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Thoughts on KeyStage automation for iOS?


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My next gigging rig will be iPad-based. Not only can you get amazing instruments/effects/routing etc. for short change, it looks like a new world in terms of flexible configurations and automation -- both for soft instruments as well as hardware ones. I also like the idea of being able to try a new music toy for $9.99 instead of $2,999.

 

One thing I had been looking for was performance-oriented automation to connect everything, march through setlist presets, and allow a modest amount of performance flexibility. I spent a few hours going through the tutorials for KeyStage, and it looks almost too good to be true.

 

I searched here, and couldn't find a thread. Maybe it's just my weak google-fu.

 

Any thoughts from this esteemed bunch?

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Try Camelot Pro, or AUM Mixer. I used to use AUM Mixer, but Camelot Pro V2 has left it for dead imo...there are quite a few Camelot Pro vids on YT

There is no luck - luck is simply the confluence of circumstance and co-incidence...

 

Time is the final arbiter for all things

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Paying attention here. My next (current) rig is going to be hybrid as things stand.

 

I was going to get a nord stage 3 and it's simply too much money for my non-pro gigs, and something I won't use at home (I have a nice controller already).

 

That rig, on paper, will be a Modx7 with ipad connected, and within a week hopefully, a Novation Summit :D--I am extremely excited to be getting back to knobby synth-ville and I intend to be more synth-focused for the first time in years.

 

The two weaknesses, relative to strengths at least, of the Modx is analog synth and especially organ. I just bought B-3x on sale and have experimented with the master midi zones on the Modx to control it.

 

Wow, does B-3x sound fantastic. It was really easy to map some controls to Modx hardware, although there's not enough to do each drawbar unfortunately. Not a huge deal with the type of music we do (classic rock). There are the drawbar presets, or different patches, or I can use the ipad screen. I experimented with a 4-split set of zones consisting of: 1. internal sound 2. B-3x 3. Zeeon 4. Model D Worked like a champ and all I had to do was leave them all running, each responding to a different midi channel--on the Modx, each zone transmitted on a different channel, with zone 1 NOT transmitting and all others with local off.

 

So I don't know if I need some mainstage-like app unless I want to get into using some common fx with all of them--and honestly with the Summit and internal Modx synths I really am only likely to use B-3x anyway. Ideally I will have a way to work out patch changes that don't involve me touching the ipad, though with organ I tend to have 1 or 2 patches and just change the organ parameters as needed (I had a separate patch for parts of Blue Collar Man, it was an outlier!)

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Another possibility could be iMidiPatchbay, which is not as fully featured, but kind of emulates the Nord Stage interface, and as a Nord user, you might quickly be comfortable with that. But as for KS...

 

I searched here, and couldn't find a thread. Maybe it's just my weak google-fu.

Use the site's search, you'll find some relevant threads...

 

 

KS1.jpg

 

KS2.jpg

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Try Camelot Pro, or AUM Mixer. I used to use AUM Mixer, but Camelot Pro V2 has left it for dead imo...there are quite a few Camelot Pro vids on YT

 

Yes, AUM is (was?) on my list, but didn't have much in the way of live automation. Will take a look at Camelot Pro V2. Thanks!

Want to make your band better?  Check out "A Guide To Starting (Or Improving!) Your Own Local Band"

 

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My next gigging rig will be iPad-based. Not only can you get amazing instruments/effects/routing etc. for short change, ......I also like the idea of being able to try a new music toy for $9.99 instead of $2,999......

 

One caveat - I started down this pathway ~ 10 years with similar logic - over time, a lot of $10 deals can add up to the latter number over time. Don't ask me how I know :/

 

But it is a lot of fun, and there are a few iPad apps that are truly unique, and others that are totally gig-worthy (such as Korg Module). If nothing else, get something like Module, also put it on your phone, and you have a backup sound-module in your pocket if disaster strikes.

 

Back to your original question - I've been tempted by KeyStage and Camelot Pro, but have yet to buy either. Currently use AUM. Thus, Miden's comment about Camelot Pro leaving the latter in the dust should be weighed heavily, I am tempted again to buy it.

