Cantor for ios released

[Guaranath]

It is here Geo heads!

I have been playing with this over the last 24 hours. So the two biggest advancements over Geo synth:

1)Finger-area sensing controlling: "Initial velocity and Channel Pressure; where channel pressure is taken as a continuation of velocity, and CC11 for vertical" - This works very nice with the internal Virtual Midi and I confirmed the data output in my desktop DAW...

2)Assignable frets - within a given tuning you can assign a fret to any given pitch. This is a very flexible system as you can use it to define any scale within the standard 12-tone equal temperament, you can select 24-tone equal temperament and only select a couple of quartertones to add color to your 12-tone ET scale, you can go real deep with the other tunings (7-tet, 19-tet, 31-tet, 53-tet and 665-tet) as I inevitably will.

The synth/sound engine is pretty limited, far more limited than Geo synth, but that is not really the point here - if you want a powerful and flexible Midi controller/instrument this is a worthy purchase in my opinion -- and it is selling for only $2... (So you may want to 'get in on the ground floor' as it were... )

[Whoomph]

Big thanks for the mini review and geo comparison.

[shanecgriffo]

I see it's sort of set out like guitar strings but the b string starts on c and the high e string starts on f when all the other strings are as they should be.. Is this how the default setting is supposed to be?
Also what benefit does this have over just using say the thumb jam interface?
(only had a real quick go so far, getting pretty late here)

[Guaranath]

Yup and this string setup (P4 per string) is hard-coded and cannot be adjusted. My understanding is that the layout of Cantor (and Geo and Mugician as well) is meant to capture the spirit of a fretboard setup (which is a better setup than the keyboard layout due to the limited space of touch-screens), but also to provide flexibility and consistency over various setups -- you can adjust the display to contain more or less rows and columns (up to 12 rows and 8 columns), you can adjust the center point of of the screen, and you can adjust the root note of a scale with the "circle of fifths" slider. Because each string is always a perfect fourth away, you don't need to think about which string you are on and the non-guitarists don't need to get used to a true guitar setup. True, for guitarists this is a bit of a hassle as chords to do not correspond one-to-one with the fretboard. But the notes are labelled right there in front of you so it is actually pretty easy to learn chord patterns (much easier than learning chords on a guitar was...).

Incidentally, the Wizdom music page for Geo synth has some fingering exercises to get you playing fast with these layouts (bottom part of page):

http://www.wizdommusic.com/GeoSynth/manual.html

Advantages over Thumbjam:

1) Far easier control over pitch-bends and much wider-range - sure, in Thumbjam you can use axis and tilt but I have not found these to be totally satisfactory for pitch-bends.

2) Velocity approximation: Cantor's velocity approximation (based on finger-area sensing) is as good a velocity mechanism as you will find on a glass touch-screen. This approximation applies to both initial velocity and aftertouch. So if you tap a fret lightly the natural inclination is that you use less of your finger tip. If you tap a fret with more force the natural tendency is to use a wider portion of your finger tip (or usually a portion of your finger pad too). This plays out in aftertouch too - once your finger is down, if you press more of you finger down the sound gets louder, less and it gets softer. I have confirmed that both of these work with Midi data in my desktop DAW (velocity levels and channel pressure) Thumbjam has approximations for these as well, but so far as I understand it this is based on tilt or axis settings which works but is less intuitive.

3) Auto-ocatve: to get more octaves in Thumbjam in you increase the span, but then all the keys are smaller. In Cantor (and Geo) you have the auto-octave option, so as you ascend or descend scale or arpeggios you automatically jump octaves. You will find reference to this in the fingering practice I linked above.

None of this is to demean Thumbjam which does so, so, so many other things which are totally essential to me... I would say these are easily the top two apps for what I do... And since Thumbjam recently added background recording and will respect all of Cantor's Midi magic to the fullest extent they really make a great pair.

[shanecgriffo]

Thanks for that detailed reply, i'm having fun jamming on this app but there are a couple of annoyances (and one question)
The default way it loads has it playing in a very deep octave and generally sounds crappy .. Why?
(thats not the question tho )
Also if you close cantor (but still have it running background) to open up whatever app you're controlling (thumbjam etc) and then re-open cantor it always sets the onboard synth in cantor to play , even if you had it turned off which is annoying and an extra button push to disable it again..
Oh and why does the default scale have that quarter tone step added, seems a bit strange..
Umm now my question.. Is there a way to constrain the notes to a scale/key.. I cant work out how to do it if so, if not it would be handy

[Guaranath]

First, I agree with you on the annoyance of it turning on it's internal audio every time you bring it up from the background. This annoys me too and I will write the developer and mention this to him among a couple of other small details I would like to see improved.

The reasoning for including the quarter tones in the default is, I would think, to alert people to the possibility. However, these are very easy to dispense with - if you use the Scale slider you will move through the different tunings. I have mostly been playing around with 53-tone equal temperament (53-tet) so I wrote Rob Fielding to confirm this, but I think the setup as you move to the left goes like this: position #4 on slider is 24-tet (the default), #3 is standard chromatic scale (12-tet), #2 is a diatonic scale (?), and #1 is 12-tone equal temperament where you can set up your own modes and scales.

Edit: I was right about #3 and #4. Position number #2 is a minor #7 scale and position #1 by default is diatonic, but you can adjust it as described below.

Here is how you set up your own scales or modes. Cycle through the options and find the one called "re-fret". If you press this button it brings up a wheel where you can individually assign frets and therefore set up any scale you would like. The frets right in the middle of the circle are for 7-tet and the second layer are the frets for 12-tet, so these are the ones you want. Once you have a fret selected hit toggle to turn that fret on or off. When you are done setting up your scale press "re-fret" again and it will take you back to the performance page and if you have the scale slider all the way to the left you will see the scale you just set up. (Playing with this re-fret screen was a bit like fumbling with a decoder ring for me at first, but if you slide your finger around and see what the display is telling you, you will figure it out pretty quick)

The other thing worth mentioning is that this only sets up the scale set. If you have the defaults in place your scale should be rooted on C. You can adjust the root note by using the Circle of Fifths slider. If you get lost, position number 5 sets the root note to C again. This actually brings up another feature suggestion; it would be helpful if there were a more clear indicator of the root note. But once you get used to playing a scale and know where you are on the circle of fifths this shouldn't matter too much, just figuring it out at first takes a little thought.

I will mention another thing you are going to notice when you start setting up your own custom scales, and what I think is probably at the top of my list for feature suggestions. You cannot save presets for the scales you design. I suspect this feature and many other conveniences and details will be added to this app... I think Rob was concerned that Apple might reject this app simply because of the finger-area sensing and didn't want to invest so much time and effort into the project if he wasn't certain the single, most important feature would be approved.