Camelot Pro question

[D. Gauss]

Just picked up camelot pro on sale and trying to wrap my head around something.  My needs are super simple, but i can't seem to find a way make this happen.

I'm not doing layering, splits are any other fancy stuff.  I just need 4 meat and potatoes sounds.  Piano, whurly, B3, cheesy vox/farfisa.  I havean ipad (mini6) and apps for each instrument.  Ravenscroft, Vb3m, etc.  All i want to be able to do is to switch between the 4 apps AND see the interface when i select it.  just like they were presets on a hardware machine.

I made a song with multiple scenes with each scene a diff app.  switching between them works wonderfully as far as sound goes, but there is no visual GUI for the app selected.  Is there a way to do this?  kinda need to see the drawbars and leslie switch.  (yes, i know i can get to the gui, but it requires quite a few clicks to get there).

thanks in advance for any insight.

[drawback]

I think your answer is in the Quick Guide at about 17:50. 

[AnotherScott]

1 hour ago, drawback said:

I think your answer is in the Quick Guide at about 17:50. 

17:50 is the end of the video. (Or was that meant as a joke?) But you do bring up a pet peeve of mine, that there's no proper manual for the app. You can't search a video the way you can search a PDF. They give excuses at https://kb.audiomodeling.com/en/c/general-information/d/where-can-i-find-the-instruction-manual-for-camelot-pro-is-there-a-pdf-version 

[miden]

Yes, ditto Scott...no manual is a pita! A glaring oversight the developers do not seem to "get"!

[D. Gauss]

so, i guess ya can't do it?  simplest of things, too.   grrr. 

any other app do this?  no one else has these simple needs?  i.e. easily switch between apps from one screen with one click and see gui and no audio glitches, etc.  figured this would be ipad keyboard app 101.  wrong again i guess.    

can korg module load 3rd party instrument apps?  or numa player?   (numa app interface is a thing of beauty btw)

[AnotherScott]

5 minutes ago, D. Gauss said:

so, i guess ya can't do it?  simplest of things, too.   grrr. 

I don't know. I thought I remembered doing it a while back when I was playing with Camelot, but I can't be 100% sure, and I'm not set up to try it at the moment, and I'm not going to watch an 18 minute video to try to find out.

5 minutes ago, D. Gauss said:

can korg module load 3rd party instrument apps?  or numa player?  

no. The main Camelot alternatives are Keyscape and AUM, but I don't know whether they do what you want, either. But at least the Keystage developer is promising a proper manual. ;-)

[miden]

21 minutes ago, D. Gauss said:

so, i guess ya can't do it?  simplest of things, too.   grrr. 

any other app do this?  no one else has these simple needs?  i.e. easily switch between apps from one screen with one click and see gui and no audio glitches, etc.  figured this would be ipad keyboard app 101.  wrong again i guess.    

can korg module load 3rd party instrument apps?  or numa player?   (numa app interface is a thing of beauty btw)

 

Well you can - sort of. You need to be in Layers view and then double tap the Synth in the rack. On the Name area not the volume dial as a dbl tap there reverts volume to 0dB.

 

So if you have a "song" that has the four apps you mentioned as layers you can do what you want to do...having them all in the one means you'd alos need to mute the ones not being used, but again that is possible.

 

It should be far FAR easier!

 

Just as a by-the by- the two arrow keys at the top will select previous/next song

 

apparently, according to the developer, they are looking at re-sizable layer components, at the moment when you have more than about three, you have to scroll up and down to see other layers, being able to resize will make it easier to have many layers visibel at the one time.

[miden]

10 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:

.......But at least the Keystage developer is promising a proper manual. 😉

 

FWIW, I tried Keystage....very awkward app imo

[D. Gauss]

Wow, i must have an abnormal brain for even thinking this.

for the life of me, i figured this kind of thing would have been ground zero in an app.  waaay before layers, splits, etc.  i.e. you have all these cool instruments on your ipad, now you need to seamlessly switch back n forth between them with one click so you can actually use them on a gig.  Grrrr.

[miden]

Now in AUM, you only need tap once on the Apps icon in the channel view...you can also select between apps with no loss of sound. So, if you have say, 5 apps in five channels and one is a long sustain pad...you could hold that, say chord, tap another channel app and play with that while still holding the original chord.

 

No hosting app I know of, will allow you to change between songs/setups without losing any current playing sound.

 

It's not really iOS 101, tbh....I do think a lot of folks expect way WAY too much with iOS. I mean you can rarely even do that with PC apps and synths.

 

Hardware synths are a totally different thing.

