e-Instruments - Pure Piano

[cphollis]

 

Patiently waiting for the rest of the SWAM instruments to make it to iOS. On the hunt for a decent clavi, wurli, etc. My new nighttime hobby is re-tracking a bunch of previous stuff with the new instruments. Makes a big difference.

 

Chuck- were you aware that the SWAM instruments can be purchased within GeoShred and be played from any controller, even utilizing MPE?

 

I picked up the SWAM instruments for GeoShred when they were offered on sale a few months back.

 

Yes, thanks. The SWAM instruments seem to come in different versions, each with a different level of control/expressiveness (and different prices!). The top shelf are the Mac versions, you give up a few small things on the iOS version but are much less expensive. The least-expensive GeoShred versions give up a lot.

 

I've been messing with them for a while. For example, the SWAM trumpet on GeoShred is OK, that same instrument on native iOS sounds better, has more control and expressiveness. Just like anything else, you get what you pay for.

 

Anyway, I'm holding on for the native iOS versions. At $30 a pop, they are pricey for iOS apps but dirt cheap in terms of what they can do.

[Theo Verelst]

If the sound wasn't so murky or some way I would like, and made by some original re-synthesis from a well written piece of Arm code, I still don't have the impression it gets even the simple chords or medium fast note response right.

 

T

[dickiefunk]

I bought this a few days ago and so far it is working really well. I also have Ravenscroft but get audio crackles at a 256 buffer.

So far I"m not getting any crackles with Pure Piano even at the 128 buffer size. My only niggle so far is the damper pedal noise is too loud for some situations. I wish there was a control to be able to turn the damper pedal noise down!?

[ewall08530]

Question for anyone using this app:

 

Is there a midi # learn function buried somewhere? I cannot get it to respond to volume changes either on an M-Audio 61 ES. Or a Casio PX S-3000 with knob 1 set to control volume over Zone 1 (full keyboard). I can get Korg Module and iGrand to work with those boards but I"m not able to get it with Pure Piano.

[Reezekeys]

ewall, I can confirm that this app does not respond to midi volume. I've looked through the help and on their website, and there is zero mention I can see describing any midi automation other than CC14 and 15 for the morph pad.

[miden]

tbh, and jmo, it's a "solitaire" app...one you muck around with when bored coz it's sorta fun...but essentially non-useful.

[Reezekeys]

If I can do a gig with it it's useful! I'm still getting things together (including trying to put it on my iPhone, which I can't seem to do at the moment) but may post a short review soon.

[Al Quinn]

I have Pure Piano on my iPhone 12 Pro and it works well. I don't recall doing anything special to get it on there. I was playing it the other day with a Korg MicroKey Air 61, which has very few controls, so I just used the volume buttons on the side of the iPhone to get the volume where I wanted it.

 

If I wanted to control the volume with a midi control I think I would load Pure Piano into AUM and control the Pure Piano channel volume in AUM with the midi control.

[Reezekeys]

My issue is that I downloaded Pure Piano onto my iPad. I'm signed into iCloud on my iPhone with the same Apple ID. You're supposed to be able to share purchases across all your I-devices if they have the same Apple ID. It worked with VTines - I downloaded that onto the iPad, then it showed up as a purchase on my iPhone and I was able to download it to the phone. Not so with Pure Piano. I assume I'll have this solved soon. I hope so, since my iPhone SE2020 has an A13 chip vs my old iPad Air 2's A8X.

 

I guess I'll need AUM or something similar to get volume control. Seems silly to have to pay more for a "volume control" than you did for the app needing it! What's up there, e-instruments?

[dickiefunk]

I"ve been playing this app for a few days now and really like this piano app a lot! However, I really wish there was a separate control for the damper pedal noise?

I have dialled in the tone I want to use but at these settings the damper pedal noise is also increased quite a lot? If I try to reposition the settings on the morph pad to lower the pedal noise this also changes the tone of the piano as well! It would be nice to have another control hammer and key release noises.

One final feature I would love to have in Pure Piano is a way to transfer presets between different devices. GSI VB3m has a cloud based system where you can upload and download your presets and I would love to have this on Pure Piano as well.

[SteinwayB]

I'm curious as to the hardware best suited to run this app. My Ipad 4 (32 bit) is a dinosaur and I've been contemplating purchasing an Ipad 8 which has A12 processor for $400 or splurge on Ipad pro with M1 processor (which may be overkill, but would delay obsolescence). I would like to be able to run this app with a buffer at 128 (would be only app running) without any pops/cracks. I would use it for live jazz performance so I would not want any noticable latency. Would the Ipad 8 suit my purposes?

[Reezekeys]

I'm curious as to the hardware best suited to run this app. My Ipad 4 (32 bit) is a dinosaur and I've been contemplating purchasing an Ipad 8 which has A12 processor for $400 or splurge on Ipad pro with M1 processor (which may be overkill, but would delay obsolescence). I would like to be able to run this app with a buffer at 128 (would be only app running) without any pops/cracks. I would use it for live jazz performance so I would not want any noticable latency. Would the Ipad 8 suit my purposes?

