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Open Beta -- Sidecar MIDI Controller, now with AUv3 action!
I've been in the guts of a couple of apps over the past month or two, rejiggering everything for AUv3. Sidecar is dropping the wireless streaming (you didn't even know it was there, did you?), and will focus on just being a QWERTY-keyboard MIDI controller.
Apple has added support for up and down keypresses on the keyboard (they did this a while back, but I hadn't noticed before). You can now use the ASDF and ZXCV rows like a piano keyboard; you can play chords, and the key up/down turns notes on/off. Shift will take you up an octave, and there's an octave select on the main app interface.
There are ten "pages" of MIDI control, selected by the QWERTY row. Each page can be routed to different synths, while the number keys can be mapped to CC, PC, notes, or chords.
Sidecar was designed to handle slide-over on the iPad, so you could have one app running full screen, and then get the MIDI keyboard control with Sidecar hovering on top.
The new AUv3 stuff, which I think folks will really dig -- install Sidecar in an effects slot on an audio track (it does pass-through of audio). If you open the interface in your AUv3 host, the app can catch key strokes, and turn them in to MIDI.
For the AUv3, the QWERTY row will send to MIDI channels 1 through 10. Route the MIDI out from Sidecar to where-ever you want it to go, add filtering by channel, and you can easily switch between synths with the tap of the key. For the AUv3, the number keys send program change messages to the selected MIDI channel, so you can easily switch patches. I might make the number keys programmable in the future.
AUM works great as a host for Sidecar, and it remembers the MIDI routing for each session, so all the configuration is saved. The only thing to watch for is keyboard focus -- if the Sidecar UI is open, it can catch keystrokes -- but you can move the window to the side, so that it doesn't obscure anything else. If there are multiple AUv3 interfaces open, and they all accept keystrokes, something else might "grab" a key, and it won't get to Sidecar. It appears with AUM that the most recently opened interface gets priority -- so if keys are not being detected, try closing and then reopening the Sidecar interface.
A couple of new things are going to happen before the full release -- so there will likely be one more open beta before it goes to the app store. If this is your sort of thing, give it a spin and let me know if you spot trouble!
Comments
Patrick, this is awesome! Thanks for updating this gem.
Currently using my Magic Keyboard to play an AU synth. Yay!
Note that when using the QWERTY keys in the AU, the Sidecar window must be open.
Is there a reason that you declared the AU as an audio AU and not a MIDI AU. It would be nice if it were listed as an AUv3 mIdi in addition to as an audio effect. It is often more convenient to have purely MIDI stuff loaded that way in AUM.
@SecretBaseDesign : I forgot to mention this looks awesome and is a much needed tool
So, just in case I’m misunderstanding, this means you can use the iPad hardware keyboard as a midi keyboard??!
Yep
Awesome, will have to try this.
You’ve been busy… awesome thanks.
With the caveat that it needs to be the in-focus app to grab keystrokes. It's an iOS thing.
+1 for having it be a midi FX. It makes little sense for it to be loaded in an audio FX channel. And, I think not making it explicitly an AU Midi FX plugin might exclude it from working in other hosts, many of which don't implement midi out from audio FX properly.
@SecretBaseDesign - I'm sure some of the developers around here would be happy to point out the rather obscure AU Midi 4-letter plugin types and what they do. Apple doesn't make it easy with their crap documentation for AUv3s.
Yep -- I can switch it over, I think, w/o having to do any major surgery to the code. I normally create an audio track with a synth at the top -- and because I already have a track, I just drop Sidecar into an effects slot.
That would be great. For me, my typical use in AUM (and Loopy Pro) would be to load it into a MIDI slot and route it as needed to a sequencer or script or the midi control system. I'll likely often be using it as a control surface to trigger things.
I like the sound of this workflow too. Can we please have both an AU & midiAU options?
Anyway to use shift, spacebar, etc etc for shortcuts and/or CC/PC assignments?
@SecretBaseDesign, any possibility that the AU plugin could offer the same programmable pads as the standalone? Currently it’s possible to run the full Sidecar side by side with a host, but it would be nice to be able to have that same UI available when running as a plugin.
Possible -- but I may hold off until the next release. There's a lot of UI stuff that I have to put in, to make the pads configurable, and I've got to make it fit and work in the plug-in interface.
The shift key can be used to move the "piano" keyboard up/down an octave. I think I'll add control, and have it change modulation on the ASDF row, and velocity on the ZXCV row. I can do pitch bend as well.
In the next update, I've got a toggle so that you can map the number keys to a fixed MIDI channel if you want. For my use case, I've got a the AudioKit looper; use MIDI learn on that to map to start/stop/record a loop. With a fixed MIDI channel, the looper controls are always available, no matter what synth I'm playing.