 

Last comment - some of the scores/sheetmusic readers (like Set List Maker and ForScore) can also send (limited) program changes to your keyboards, that can be handy if you pull up your music for a particular song, and it automatically sets up your keyboards with the correct patches. Unfortunately, I use a Roland VR09 rompler/Roland RD 64 as my main set up live. While a great combo, neither can do remote patch changes, thus I've not pursued the above.

 

OK, real last comment - the main way I have used the iPad live (as it reduces risk for "mission critical failures") is using it for "gratuitous, spicey sounds", i.e., to play samples/fun sounds and cool effects - less catastrophic if the iPad glitches out, as you still have your main boards ready to go for meat-and-potato sounds.

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Note that KeyStage developer Ali Gokturk posted on AudioBus forum last week that the long-awaited version 2.0 was expected to be released around February 1st, so it might be worth checking out what features are added. I'm planning to buy it myself to see how it compares with my current AUM setup.

Kurzweil PC4, Expressive E Osmose, UNO Synth Pro, Hammond B-3X on iPad, Rhodes Mark II Stage 73, ART 710-A MK4s

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Also following this thread with great interest. I hadn't realised that it would run on laptops as well as tablets. Any Mac laptop users out there who use this live? From watching a couple of videos it might be a MainStage killer for me....
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Try Camelot Pro, or AUM Mixer. I used to use AUM Mixer, but Camelot Pro V2 has left it for dead imo...there are quite a few Camelot Pro vids on YT

 

Camelot it's very basic at midi processing ( just midi rechannel) , Keystage it's way more flexible , you can remap any midi controller or sysex to do what you need

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Try Camelot Pro, or AUM Mixer. I used to use AUM Mixer, but Camelot Pro V2 has left it for dead imo...there are quite a few Camelot Pro vids on YT

 

Camelot it's very basic at midi processing ( just midi rechannel) , Keystage it's way more flexible , you can remap any midi controller or sysex to do what you need

 

haha, try this: https://audiomodeling.com/camelot-overview/features/#midi

There is no luck - luck is simply the confluence of circumstance and co-incidence...

 

Time is the final arbiter for all things

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I'm a KeyStage user but I don't do much in-depth stuff with it, just patch changes for boards without a convenient way of making set lists. No complaints though, and version 2.0 looks like it will be awesome.

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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I am following this with interest, as I am an AUM user but am curious about the alternatives. I am still learning everything AUM can do....

Dr. Mike Metlay (PhD in nuclear physics, golly gosh) :D

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Try Camelot Pro, or AUM Mixer. I used to use AUM Mixer, but Camelot Pro V2 has left it for dead imo...there are quite a few Camelot Pro vids on YT

 

Camelot it's very basic at midi processing ( just midi rechannel) , Keystage it's way more flexible , you can remap any midi controller or sysex to do what you need

 

haha, try this: https://audiomodeling.com/camelot-overview/features/#midi

 

 

A lot of marketing buzz words but not real advanced midi remaping, you can´t use CC1 to control CC11 ,or Change VR09 drawbars that only send sysex to midi CC to control Hammnod BX-3

 

 

I own Camelot and Keysatge, and also was in contact with Audiomoedling ask'em about midi remaping and better PDF rendering and editing , they told me that sometime in the future maybe....

 

so Keystage 2 seems a better option for anyone that needs to get the most of an ipad's based live rig

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Camelot Pro and AUM Mixer work brilliantly onstage with live rigs, I use/d them both. TBH why would you want CC1 to control CC11 haha! As to the drawbars - I didn't know the VR-09 COULD send drawbars data out via MIDI...and if one HAD a VR 09 why would one want to be using a B3-x...re the Sysex thing - sysex is really quite cumbersome and I would have thought it needed a secondary app - something like MIDIFlow et al? But if it can by itself, that's pretty impressive.

