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What happened to Modstep?
I’m into iPad music making since 2019. I’m also a regular on this forum since then. Now I stumbled over Modstep and it seems to be a very advanced sequencer. Why I have never heard of it before? Well, the appstore reviews are devastating. People complaining about the high instability of the app. Is that the whole story? Why is nobody using Modstep?
Comments
Its a great MIDI sequencer that came off the rails when they decided to make it a host for AUv3 and IAA apps. From that point it never evolved and they never really fixed the instabilities hosting brought in. It hasn't had updates or bug fixes for years.
The developers got sidetracked with developing a DJ style app that took a huge amount of time to develop and didn't end up being as successful as they hoped. Lately they focused on improving StudioMux. They teased a Modstep 2 some years ago but it has never appeared.
Its interface is odd in many ways and takes some real getting used to. But once you get past that, and if you don't host any apps in it, it's really great.
As long as you avoid using AUv3's (ie. stick to midi and the internal instruments) it was pretty stable...
...I deleted it long time ago and have no intention on re-installing it again just to get frustrated by it all over again.
(I tried really hard to become 'friends' with the different editors, file-management etc. but gave up, not worth it for me).
It was an ambitious project and shipped with a ton of drum-samples, midi-templates for various synths for easy automation...
This is just my personal reflection, some may still use and love it, I'm just not one of them
I think the next version is coming at an unknown date (I've seen an interesting recent update in the beta forum).
And yeah it works great with midi only
I used it all the time to sequence auv3 synths hosted in AUM. It works great in that manner. I love it as a Midi Sequencer...but since it's release, a lot of good Midi sequencers have arrived.
Here's something I put together on the setup process:
Still hoping for an update in the near future...
That sounds as if they should have made it an AU itself, to be hosted in AUM, apeMatrix and friends and focus on evolving their sequencer and clip launcher. Pity.
It predated auv3 by many years. It was one of the first fully featured midi sequencers on the platform, and I am sure the conversion to auv3 would take a while to implement.
Maybe they are doing this now...not sure though. One of the devs also works on Andrew Huang's app...so I am sure it's an issue of not enough hours in the day to do it all
You can now achieve a good measure of what Modstep offers in Imaginando's LK auv3 midi sequencer if you enjoy this type of Clip based workflow.
The sad saga of what happened to Modstep when they went down the app hosting road used to make me feel that this was a terrible path for other apps to take. But, seeing how excellently it has worked out for Drambo, and now Loopy Pro, has changed my mind.
I love when you change your mind
I love when my inbuilt pessimism is proven wrong.
Being a "realist" ain't all it's cracked up to be.
it's the human condition to live learn and love
Let's hope Modstep follows this logic
Y’all are the coolest, always meant to say.
I
you too my sweet little palimpsest !
I’m working in the software industry. From my experiences I would even say that this is a classic failure. An over ambitious project that exceeds the actual capabilities or budget is bringing the whole thing down. I’m convinced that building a rock solid AU host is surely one of the biggest challenges for music apps. And you must see that all AU hosts except Cubasis haven’t successfully implemented multi core rendering. This really is a hard thing to do right.
I wouldn't classify Modstep as a failure. The app itself works as designed, but due to the nature of early adoption of hosting auv3 apps it became unstable at times. A lot of what they were doing was undocumented hackery on their part. FWIW, a lot of the 'better apps' like Aparillo, Moog Model 15, Factory worked very well in the environment...it was when you started using AudioKit apps that everything went haywire...from my experience.
Sure, it did not deliver a stable auv3 host environment all of the time, and needs to be fixed...but there are definitely ways to use the app with auv3 hosted in AUM. I hope they've ironed out a lot of those issues with their rebuilding of Studiomux...but we'll have to see what their plans are.
I've watched this space evolve from the early days, and what Modstep attempted was ambitious and full of risk, but what they delivered hit 85-90% of their mark...and I just hope they can repair that missing 10-15% which hopefully time has healed and clarified for them.