[CyberGene]

I think the paradigm of opening a window within a window is part of the desktop OS design and not really available in a mobile OS such as iOS. You can’t expect from a mobile DAW (or whatever that host program is) to open the hosted plugins interfaces and switch between them like a breeze. 

 

BUT!

 

Actually iOS made it possible for AUv3 plugins to show their interface and controls within the host app 😀 So, yes, Camelot could be made doing what you wanted. What I’m saying is it’s a rather edge case and not something you could expect as “ground zero” from a mobile OS. 

[miden]

1 minute ago, CyberGene said:

I think the paradigm of opening a window within a window is part of the desktop OS-es and not iOS. You can’t expect for a DAW or whatever that main program is to open the hosted plugins interfaces and switch between them like a breeze. 

 

BUT!

 

Actually iOS made it possible for AUv3 plugins to show their interface and controls within the host app 😀 So, yes, Camelot could be made doing what you wanted. What I’m saying is it’s a rather edge case and not something you could expect as “ground zero” from a mobile OS. 

 

Yes, I already explained how to do that above

[CyberGene]

^ Indeed, you beat me to it 😀

[miden]

Oh and AUM has a very good online manual http://kymatica.com/aum/help

[D. Gauss]

13 minutes ago, miden said:

 No hosting app I know of, will allow you to change between songs/setups without losing any current playing sound.

 

not worried about losing the current playing sound.  only want to hit a button (single click) and see/play my piano app then later on (could be the chorus or 5 songs later) hit a button and see/play my organ app.

[CyberGene]

As you know on iOS you have only one app visible on the screen at any moment (yes, they added split screen multitasking, etc but those are rather different things). 
 

Since these software instrument apps are meant to be mostly used in standalone mode like the only app running, any further complication such as using them as plugins in a DAW are going to be awkward. You can’t have the DAW as your running app but show the plug-in window on full-screen. It can be shown in a frame and that is supported by AUv3 plugins (but not Inter-App audio plugins which is the older standard). But I’m not sure if that frame can be huge enough to be very usable, it’s already a sacrifice and a stretch to the mobile OS needs.

[miden]

13 minutes ago, D. Gauss said:

not worried about losing the current playing sound.  only want to hit a button (single click) and see/play my piano app then later on (could be the chorus or 5 songs later) hit a button and see/play my organ app.

 

You can do that already in Camleot with Scenes   or with the main Songs list view, just tap on which one you want to use.. takes a nano second to load in (unless it's ravenscroft or B3 ) , unless I am misunderstanding what you want to do.

[CyberGene]

As far as I understand the OP basically needs to just quickly switch between 4 audio apps on the iPad, having the plug-in window with the controls visible on the screen. 
 

I think if that’s your only use case, a particular workaround would be to totally abandon the idea of using a DAW like Camelot Pro. Instead, use all the audio apps in standalone mode and just make sure you disable background app refresh for each of them. That would make the app stop immediately when switching to the other audio app. Have them all loaded once each, then just double-click the home button to bring the task manager and switch to the other app. Not sure how quick that would be though. But have in mind if you’re not gonna use layering between the apps in Camelot or AUM, yet you want them to be loaded in memory and ready to play, might actually made things worse than just switching between them in standalone like regular apps. 

[drawback]

4 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

17:50 is the end of the video.

Oops, my bad.  I was looking at the wrong timer. It’s about halfway through the last chapter bar on the video, at about 15:25. I’m not sure if that’s what the OP was looking for, though. 

[D. Gauss]

2 hours ago, miden said:

 

You can do that already in Camleot with Scenes   or with the main Songs list view, just tap on which one you want to use.. takes a nano second to load in (unless it's ravenscroft or B3 ) , unless I am misunderstanding what you want to do.

if you'll go back to my OP, you'll see that i have it set up with scenes, and audiowise it is fine.  just can't see the gui of the instrument without lots of additional clicking.  i.e. one click "hey, there's, my leslie switch,"  1 click... "ooh look it's my whurly."

[AnotherScott]

2 hours ago, drawback said:

Oops, my bad.  I was looking at the wrong timer. It’s about halfway through the last chapter bar on the video, at about 15:25. I’m not sure if that’s what the OP was looking for, though. 

Yes  that look exactly right. Not nearly as complicated as it sounded from other posts, Just tap on the name of the instrument, and you can see its screen. (The video says "double click or tap"... I assume that means double-click if you're running the desktop version, tap if you're running the touchscreen iOS version.) A single tap to do what you want... couldn't be easier.