 

Being able to have my backing tracks (for my solo gigs) have markers is a BIG plus for live work...Means I am not locked in to an arrangement. Markers usually were only the province of MIDI files, and the subsequent poor sound, however being able to use audio files with the same freedom as a MIDI song, well, that's terrific - for me anyway. The CRITICAL thing is to get the timing point of the marker spot on.

 

PDF rendering in Camelot 2 is fine afaics - what issues did you have? By editing I assume you mean annotations? Not actually editing a PDF? IIRC, NO apps of this type actually "edits" a PDF.

 

anyway whatever floats your boat I guess. I found the Keystage interface and controls to be clunky and rather awkward to navigate. Again it might be an "acquired" taste. With Camelot and AUM being, for me, more intuitive and easier to navigate.

 

You should check out the REMOTE MIDI setup section in Camelot 2 you can define so many controls just in that section - and that's before you get to scene level.

 

Best thing for the OP is to get both (or all) and just try them....under the "Report A Problem" section at Apple you can always get a refund for apps, as long as it's a timely request. But at the price these things are, it hardly seems worth the bother haha!

There is no luck - luck is simply the confluence of circumstance and co-incidence...

 

Time is the final arbiter for all things

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if one HAD a VR 09 why would one want to be using a B3-x

Because it sounds a whole lot better! If you want to gig with B-3X, the VR-09 is probably the lightest and cheapest controller with drawbars you can get.

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My worry on this approach is that there are several indications that Apple wants to totally get rid of ports on the iPhone and iPad. Wireless charging and Bluetooth. I already hate using the lightning port for audio. For me it is too glitchy. That knocks out any new ipads.

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I've used Keystage on a few gigs with success, and Ali is great. Definitely curious about version 2.0, which appears to be able to load apps as plug-ins like AUM rather than just serve as a central MIDI control app. It's the best thing I've found for set list management and patch changes with iOS, but the more things you try to do with it, the more points of failure that pop up... I so desperately want iOS to work as well for me as a laptop and Mainstage, but I haven't found my sweet spot yet.

Samuel B. Lupowitz

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I am following this with interest, as I am an AUM user but am curious about the alternatives. I am still learning everything AUM can do....

 

+1

 

I've been able to get what I need out of AUM and I especially like the MIDI functions. I have had quite a few app crashes on load up which I'd assumed had to do with mismatches in bit depth between apps, but I'm wondering now if my 2018 iPad 6 is underpowered for what I'm trying to do with it. I've tried Camelot a few times but can't get with the interface, preferring the mixer-based approach of AUM. That rules out Keystage for me, too.

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Rod

Here for the gear.

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I"ve been testing KeyStage Light (the free demo version) for the last two weeks.. I"m really liking it so far, one big pro is that it"s incredibly light weight compared to the resource hog of Mainstage. That"s a big plus in my book, it makes everything feel very stable.

 

The biggest hurdle has been hardware and apps that don"t have a published list of instrument patch data. KeyStage does have an 'Instrument Patch Database" for some keyboards and apps, but it sorely needs to be updated. For example, all older Roland RDs were listed along with the VR-09 but anything newer wasn"t on the list. There"s a short list of iOS apps (e.g. Korg Module, Sunrizer, Model D, Galileo - around 8-10 in total). You can also import Cubase Patch Lists which makes loading instrument patches and banks very fast and it"s not too fussy about the text formatting!

 

Roland FP-30 - I wasn"t able to program the main sounds from the FP-30. Roland doesn"t publish the program change data for the FP series, and my fiddling around and guessing at the patch MIDI data only seemed to enable the GS/GM MIDI sounds - not the Supernatural sounds I was looking for. So that"s still a work in progress. I messaged the guy who wrote an FP-30 MIDI app which does send program changes for the Supernatural sounds - so hopefully that pans out.