@SecretBaseDesign Does this mean it’s time to dust off the ion arcade controller you once (indirectly) made me buy for Sidecar?
Could be one fancy Loopy Pro controller…
Yikes! I don't remember who it was, but someone asked for iCade support, and I put it in. Let's blame them for the iCade stuff. I've got two of the controllers, in fact -- seemed like a good idea at the time! The AUv3 does not have iCade support, but the main app still does.
Can we get the spacebar enabled also? I’d like to use it to start/stop the transport in BM3 via midi assignment. Actually It’d be cool to have the entire bottom row of keys be assignable also including ⬅️⬆️⬇️➡️
Ah well - for a moment there I was dreaming that one of my many pieces of obsolete tech junk was about to become the most desired and valuable retro controller ever invented… One of them has got to come good one day, if I can just keep them safe from the purges. If you do enable it in the AUv3 I promise to use it
Sorry, a little off thread, but I was wondering whether you still are seeing something in visual synth. I think it still leaves behind a lot of other visual/music apps in what it can do..
BM3 question -- is there a way that the Sidecar UI can be "open" while you're using BM3? If the Sidecar UI isn't open, the plug-in can't catch keystrokes, so there's no way to generate the MIDI triggers. With both AUM and Loopy Pro, the UI can be open, and can be dragged to the side of the screen.
I'm not a BM3 user; just downloaded it this morning to do a little bit of testing.
And same question with Cubasis 3.... it also seems to have a hard open/closed AUv3 UI organization.
I'm mostly an AUM user; IMO, Kymatica got everything exactly right. Loopy Pro also has a well-thought-out plug-in interface; the MIDI routing is just a little bit weird, but once I figured out how to hook things up, it was solid. Some of the other hosts, though... a little sketchy.
Yes, it can be to the side ‘over the top of BM3’ which is perfectly fine for my needs (in stand-alone). I do the same thing with Tonality when I want to play complex chords.
Yes most hosts don’t like lingering auv3 windows and make u pick which one is ‘in focus’. How do you use sidecar as an auv3 btw? I’m not really understanding it
Both great apps and great devs, they’ve mastered the modular concept.
It works quite nicely in aum, I wonder if having two sets of playable keys (adding the qwerty and number rows) would be possible, with channel selection still available using the command key as a modifier? - Back to the old school Amiga tracker style 😁
It's on the maybe-someday pile right now. I think it's a really fun concept, but the potential market for it is fairly small, and it'll be really hard to explain the app well enough that people "get" it. Video folks, coupled with those who actually use and understand MIDI -- not a big audience.
But, on the other hand -- all of the software APIs that I needed to get familiar with, I've had to pick up as part of other projects. So, not a ton of work left to polish it up, and ship it out the door in a more coherent state. And having the app done will make it easier for me to generate how-to videos....
Hmmmm.. It's not completely dead. Maybe it's time to shock it back to life.
I would disagree.
I think the interest in Imaginando's Visual Synth has shown otherwise.
Visual Synth has potential.
I can't get the AU to detect keystrokes, maybe I'm doing something wrong. But "Trigger a Note" works as intended. The standalone works great, except the / key has an issue with polyphony.
@SecretBaseDesign is there an existing mechanism to bind a “always on” keystroke to bring the AU instance into focus at least for other apps?
In AUM I can just bind it to SHOW PLUGIN in the MIDI CONTROL section of the setup/preferences. That makes instances window visible and in focus.
Do we know that the interest is significant? I’d be cautious about extrapolating too much from AB forum. Sometimes apps get a lot of discussion here but don’t generate enough sales to have compensated the developer for their time, sadly.
Which AU host? This is something that I'm tinkering with, and trying to figure out what the rules are. None of this is documented very well, or if it is, I have not found it -- so I'm sort of poking around, to see what works.
For AUM, it seems like the most-recently-opened plug-in interface has priority -- so try closing the Sidecar interface, and then re-opening it. Interacting with the UI (for example, the trigger-the-note button) also seems to change focus in some instances.
@audiblevideo
AFAIK, there's no way to get a keystroke without having focus -- so no way for my AUv3 to do that. In theory, the host might have a way to catch the keystroke, and use that to bring up a particular AU interface. With AUM, it's set up for MIDI events to do that, but if Kymatica adds the option to have a QWERTY key do that, then it could work.
I'm fiddling with the AUM MIDI learn right now, and it seems like keyboard focus is away from the plug-in while the MIDI Learn dialog/slide-over is active. I'm also getting a crash while messing with this stuff; have to dive in and see what that's about.
@SecretBaseDesign how does sidecar use the ‘shift’ button? Do I need to set that up? It currently doesn’t change anything for me