Winter NAMM 2014

[Blooby]

That controller does look cool & an affordable way to get into midi I guess. I know nothing about midi, where do the sounds come from. Does their software have them or do you download them, buy them? Sorry for being midi stupid but I'm kinda interested.

I am no expert, but I would assume the come either from a soft synth (via computer) or an existing midi keyboard or sound module.  No sounds contained within the unit, and the the free downloadable software looks to be more about midi-mapping the controls.

Somebody, swoop in and correct me if I'm off-base here.

Blooby

[Hook]

I guess I'm curious about what additional investment I would have to make in order to even use the $99 controller.

[Blooby]

I guess I'm curious about what additional investment I would have to make in order to even use the $99 controller.

There are many free soft synths, some of them quite good, and I imagine you could pick up a used keyboard with midi out for under $100 (maybe even cheaper if you go the garage sale route). Like I said, though, this is not an expert speaking, so I'm hoping others will chime in.

Blooby

[Geir]

I guess I'm curious about what additional investment I would have to make in order to even use the $99 controller.

If you have the camera connection kit for your iPhone, you don't need anything else. You've got some apps that can be controlled by the midi controller.

[64Guitars]

Yep. As Geir said, you probably already have several apps on your iPad that can be controlled by MIDI. You just need a way to connect MIDI devices to your iPad. This can be done with Apple's iPad Camera Connection Kit which gives your iPad a USB jack (why the hell doesn't the iPad come with a built-in mini USB jack?)* or with third-party products such as those from iConnectivity and other companies.

Once the BeatStep controller is connected to your iPad, you could load up GarageBand, for example, select a drum kit, and start tapping the pads on the controller to trigger the drum sounds in GarageBand. Or, for another example, you could load up ThumbJam on the iPad, select a cello, violin, piano, or whatever ThumbJam instrument you want, then create a note pattern in the BeatStep sequencer which would play through the selected instrument in ThumbJam. Most iPad music apps can be controlled by MIDI, so the possibilities are endless.

And as Blooby mentioned, you can get many free music programs for your PC or Mac which can be controlled by MIDI. No extra hardware is required on the PC or Mac since it already has a USB port which you can connect the BeatStep controller to.

Also, most DAWs can be controlled by MIDI. So, for example, you could use the BeatStep's 17 rotary controls for mixing track levels. Or you could set it up so the top 8 controls are for panning, the bottom 8 for levels, and the large control is for master level. There are Stop and Play buttons on the BeatStep which could be used to stop and start the DAW's transport. And the pads could be assigned to whatever On/Off functions you like in the DAW. For example, they could mute/solo tracks, enable/disable various effects, etc.

Besides controlling apps, you can connect the BeatStep directly to MIDI-capable hardware such as synthesizers or drum machines. In another topic, a couple of people mentioned that they have an SR-16 drum machine that they never use. The BeatStep could be connected to the SR-16 to trigger its drum and cymbal sounds from the BeatStep pads and/or its sequencer.


* Speaking of iPads and USB, I just had a look at the Apple site and noticed that all of the current iPads come with either a "Lightning to USB Cable" (iPad Air and iPad mini) or a "30-pin to USB Cable" (iPad 2) in the box.

http://store.apple.com/uk/ipad/compare

Does that mean the camera connection kit isn't needed with newer iPads? On the page for the camera connection kit, under the heading "Compatibility", it lists only "iPad (1st generation)", "iPad 2 (2nd generation)", and "iPad (3rd generation)". So maybe the 4th generation iPads don't need the camera connection kit as they come with a USB adapter cable for the dock connector.

[dasilvasings]

Hi, a bit off-topic, but note that the Camera Connection Kit doesn't work for most of the standard USB audio cards (i.e. not specifically "designed foir ios"), since Apple upgraded to ios7.

On the other hand, the CCK still works for most midi interfaces. They haven't closed that. Yet.

[64Guitars]

On another note, I wonder is this thing below is like a giant Kaossilator.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/keyboards-midi/korg-taktile-49-usb-midi-controller

That one's just a controller. It includes an X/Y touch pad inherited from the kaossilator 2 but it doesn't generate any sound. You'd have to connect it to a soft synth, hardware synth, or other sound generator to produce sound. And the sounds produced wouldn't necessarily be the same as those in a kaossilator, but you could control the sound with the X/Y pad in the same way you would with a kaossilator.

Korg also announced the TRITON taktile which is the same thing but with the TRITON sound engine built-in so you don't have to be connected to a computer or other sound generator in order to make sound.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScwJhoDJQR8


And on the subject of kaossilator-style X/Y pads, Ibanez was showing a prototype of a guitar and a bass they're working on with a kaoss pad 2. The kaoss pad 2 is the same size as a kaossilator 2, so I assume you could attach a kaossilator 2 instead of the kaoss pad 2. They hope to announce the actual product in about a year from now.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE_1B56Vobc

[64Guitars]

Here's SonicState's video of the iO Dock II at Winter NAMM 2014.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG3vECq1-BE

[Hook]

Also, most DAWs can be controlled by MIDI. So, for example, you could use the BeatStep's 17 rotary controls for mixing track levels. Or you could set it up so the top 8 controls are for panning, the bottom 8 for levels, and the large control is for master level. There are Stop and Play buttons on the BeatStep which could be used to stop and start the DAW's transport. And the pads could be assigned to whatever On/Off functions you like in the DAW. For example, they could mute/solo tracks, enable/disable various effects, etc.

Very interesting, thanks for the info guys! I'd really like to hear someone play that Ibanez with the Kaoss pad!

[Ferryman]

And on the subject of kaossilator-style X/Y pads, Ibanez was showing a prototype of a guitar and a bass they're working on with a kaoss pad 2. The kaoss pad 2 is the same size as a kaossilator 2, so I assume you could attach a kaossilator 2 instead of the kaoss pad 2. They hope to announce the actual product in about a year from now.

Aha, that's how I did many of the noises on my "Weird Science" track, I had the bass running into a kaoss pad 2. You'd be pretty limited if you put a Kaossilator on there though, there's not much it can do to affect an incoming signal.

Very interesting, thanks for the info guys! I'd really like to hear someone play that Ibanez with the Kaoss pad!

You already have, here: https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=20225.0. Most of the bass sounds have some form of Kaoss Pad effect on them. For example, the intro "wowing" is me using the x/y pad to modulate an effect in real time, and the percussive noise during the intro is me scraping the strings with a plectrum with a very extreme Kaoss Pad reverb. Most of the time I had my Zoom bass effects pedal running into the Kaoss Pad so it was often effects on effects.....