Zenbeats Version 3

joegrant413

Although I've been into synths for several years now, I confess to not yet really knowing and appreciating classic Roland sounds.

With Zenbeats v3, how well do the classic Roland synth sounds compare to TAL-U-NO-LX on the iPad?

ecamburn

@joegrant413 someone earlier in this thread expressed opinions about that. To me the Electro series are like romplers giving you very little sound shaping controls. The sounds themselves sort of remind me of korg im1 in that they reflect an earlier era. 80s or 90s? They seem pretty “clean” if that makes sense.

anickt

@joegrant413 said:
Although I've been into synths for several years now, I confess to not yet really knowing and appreciating classic Roland sounds.

With Zenbeats v3, how well do the classic Roland synth sounds compare to TAL-U-NO-LX on the iPad?

A lot of what people consider “classic Roland synth sounds” are just “synth sounds” that can be reasonably recreated on just about any synth. I’d suggest finding and using sounds that work for you and your music without worrying too much where they come from. IMHO 😎👍🏼

joegrant413

@ecamburn said:
@joegrant413 someone earlier in this thread expressed opinions about that. To me the Electro series are like romplers giving you very little sound shaping controls. The sounds themselves sort of remind me of korg im1 in that they reflect an earlier era. 80s or 90s? They seem pretty “clean” if that makes sense.

@eccecelllo I'm OK with knowing that an app won't give me deep sound design capabilities on a vintage synth. I have only recently come to acknowledge I'm more of a curator vs. a designer with respect to timbre.

Ummmm... what is the "Electro" series?

joegrant413

Basically I'm wondering if I should pop for the TAL app on iPad, or just go with Zenbeats to catch whatever compelling unique goodness there is to Roland sounds.

MatthewAtZenbeats

@GLacey said:

@CapnWillie said:
@GLacey ….Try to slide here:

@MatthewAtZenbeats the keyboard slide zone needs to be improved.

I tried to grab that thin edge of the slider, even with my Apple pencil (just out of curiosity), but got more or less the same result.
Finally I found out they might have changed the way, how the UI processes the vertical and horizontal drags. In v2 I could drag along both axes at the same time, meaning the keyboard could be resized and slid horizontally at the same time.
In v3 once I start to drag along one of the axes the UI won’t process any movement along the other axis until I lift off my finger and tap the slider again. Maybe it was not a bad idea to change the UI behaviour this way, BUT it seems the UI is much more sensitive to the vertical movements than the horizontal ones. If I want to slide the keyboard left or right I have to be superprecise to drag strictly horizontally while resizing with vertical drag is very easy.
@MatthewAtZenbeats, can you please put this on your list?

This oddity will be fixed in 3.0.1

MatthewAtZenbeats

@Korakios said:
The cpu spikes while editing automation where on v2 , haven't tested on v3

We're looking into this one. It might now make the first patch, but its high on the radar!

wim

Zenbeats is my most used and liked DAW.

That said, getting into a particular DAW to look for particular synth sounds seems odd to me. Everyone should own TAL. It's a classic and it's low on CPU. Well worth the cost in just fun and learning alone. There are tons of presets to be found. It's also a really easy synth to learn.

Zen is free to try (with limited features) BTW. I imagine you can get enough of an idea of the included synth sounds from the free version to give you an idea whether it's worth getting into for that aspect though.

Korakios

@joegrant413 said:
Although I've been into synths for several years now, I confess to not yet really knowing and appreciating classic Roland sounds.

With Zenbeats v3, how well do the classic Roland synth sounds compare to TAL-U-NO-LX on the iPad?

@joegrant413 said:
Basically I'm wondering if I should pop for the TAL app on iPad, or just go with Zenbeats to catch whatever compelling unique goodness there is to Roland sounds.

Hi , you can try the 1 month free subscription and check if ZC1 (the zenology player synth inside Zenbeats on iOS) sounds nice or not

tahiche

@DanSebPage said:

All my AUv3 effects appear to load fine (and a lot of my synths work fine too, for the record), but trying to automate anything and then moving automation points around, (during playback) immediately crashes the AUv3 plugin on everything I've tried so far.

(11" M1 iPad Pro 2021)

Same here on a 2018 iPad Pro.

BroCoast

@joegrant413 said:
Although I've been into synths for several years now, I confess to not yet really knowing and appreciating classic Roland sounds.

With Zenbeats v3, how well do the classic Roland synth sounds compare to TAL-U-NO-LX on the iPad?