 

Roland RD-88 - Roland does publish the instrument patch data for the RD-88 (PC MSB LSB). So it was easy to quickly input program changes for the RD-88. A bonus - I was also able to auto-load a small list of RD-88 patches and banks using a manually edited Cubase Patch list file

 

Pianoteq VST

I was able to control Pianoteq on the Mac using KeyStage and IDAM (Inter-device Audio +MIDI) - with the iPad connected via a powered USB hub. Just set the iPad to 'enabled" in the MacOS and it"s off and running, Pianoteq has a good MIDI implementation, but unfortunately you have to manually set it up by assigning each preset to a MIDI channel, and that"s pretty tedious. The good news is that Pianoteq also exposes a lot of other internal commands for use with MIDI (e.g. transport controls, reverb, equalizer etc.).

 

iOS Apps

Keystage auto-detects any AU apps already running, I had no trouble getting it working with Korg Module, Model D, Sunrizer and the Lumbeat Drum Machine apps. Of those, the Lumbeat Drum apps needing some manual setup, but the other 3 apps are already in the built-in instrument patch database. I also did basic audio routing with Audiobus while KeyStage handled the MIDI. They played very nicely with each other.

 

Overall it"s a very encouraging setup. If I can I get through the learning curve, I"d be willing to replace Mainstage. I like that it"s more direct than Mainstage and works cleanly with lots of different MIDI software and hardware devices.

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I"ve been testing KeyStage Light (the free demo version) for the last two weeks........., all older Roland RDs were listed along with the VR-09 ..

 

Wow, thanks for noting this, I did not realize the VR09 was a possibility with KeyStage!

 

That inspired me to search YouTube for "Keystage VR09", where I found this little gem:

 

[video:youtube]

 

Looks like you CAN control the B3X drawbars with the VR09 using KeyStage - very exciting!

 

That would make for a killer, lightweight rig - the great sounds of B3X with your iPad, and if for some reason your iPad glitches out, you still have the VR09 with its still pretty good organ sounds!

 

Fun times we are living in!

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I've used Keystage on a few gigs with success, and Ali is great. Definitely curious about version 2.0, which appears to be able to load apps as plug-ins like AUM rather than just serve as a central MIDI control app. It's the best thing I've found for set list management and patch changes with iOS, but the more things you try to do with it, the more points of failure that pop up... I so desperately want iOS to work as well for me as a laptop and Mainstage, but I haven't found my sweet spot yet.

 

Agreed though this is why I'm about to test out Camelot for MacOS - if it's simpler to set up new songs etc I may jump ship from MainStage ...

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I"ve been testing KeyStage Light (the free demo version) for the last two weeks........., all older Roland RDs were listed along with the VR-09 ..

 

Wow, thanks for noting this, I did not realize the VR09 was a possibility with KeyStage!

 

That inspired me to search YouTube for "Keystage VR09", where I found this little gem:

 

[video:youtube]

 

Looks like you CAN control the B3X drawbars with the VR09 using KeyStage - very exciting!

 

That would make for a killer, lightweight rig - the great sounds of B3X with your iPad, and if for some reason your iPad glitches out, you still have the VR09 with its still pretty good organ sounds!

 

Fun times we are living in!

 

 

Ok Mr. HA HA try to achieve this with Camelot :cool::whistle:

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I"ve been testing KeyStage Light (the free demo version) for the last two weeks.. I"m really liking it so far, one big pro is that it"s incredibly light weight compared to the resource hog of Mainstage. That"s a big plus in my book, it makes everything feel very stable.

 

Comparing Apples & iPads here I think? Or is there a version of KeyStage for MacOS?

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Rod

Here for the gear.

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I"ve been testing KeyStage Light (the free demo version) for the last two weeks.. I"m really liking it so far, one big pro is that it"s incredibly light weight compared to the resource hog of Mainstage. That"s a big plus in my book, it makes everything feel very stable.

 

Comparing Apples & iPads here I think? Or is there a version of KeyStage for MacOS?

I re-created my Mainstage-MacOS setup in Keystage-iOS, so yeah, it"s a fair comparison, literally Apple to Apple.

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It looks like I will be using both KeyScape and AUM for the time being. KeyScape seems stronger with external controllers, AUM stronger at hosting all sorts of plugins. I will need to spend more time with both.

Want to make your band better?  Check out "A Guide To Starting (Or Improving!) Your Own Local Band"

 

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