Musical Typing with computer keyboard on iOS?

insucedible · February 2021

Hi there,

Is there any app / AUv3 with which I could use to play instruments by using a regular computer keyboard? That’s sometimes called “musical typing” on Macs:

bigcatrik · February 2021

Sidecar was what I used when I looked for something like this. But iOS won't recognize a key release so it doesn't work as well as one would hope. You can use instruments with natural decays and it kind of works, though.

insucedible · February 2021

Thanks @bigcatrik

One would think key release would also be useful for kbd support in games.

uncledave · February 2021

@insucedible said:
Thanks @bigcatrik

One would think key release would also be useful for kbd support in games.

Drambo has recently acquired this capability. Looks like it supports two octaves, on the 1/Q rows and the A/Z rows, with the black notes above the white (means not all the black row keys are used). Not sure if it includes octave or transpose keys. It could probably output that MIDI to other apps. Seems like a strange desire to me, since there are excellent screen keyboards available, but there you go.

Edit: Looks like the (unshifted) +/- are octave up/down.

Will · February 2021

@bigcatrik said:
Sidecar was what I used when I looked for something like this. But iOS won't recognize a key release so it doesn't work as well as one would hope. You can use instruments with natural decays and it kind of works, though.

Apple finally added support for key release (“keyup”) in 13.4. Don’t know if sidecar knows how to handle the events though.

https://www.swiftbysundell.com/tips/handling-keyup-and-keydown-events/

supadom · February 2021

Drambo

insucedible · February 2021

Awesome! Thanks everyone

Optahealth · October 13

Yes, I am looking for the same feature. I see it in Loopy, but is there anything else that will work with all apps?
Recently got out of Florida - oncoming hurricanianes, and I left my musical keyboards behind. Looking for something to work in the meantime.

In Loopy is there a way to get it to “Stick” what I mean is every time I click on something inside the AUv3 synth or fx, for example just changing a patch, the computer keyboard loses connection and needs to be reactivated or the the window closed before it will resume working.

espiegel123 · October 14

@Optahealth said:
Yes, I am looking for the same feature. I see it in Loopy, but is there anything else that will work with all apps?
Recently got out of Florida - oncoming hurricanianes, and I left my musical keyboards behind. Looking for something to work in the meantime.

In Loopy is there a way to get it to “Stick” what I mean is every time I click on something inside the AUv3 synth or fx, for example just changing a patch, the computer keyboard loses connection and needs to be reactivated or the the window closed before it will resume working.

The OS gives the active window, the keyboard's focus. So when using musical typing, tapping in windows can steal the focus from Loopy Pro.

wim · October 14

@Optahealth said:
Yes, I am looking for the same feature. I see it in Loopy, but is there anything else that will work with all apps?
Recently got out of Florida - oncoming hurricanianes, and I left my musical keyboards behind. Looking for something to work in the meantime.

In Loopy is there a way to get it to “Stick” what I mean is every time I click on something inside the AUv3 synth or fx, for example just changing a patch, the computer keyboard loses connection and needs to be reactivated or the the window closed before it will resume working.

SideCar MIDI Controller has a plugin that can extend this to other hosts. But it's subject to the same limitation about the keyboard focus. There's nothing anyone can do about that as it's a function of how iOS/iPadOS pegs the focus of the typing keyboard always to the last tapped window.