 

3 hours ago, miden said:

FWIW, I tried Keystage....very awkward app imo

Yes, I find it awkward as well. Maybe the worst thing about the interface when you get started--coincidentally kind of picking up exactly from what I said in the previous paragraph--is that you have to "double-tap" to do the setup things, and that's unusual on iOS, and not obvious. 

 

3 hours ago, miden said:

Now in AUM, you only need tap once on the Apps icon in the channel view...you can also select between apps with no loss of sound. So, if you have say, 5 apps in five channels and one is a long sustain pad...you could hold that, say chord, tap another channel app and play with that while still holding the original chord.

Keystage does that as well. Presumably with the same caveats... you have to switch to a different app from among those being hosted, it is rare that you can seamlessly switch to another sound within the same instance of the same app, and that's a limitation of the apps themselves and not the hosting environment. So either you switch to a sound from a different app, or you load a second instance of the first app so you can switch to another one of its sounds seamlessly. (This is shown/discussed in more detail in the section starting at 21:35 in the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL7JSvgh-oo )

 

 

2 hours ago, CyberGene said:

As far as I understand the OP basically needs to just quickly switch between 4 audio apps on the iPad, having the plug-in window with the controls visible on the screen. 
 

I think if that’s your only use case, a particular workaround would be to totally abandon the idea of using a DAW like Camelot Pro. Instead, use all the audio apps in standalone mode and just make sure you disable background app refresh for each of them. That would make the app stop immediately when switching to the other audio app. Have them all loaded once each, then just double-click the home button to bring the task manager and switch to the other app. Not sure how quick that would be though. But have in mind if you’re not gonna use layering between the apps in Camelot or AUM, yet you want them to be loaded in memory and ready to play, might actually made things worse than just switching between them in standalone like regular apps. 

It would be much quicker to use Camelot Pro (which is not a DAW, btw), or one of the other hosting environments we've mentioned, to switch sounds when needed and to change the visual display when needed (compared to the approach you describe which I believe requires a double-tap of the home button and then possibly swiping to locate the app you want, and then another tap to select the app you want, plus there's the load-time for the new sound now required because you've disabled background processing). I'm not sure I see a case where your alternate approach would be more advantageous.

[CyberGene]

3 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

plus there's the load-time for the new sound now required because you've disabled background processing)

Not necessarily. Disabling background processing doesn’t mean the OS will unload the app. It only stops it from generating audio and other background activity but it will stay preloaded in  memory and should open immediately next time. Provided there’s enough memory of course. But then, if you don’t have enough memory for loading 4 audio plugins simultaneously, this should also apply to the host too. As I said it’s a workaround after all. And is free to test 😀 I suggested it because the OP needs to see the plug-in controls. My experience with DAW-s (or a hosting environment, thanks for the term) on iOS is that the plug-in window cannot be full screen. Not sure about Camelot, maybe you can maximize the window?

[Kawai James]

36 minutes ago, CyberGene said:

Not sure about Camelot, maybe you can maximize the window?

 

Yes, you can, but from what I can see (I've only just started using Camelot) the process takes a few taps, so it's not ideally suited to the OP's workflow.

[CyberGene]

I just tested with AUM, you can maximize the window (double tap on the top of the frame) and it will remember it for the next time.

 

I also tested with opening 4 synth apps in standalone mode with disabled background activity for these apps and switching between them through the task switcher. It also works and is pretty fast but mine are small apps. Ravenscroft is huge, so it may reload each time with this method.

[D. Gauss]

I'm still scratching my head that this hasn't already been addressed/solved ages ago.  i.e. before splits, layers, etc.   best analogy i can give is pretend you're Benmont Tench...

You gots a real piano, a real whurly and a B3 onstage. (lucky him).  

i just need that in the ipad WITH visual confirmation.  To address a few folks comments from above:

 

-again, YES you can set up a scene for each instrument and it works great for the audio.  Select song with multiple scenes. Make 3 or four scenes (Piano, whurly, b3).  Tap a scene, boom! sound changes great. back n forth no problem.  but, to see the GUI (and this is the 15:25 part of the video someone keeps referencing)...

 

you have to double tap the scene (we'll call it VB3)... the layers view pops up... now you have to double tap the VB3 instrument icon in the layer... and yes, NOW the VB3 gui pops up.  to get to the piano from this point?...  you have to close the VB3 gui, go back to scenes view, double tap the "piano" scene which opens the layers view, then double tap the "piano" instument icon.  That's A LOT of clicks to change from an organ to a piano WITH visual confirmation.

 

As far as i can tell, ALL the pieces are there to do this, as Camelot has no problems with switching the audio nor with displaying the GUI within the app.  They just make you go through too many clicks to get there.   