TAL is much better IMO.

You can try out all the ZC-1 packs for free for a month. They sounded pretty generic to me, reminds me of the synth sounds on my old RD-700.

Contrary to what’s been said, there is a Roland sound and we wouldn’t go so nuts over the vintage units if there wasn’t something there.

TAL is pretty dead on for the Juno sound and can approximate the 101 quite well.

joegrant413

Thx for the TAL feedback.

Odd name for an app though

wim

Short for TAL-UN-O-LX. The developer is TAL (TAL Software GmbH a long time desktop software synth dev) and the app is an emulation of the 80’s era Roland JUNO-6 synth.

qryss

Juno-6 or 60. LX is Latin for 60, after all...

wim

@qryss said:
Juno-6 or 60. LX is Latin for 60, after all...

Ahh. I knew the LX had to have some meaning. 👍

pr4y_4_beats

@mjm1138 said:

@mjm1138 said:
FWIW I'm also getting the slow start-up times (around a minute, M1 iPad Pro), and I noticed that my audio interface sits there blinking for a large part of it, like it's initializing itself over and over again, or like Zenbeats is testing different sample rates or something. The screen reads "loading drum sounds" as that's happening if I recall correctly.

Oh and if I unplug the iPad from the interface startup is much quicker. If I plug the interface in while Zenbeats is at the Home Screen, it crashes. So it seems to me like maybe something has changed with how audio interfaces get initiated. Others seeing long startups, are you using an external DAC/Interface?

I get long load times on my 2020 iPad pro 11in and also on my Samsung Galaxy S9 (I do have lots of samples, but not many imported right into ZB and I deleted alot of packs I never use and I still see long wait times and I don't use an audio interface really until I want to record some vocals... So no interface, still slow

pr4y_4_beats

@DMfan said:
Just updated to 15.5, iPad Air 4.

Started ZB3 as the first app and it took 26 seconds. Pretty reasonable considering I have a good amount of packs, projects and loops. Slower though than ZB2…

/DMfan🇸🇪

Idk why but I'm nervous to update to 5.5 but maybe alot of the little bugs in other apps would go away ?

pr4y_4_beats

@Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr said:

@wim said:
Zenbeats is [...] the most Ableton Live like experience on iOS.

Loopy Pro has monopolized my attention for now, but before that Zenbeats was my go-to.

How far ahead of Loopy is Zenbeats in enabling the Ableton clip-to-timeline experience?

Bro. It's great. Idk about loopy Pro. But you literally just "arm the timeline" and then once you start playing it's recording to the timeline, each track and each loop you can play live and record to timeline. It's extremely smooth. Idk how loopy Pro is at the loop to timeline I didn't realize they had that even

DMfan

Idk why but I'm nervous to update to 5.5 but maybe alot of the little bugs in other apps would go away ?

FWIW, I have no issues after upgrading to 15.5 as a whole, everything seems stable. As stated earlier in the thread, there are some issues though after upgrading ZB itself and they will hopefully be fixed in upcoming patches.

/ DMfan🇸🇪

RetroNewb

Yet to update due to MidiFX bug , but thought I should post to request @MatthewAtZenbeats that ideally
a deeper rewrite of the internal midi routing would be more useful :

firstly there is the issue that it seems impossible in ZB2 to route multichannel midifx to different tracks ,
e.g 4Pockets Euclidean to send each of its 4 parts to a seperate channel to play a different instrument .

secondly there is the issue of not being able to send midi to AUv3 audioFx which have midicontrol built in ,
whether they are channel audiofx or on a send **(more later)
I am referring particularly to changing presets for SugarBytes Looperator or Effectrix , which has this built in performance functionality by triggering presets with midinotes - except you can’t seemingly? route the midinotes to the AUv3FX .
FabFilter has a built in preset change function using Program Change messages , so I add +1 to previous requests
in this thread for Program Change messages , but including for internal routing as well as transmitting to hardware.

The current irony/frustration for me about needing to change presets is that the ZB AU parameter automation seems so complete I could literally set each of hundreds of parameters to change the preset - except “preset change” itself doesn't seem to be available as an automatable parameter -
I don’t know if this is a lack in the AUV3 itself or ZB .

**Finally , could it be possible to have Send Clips as a way of automating (preset change & parameters, both via midi & AU parameters ) ?
My intention is to use the Loop Builder as a dubby performance environment with preprogrammed automation Clips For the Send buses but I see no way to do this currently .

