, Ignite is working fine. Receives data from the keyboard and records. (I edited my first post to reflect this discovery.)

[excessional]

I got Ignite with my Akai LPD 8 Pro and it works with both that and my Korg MicroKey USB Keyboard when plugged in at the same time (or separately for that matter).

Ignite recognises the LPD and the knobs/pads etc. work out of the box and are mapped onto the UI automatically.

The Akai also came with a voucher that let me buy Ableton Live 9 Intro for £19 so all in all it's given me a couple of new ways to throw tunes together...

The best bits about Ignite are the intelligent midi players (stuffed with very usable loops) and the high quality sounds. It is really easy to throw some nice-sounding stuff together fast using it.

[tonedef71]

I do not own a MIDI controller from InMusic Brands, so I had to purchase a license for Ignite, which I did while it was on sale at Plugin Boutique.

Installing on Windows is a problem. The Windows installer fails with an error message: "One or more issues caused the setup to fail. Please fix the issues and then retry setup. For more information 0x800b0101 - A required certificate is not within its validity period when verifying against the current system clock or the timestamp in the signed file."


And now Plugin Boutique has stopped providing the Windows installer for Ignite altogether:


Unfortunately, support for this product from Air Technology is non-existent. I opened a support ticket with Air Music Technology, but never received a reply apart from the initial acknowledgement e-mail: "Thank you for contacting us! This message confirms that we have received your inquiry."

I am not one to give up so easily and with a bit of perseverance I was able to eventually install the product on my Windows 10 PC by unpacking the Ignite setup .EXE file to extract the .MSI installer files.

I also had to figure out on my own how to get my KORG nanoKey2 MIDI controller to be recognized by Ignite. I used the "Uninstall KORG USB-MIDI device" utility to remove all of the MIDI devices (all which were permitted to be removed anyway) from my Windows PC and then re-installed the KORG MIDI USB driver for Windows 10. Doing this positioned the KORG nanoKey driver as MIDI1 within the Windows registry. After that, Ignite was able to recognize and receive MIDI input from the nanoKey.


Now that I finally have Ignite running on Windows 10 with my KORG MIDI controller, I can say that it is fun and easy to use to turn a musical idea into an actual arrangement and then export the MIDI and stems for more advanced editing in Studio One.

I was initially disappointed that Ignite does not have a MIDI file import feature, but Ignite does record MIDI input from any active MIDI input device and any MIDI channel (it does not start recording until it actually detects MIDI input events). So I used a small MIDI player application to play my MIDI loop files out through a virtual MIDI cable which then gets recorded into Ignite.

[nightflying60]

Tonedef71 said:
I was initially disappointed that Ignite does not have a MIDI file import feature, but Ignite does record MIDI input from any active MIDI input device and any MIDI channel (it does not start recording until it actually detects MIDI input events). So I used a small MIDI player application to play my MIDI loop files out through a virtual MIDI cable which then gets recorded into Ignite.

Could you please help me configure this midifile player to send midi to ignite?
Many thanks,
Didier