 

You got me inspired to challenge my Final Cut Pro abilities (which are admittedly very basic at the moment!) by seeing how quickly I could whip a demo video together. I believe this should answer most of your questions. My iPad is older than the one you're looking to buy. Latency is more noticeable to me than my typical laptop setup but I'm guessing that my connection method is mostly responsible; I'm not going directly from my keyboard to the iPad - instead I'm using "Inter-device Audio and Midi Mode" from my MacBook Pro. The latency is still in my "acceptable" zone - I could do a gig like this. By next week I should have the iOS dongle for directly attaching my keyboard to the iPad and will report back as to how that works.

 

Please excuse the super-sloppy playing of this Herbie Hancock chestnut! I did try to use the sustain pedal a bit more, to give the software a good workout. The audio comes direct from the Pure Piano app, no extra sound shaping was applied.

 

[video:youtube]

[drawback]

Nice playing! I really like the chalky sound from the mid-high octaves on this app. The others I have (Ravenscroft, Ivory American) are a bit clangy in that respect.

[Reezekeys]

Thanks! Actually I"ve been listening to this through a few different sources and I think my headphones may be giving me a false sonic image. It sounded OK in my cans but very bright playing from other places.

 

In general, I like the tone, and the piano responds fairly well to my dynamics. It definitely doesn"t 'sing' like the piano I"m used to, which is the Grandeur from Native Instruments. Of course it"s probably not fair to compare an iOS piano to one of the higher end Mac/Windows offerings, especially given its price. Just a little more of a ringing sustain would"ve made this piano better imo. I also noticed a note or two where the unisons were a little off. Still, as I"ve said a few times in this thread (or maybe it was the thread I started regarding the dongle for my phone), I could definitely do a gig with this piano.

[Baldwin Funster]

I just started messing with the ilectric free android EP thing from IK. Lots of complaints about ilectric glitching and it does for me but I managed to find some high performance settings on my phone and I've got it to work and not glitch. It's a pretty plain ep with no tremelo or much gak (the sound of a rhodes hit hard) but it's better than the ep in my jdxi. Good for free .

[Reezekeys]

Latency is more noticeable to me than my typical laptop setup but I'm guessing that my connection method is mostly responsible; I'm not going directly from my keyboard to the iPad - instead I'm using "Inter-device Audio and Midi Mode" from my MacBook Pro. The latency is still in my "acceptable" zone - I could do a gig like this. By next week I should have the iOS dongle for directly attaching my keyboard to the iPad and will report back as to how that works.

tl;dr - I got the dongle and it works but the audio is compromised. Latency is much better compared to the connection method described above. We're close â but not quite there yet, not for me anyway. I might have gotten a dud though. I would pay extra for an Apple-branded adapter but they don't sell one that has both USB and a 3.5mm headphone jack. If you have some time to kill:

 

https://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3097322/re-ios-folks-anyone-using-this-kind-of-non-apple-dongle#Post3097322

[AnotherScott]

A review on the app store says it is Omni only (i.e. you can't assign it to respond to only a single specified MIDI channel), is that true? If so, that essentially makes it useless for performance unless you intend it to be the only sound you''ll be playing from your i-device. (Same issue as Garageband.)

[Reezekeys]

It's true. And it doesn't respond to any midi controllers except sustain, and #14 & #15 for its "morph pad." No control of volume.

[mobi]

. you can't assign it to respond to only a single specified MIDI channel), is that true? If so, that essentially makes it useless for performance unless you intend it to be the only sound you''ll be playing from your i-device.

 

 

One way to overcome this is to use it as AUv3 inside Keystage or Camelot

[ewall08530]

I used Pure Piano on a 5 hour solo piano gig on Friday. It"s installed on an iPad Air 3rd gen. I also installed AUM to host Pure Piano along with Korg Module for Ep"s, Srings and pads. Doing that allowed me to control the volume of both apps with knob 1 on my Casio PX S-3000.

I used a dongle similar to the one Reezekeys tried but mine doesn"t have the mini out, so I used the iPad headphone output.

I was able to keep the iPad charged while triggering the sounds, all through the lightening port.

 

Both apps responded very well with no glitches and not enough latency to distract or effect the performance. I was looking for a way to have better sounding acoustic pianos and Ep"s than the onboard ones in the Casio when playing solo piano. In the past I"ve used iGrand with some success but I"ll be trying Pure Piano more because I find it fun to play and easy to set up some different sounding/ eq"d pianos for variety.

[AnotherScott]

. you can't assign it to respond to only a single specified MIDI channel), is that true? If so, that essentially makes it useless for performance unless you intend it to be the only sound you''ll be playing from your i-device.

 

One way to overcome this is to use it as AUv3 inside Keystage or Camelot

Good to know, thanks. That should solve the problem nicely, albeit requiring a little more knowledge to setup. AFAIK, Garageband still doesn't have that option, either.