[CyberGene]

How about switching between the standalone instrument apps, as I proposed?

 

I initially mentioned the task manager/switcher but you can actually just press the home button once to exit the app and open the other app (just put all these instruments app on the same screen). You may have to disable background app refresh for these apps to be sure they won’t produce audio in the background.

[D. Gauss]

20 minutes ago, CyberGene said:

How about switching between the standalone instrument apps, as I proposed?

 

despite having a 256GB Ipad mini6 i was getting some glitches and other wonkiness doing that.  frankly, i shelled out the $$ for Camelot, so was hopeful to be able to do it that way.  it does everything else so well, and clearly the capability is there.

[miden]

If you run it in Layers mode and use the arrow keys at the top to scroll to the next song in the list, you can access the plugin GUI with a dbl tap.

 

In AUM it is a little easier  - as soon as you single tap on the plugin icon the plugin gui opens. A bit more awkward to access the session files though.

 

TBH, I am not sure what is so difficult about that??

[AnotherScott]

3 hours ago, D. Gauss said:

-again, YES you can set up a scene for each instrument and it works great for the audio.  Select song with multiple scenes. Make 3 or four scenes (Piano, whurly, b3).  Tap a scene, boom! sound changes great. back n forth no problem.  but, to see the GUI (and this is the 15:25 part of the video someone keeps referencing)...

 

you have to double tap the scene (we'll call it VB3)... the layers view pops up... now you have to double tap the VB3 instrument icon in the layer... and yes, NOW the VB3 gui pops up.  to get to the piano from this point?...  you have to close the VB3 gui, go back to scenes view, double tap the "piano" scene which opens the layers view, then double tap the "piano" instument icon.  That's A LOT of clicks to change from an organ to a piano WITH visual confirmation.

So my guess that it was a single tap was wrong... yes, a double-tap is required.

 

I think the issue may be more or less significant depending on whether you have one scene per song vs. multiple scenes for song. If you have one scene for a song, you can invoke the scene, go to the layers page, and stay on the layers page for the duration of the song, switching sounds and bringing up screens right from that screen as needed, no? That eliminates what sounds like the most cumbersome part, switching back and forth between Scene and Layer modes during the song. IOW, instead of making piano and organ two different scenes, you can have a single scene with the piano and organ, and then do everything from the layers screen. Maybe?

 

Something I'm curious about is whether you can invoke different Scenes via MIDI Program Change. Assuming your controller can easily send definable program changes, that would be another way where you could conceivably keep the app on the Layers screen, and not have to go to the Scene screen to change scenes, if you could change scenes from your keyboard. (Since there's no manual, I don't know whether this is possible, though...)

 

 

[D. Gauss]

2 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

So my guess that it was a single tap was wrong... yes, a double-tap is required.

 

I think the issue may be more or less significant depending on whether you have one scene per song vs. multiple scenes for song. If you have one scene for a song, you can invoke the scene, go to the layers page, and stay on the layers page for the duration of the song, switching sounds and bringing up screens right from that screen as needed, no? That eliminates what sounds like the most cumbersome part, switching back and forth between Scene and Layer modes during the song. IOW, instead of making piano and organ two different scenes, you can have a single scene with the piano and organ, and then do everything from the layers screen. Maybe?

 

Something I'm curious about is whether you can invoke different Scenes via MIDI Program Change. Assuming your controller can easily send definable program changes, that would be another way where you could conceivably keep the app on the Layers screen, and not have to go to the Scene screen to change scenes, if you could change scenes from your keyboard. (Since there's no manual, I don't know whether this is possible, though...)

 

 

i honestly appreciate this response, i do (and i thank you and everyone else here for contributing your valuable time and considerable knowledge), but, it's crazy to me this whole "songs" "layers" etc. world all you guys work within.   don't get me wrong, i do understand that kind of stuff if one had to pull off genesis songs or something and/or sync to a video screen or light show.  and.. it's great that these programs facilitate that to make life easier.  however, in my world, there are no set lists, pretty much everything is called on the fly, and things happen crazy fast and furious.  there's a couple hundred songs that may happen at any time. double click vs single click can make a world of diff here.  i have things set up pretty well using scenes now, and truth be told, i really only need to see the organ GUI when switching back and forth,(i.e. the piano setting is static so who really cares about the gui) but sadly i still can't make that happen.  I really wish camelot just had a static (not timeline/song related) "preset" mode where you could set up all your sounds and simply switch between them.  (scenes comes pretty close but it is still "song part-centric").  just give me 16 ableton live style chicklet buttons for 16 presets that i can switch on the fly and see the gui. (ooh it rhymes)