(I would also welcome midifeedback of values for controllers such as Launchpad, X Touch & APC40. )

Hopefully all the above is already possible & someone will explain what I have missed ,
or is being worked on & will arrive as part of the update ,
or @MatthewAtZenbeats will confirm they will be added to the list .

Obviously glad for new update & grateful for the work the devs put in ,
these requests are to make Zenbeats my primary IOS workspace .

MatthewAtZenbeats

@RetroNewb said:
Yet to update due to MidiFX bug , but thought I should post to request @MatthewAtZenbeats that ideally
a deeper rewrite of the internal midi routing would be more useful :

firstly there is the issue that it seems impossible in ZB2 to route multichannel midifx to different tracks ,
e.g 4Pockets Euclidean to send each of its 4 parts to a seperate channel to play a different instrument .

secondly there is the issue of not being able to send midi to AUv3 audioFx which have midicontrol built in ,
whether they are channel audiofx or on a send **(more later)
I am referring particularly to changing presets for SugarBytes Looperator or Effectrix , which has this built in performance functionality by triggering presets with midinotes - except you can’t seemingly? route the midinotes to the AUv3FX .
FabFilter has a built in preset change function using Program Change messages , so I add +1 to previous requests
in this thread for Program Change messages , but including for internal routing as well as transmitting to hardware.

The current irony/frustration for me about needing to change presets is that the ZB AU parameter automation seems so complete I could literally set each of hundreds of parameters to change the preset - except “preset change” itself doesn't seem to be available as an automatable parameter -
I don’t know if this is a lack in the AUV3 itself or ZB .

**Finally , could it be possible to have Send Clips as a way of automating (preset change & parameters, both via midi & AU parameters ) ?
My intention is to use the Loop Builder as a dubby performance environment with preprogrammed automation Clips For the Send buses but I see no way to do this currently .

(I would also welcome midifeedback of values for controllers such as Launchpad, X Touch & APC40. )

Hopefully all the above is already possible & someone will explain what I have missed ,
or is being worked on & will arrive as part of the update ,
or @MatthewAtZenbeats will confirm they will be added to the list .

Obviously glad for new update & grateful for the work the devs put in ,
these requests are to make Zenbeats my primary IOS workspace .

Thanks for the detailed requests! Will log these for consideration. More immediate, the fix for missing MIDI effects and several other bugs reported will be in the 3.0.1 patch. And of course, more to come in 3.0.2, etc.

dinegrdein

Hello everyone i'm trying to record some beats from zenbeats 3 to Cubasis 3 via Audiobus on my ipad 6th gen ios 14.7
i set zenbeats as the audio input and cubasis as output in audiobus.
I've created an audio track in cubasis routed from zenbeats (audiobus) but nothing get recorded in it.
Audiobus cannot control play or stop in Zenbeats neither zenbeats si stuck "launching" on audiobus.

Is it an issue with zenbeat 3 or am i doing something wrong ?

wim

@dinegrdein said:
Hello everyone i'm trying to record some beats from zenbeats 3 to Cubasis 3 via Audiobus on my ipad 6th gen ios 14.7
i set zenbeats as the audio input and cubasis as output in audiobus.
I've created an audio track in cubasis routed from zenbeats (audiobus) but nothing get recorded in it.
Audiobus cannot control play or stop in Zenbeats neither zenbeats si stuck "launching" on audiobus.
Is it an issue with zenbeat 3 or am i doing something wrong ?

Zenbeats isn't AudioBus compatible. It also isn't Inter-App Audio compatible either so unfortunately there isn't any way to do what you're trying to do with Zenbeats. Saving to audio in Zenbeats, then importing to Cubasis is the only way.

tahiche

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:

@RetroNewb said:
Yet to update due to MidiFX bug , but thought I should post to request @MatthewAtZenbeats that ideally
a deeper rewrite of the internal midi routing would be more useful :

firstly there is the issue that it seems impossible in ZB2 to route multichannel midifx to different tracks ,
e.g 4Pockets Euclidean to send each of its 4 parts to a seperate channel to play a different instrument .

secondly there is the issue of not being able to send midi to AUv3 audioFx which have midicontrol built in ,
whether they are channel audiofx or on a send **(more later)
I am referring particularly to changing presets for SugarBytes Looperator or Effectrix , which has this built in performance functionality by triggering presets with midinotes - except you can’t seemingly? route the midinotes to the AUv3FX .
FabFilter has a built in preset change function using Program Change messages , so I add +1 to previous requests
in this thread for Program Change messages , but including for internal routing as well as transmitting to hardware.