Spoken as a Modstep fanboy of course, since it helped me understand the whole nature of a modular music making environment on the iPad.
I'm anxiously awaiting the return of the prodigal son Modstep
As a midi clip composer sequencer, I still think it's peerless.
LK is great as a piano roll midi arranger AU but doesn't have the equivalent built in step sequencer as Modstep which is really good.
+1, exactly.
I'm also a Modstep user, and I endorse this statement.
I am surprised by the ModStep as failed app comments. Perhaps it isn’t the ultra stable as an AU host, but is great for sending MIDI: stable reliable clock, solid clip launcher. Still works great for those things. It is a pretty interesting step sequencer
Apps in this market often don’t generate enough revenue to justify ongoing development. Hopefully, modstep 2 will benefit from things the dev has learned while getting the new Studiomux out the door.
I think so too. A beautiful app in its core, plus a really unique little synth that I don't know how many are actually using.
The workflow reminds me a bit of BM3, I've been wondering about "how to do this or that" a bit too often for my taste. LK, AUM and Drambo have replaced it for me. And Loopy Pro will soon join the family I guess.
It’s definitely been abandoned for sure, however last I tried it was working just fine. It’s been a couple years since I tried, so I don’t know about on the latest iOS though.
I didn‘t mean that Modstep is a failure but I think the project to make it an AU host failed. For me it sounds as if this ruined the app for many users. I mean, I don’t know the app. I just found out it exists. It has very negative reviews and it looks like that many users turned their back to this app. I think therefore you can truly say that it failed many of its users. We have mega threads about virtually any other complex clip launcher or AU host here on the forum and I wanted to know why Modstep doesn‘t have such an attention although it sounds very powerful.
You also asked about why it's not talked about more. The sequencing world has changed radically in the time since Modstep development went quiet. It's actually getting to be a pretty crowded field, with several excellent choices now.
Still, Modstep has a uniqueness about it that can be inspiring. Like when I pick up my poor dust covered nylon string guitar after forgetting about it for a year ... eh ... maybe more like if I picked up a lute.
And, even though it hasn't been updated, it worked fine last time I tried it (as a midi sequencer. I never use it for hosting apps.)
This is a case where I wouldn't judge an app based on the reviews. There is a review that it is the best sequencer but doesn't load for the reviewer. It loads fine for me in 14.8.1 and has in all versions of the OS except for 14.2....which had a bug that crashed many apps using coremidi. It is a complicated piece of software...so, i can understand bad reviews from people looking for something simpler. But some apps are by their nature 5-star for some and 0 star for others.
It used to be talked about quite a lot, but I think wim nailed it in that there are a lot of other options now that are being actively maintained and are easier to learn.
Good points, but I think I‘ll wait for Modstep 2. The developers did a good job with their 2nd version of StudioMux. It is a brilliant idea but version one was a crashfest. Now it just works great. Let’s hope it will be the same with Modstep 2.
Much as others have commented, Modstep for me was peerless when it was first released. Its Ableton like approach to MIDI clip sequencing was exactly what I was looking for in an iOS sequencer at the time. But times change and Modstep didn't.
I still hold out hope for Modstep 2. The developer spent close to 12 months ironing out the wrinkles from Studiomux so maybe he'll take the same steady approach with Modstep 2 now that Studiomux 2 has been released.
Aren’t these the same folks who developed “Touch-Able”? Didn’t they announce on this forum that they would continue Modstep development after TouchAble was finished? And they even posted some mock ups of the new version of Modstep if I remember correctly?
You're wrong about that but each to their own, @wim.
Using modstep a few years ago when first getting into iOS music, with the clip and scene launching, gave me the lightbulb moment about the whole Ableton style workflow...the vertical arrangement concept...was mind blowing for me at the time
fwiw, just tested it out this morning on iOS 15.1 on the iPad Pro, and it runs as great as ever...such a magical app imho.
On the other hand, being a contrarian is highly underrated.