The current irony/frustration for me about needing to change presets is that the ZB AU parameter automation seems so complete I could literally set each of hundreds of parameters to change the preset - except “preset change” itself doesn't seem to be available as an automatable parameter -
I don’t know if this is a lack in the AUV3 itself or ZB .

**Finally , could it be possible to have Send Clips as a way of automating (preset change & parameters, both via midi & AU parameters ) ?
My intention is to use the Loop Builder as a dubby performance environment with preprogrammed automation Clips For the Send buses but I see no way to do this currently .

(I would also welcome midifeedback of values for controllers such as Launchpad, X Touch & APC40. )

Hopefully all the above is already possible & someone will explain what I have missed ,
or is being worked on & will arrive as part of the update ,
or @MatthewAtZenbeats will confirm they will be added to the list .

Obviously glad for new update & grateful for the work the devs put in ,
these requests are to make Zenbeats my primary IOS workspace .

Thanks for the detailed requests! Will log these for consideration. More immediate, the fix for missing MIDI effects and several other bugs reported will be in the 3.0.1 patch. And of course, more to come in 3.0.2, etc.

Enabling/fixing a few midi issues would be immensely helpful in opening up workflows.

• be able to send midi to another track or device POST midi fx, Send CC to target (currently I believe it’s only notes).
• Automation for PC and CC so you could trigger these with clips.
• receive midi on auv3 plugins

BTW please fix midi fx!. I’d also like to mention that loading times are a lot longer, not only upon starting up Zb but I’m finding also when loading instruments, even with Zenbeats stock ones.

I’m very glad that the discussion and interest in Zenbeats has revived, I hope we keep the momentum and get some more stuff added/fixed. Thank u @MatthewAtZenbeats for your dedication and patience! 🤟🙏

ipadbeatmaking

@MatthewAtZenbeats can we get the Roli lightpad block integration put back into Zenbeats? v3 seems to have removed it. Also, can we get the same QWERTY keyboard shortcuts and integrations on iPad thats available for desktop. Thanks

ipadbeatmaking

@CapnWillie said:

@ipadbeatmaking said:
@MatthewAtZenbeats can we get the Roli lightpad block integration put back into Zenbeats? v3 seems to have removed it. Also, can we get the same QWERTY keyboard shortcuts and integrations on iPad thats available for desktop. Thanks

Please 🙏🏽

And also @MatthewAtZenbeats ….maybe it’s mentioned here in the thread but Midi AU FX are showing up blank for me and I can’t pick one/any. Maybe there’s a setting I need to change?

Edit: And tapping on an Auv3’s UI pads or keys (koala for example) crashes the auv3 for me. MTS had this same problem and have since fixed it, but I don’t recall what the cause was.

wim

@ipadbeatmaking said:

@CapnWillie said:

@ipadbeatmaking said:
@MatthewAtZenbeats can we get the Roli lightpad block integration put back into Zenbeats? v3 seems to have removed it. Also, can we get the same QWERTY keyboard shortcuts and integrations on iPad thats available for desktop. Thanks

Please 🙏🏽

And also @MatthewAtZenbeats ….maybe it’s mentioned here in the thread but Midi AU FX are showing up blank for me and I can’t pick one/any. Maybe there’s a setting I need to change?

Known bug. It is being worked on.

jebni

Technically off-topic: I decided to install Zenbeats on a Mac for the first time. The performance is abysmal — it’s running as a Universal app on a new M1 Pro MacBook Pro, but the interface is basically so unresponsive as to be unusable. Any interaction lags by several seconds. Has anyone else experienced this??

wim

@jebni said:
Technically off-topic: I decided to install Zenbeats on a Mac for the first time. The performance is abysmal — it’s running as a Universal app on a new M1 Pro MacBook Pro, but the interface is basically so unresponsive as to be unusable. Any interaction lags by several seconds. Has anyone else experienced this??

It was mentioned up-thread to disable OpenGL.

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:
FYI

For those of you with an M1 Mac that are having performance issues, try this.

Open Zenbeats, tap the main menu then tap Settings.
Tap the Interface tab and make sure OpenGL is disabled (unselected)
Then tap on the Audio tab, and disable Multi-Core Processing.

Let me know if that helps.

jebni

Ah, missed that — thanks. Still plagued by crackling when doing the most basic stuff, though.