Moog’s Animoog is an amazing synth, hands down. The sounds are rich and full and the interface leaves a lot of options open. But there’s one more possibility with the Animoog, and that’s being able to play it via WiFi. No joke. The set up isn’t that hard to do, and it opens a few more possibilities on the create side of things. Before we jump in, I need to say that these are directions for setting everything up on a Mac. Sorry PC users. Now, let’s get started.
First, buy the app. I have an iPhone, and the app is on sale for 99 cents for a limited time, so buy it now before it shoots up to $10. I should also add that this trick will also work if you have an iPad (buy the iPad version here).
Next, go to your computer’s Network Preferences and click “Create Network…” Name the network whatever you want. Have fun with it, it doesn’t matter what it is. However, for the time being, don’t create a password. Now, if in the future you’re playing the app via WiFi connection in a live setting, then to prevent possible tampering, set a password to protect your ad hoc network.
On your iDevice, go into your Settings and put it in Airplane Mode. Go to Wi-Fi, turn it on, then find the ad hoc network you made. It will take about 10 seconds to join the network.
Now, go to your Audio MIDI Setup. Once you’re there, click on Window in the menu bar, choose MIDI Studio, then open up Network. Once there, you’ll see several windows. In My Sessions, keep the name to Session 1, however if you want to change the name, go for it. Next, in the Directory window, find your iDevice, click it then click Connect. In the Session window, the chosen i-device you connected should show up in the Participants window. Make sure that your computer name is entered in the Bonjour Name window, by the way. Now that that’s finished, keep the program open but go ahead and hide it out of the way. If you happen to close the program, it will close the connection as well.
Go ahead and launch the Animoog app on your iDevice and open up Ableton Live. You can leave the app alone for the moment because you need to set up Ableton’s Midi settings first. Go into your Preferences and go to the MIDI Sync window. Once you’re there, you’ll notice that you have a new MIDI connection that should read Network (Session 1), or whatever you named your session. Leave alone the Input: Network (Session 1) and go down to the Output: Network (Session 1) connection. Turn on Track, Sync and Remote. Now, as a side note, Remote won’t do anything for the time being because Moog has yet to enable CC mappings on the app. Now, if Moog were to add this option, the possibilities would open WAY up for this app as being a serious synth.
Okay, so now that your MIDI settings are set up, you can close the Preferences window and create a new MIDI track. Have your MIDI input be your MIDI controller of choice. Go to Instruments and drag an External Instrument onto your MIDI track. Set your “MIDI To” to Network (Session 1) and set “Audio From” to wherever your audio is coming from your i-device into the computer/sound card. Now, to talk about audio, there is a difference between mono and stereo output of this app, and I highly suggested getting a 1/4’‘ to Stereo 1/4” cable to get the full experience of this app. Now you should be able to play the MIDI controller you chose and play notes on the Animoog app!
Lastly, I need to tell you the unfortunate news: because the Animoog app was created for your iDevice, this aspect limits what you can control via your DAW/MIDI controller, meaning that you can’t control the poly-pressure or channel-pressure via MIDI, so you miss out on all the fun things you can change when using the app. Now, if Moog got wise to all of this and decided to work with MIDI mapping CC changes (send them an email and request that feature!), then you could have poly-pressure and channel-pressure be controlled with Aftertouch on your MIDI device, but like I already mentioned, this is sadly not possible at the moment. So you are still reliant on using the app to develop sounds using poly/channel-pressure.
Now, on the happier side of things, since you’re manipulating MIDI values, you can use Ableton’s Midi effects to get more out of the app. Try experimenting with the Arpeggiator and the Chord effects to get more out of what your fingers can do given the limited screen size.
And that’s it! If you have any questions, Google will be a better friend to you than I will. However, if you’re dying for some tech support, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to help you out.
For the visual learner in all of us, here is a video tutorial on how to set this up.
Hey there. Here is another tutorial that should enhance your happiness a gazillion percent. No joke. Moog’s Filtatron App is awesome, and if you already have it, well, you already knew that. But, if you didn’t already know that, then we’ve got something rad in store for you. Let’s get started.
Next, you’ll need to have an interface that will send and receive audio from your iDevice. I used an iRig, but there are other options out there.
Here’s where it gets a little confusing, so pay attention. On your I/O audio connection that’s connected to your iDevice, you want to make sure that the audio coming in will be coming from your sound card/computer’s main mix, unless you have a way to create an auxiliary send, i.e., sound board. Once that audio from your computer is going into the I/O connection on your iDevice, you’ll need to send the output from your iDevice back into your sound card/computer. For my set up, I have a mix coming out of 3/4, which is going into the input of my iRig. Then my “headphone” output is going into my sound card. Now, if you’re a sound quality freak, you’ll want to have a stereo mix of the Filtatron app going into your mix. If not, a mono mix will do just fine.
Next, in Ableton Live, create a new Midi track. On that track, drag an External Audio Effect onto that Midi track. Have your “Audio To” set to the out mix (in my case it’s outputs 3/4) and set your “Audio From” to the channel that will be receiving audio from the I/O audio connection from your iDevice (again, in my case it’s 1/2). Now when you play your Midi instrument in Ableton, your audio will be routed to the Filtatron app and return back to that track. Another idea would be to put this External Audio Effect (the Filtatron) on one of your Returns, so that way you could use the same effect on multiple tracks.
If you’re limited to 2 simultaneous inputs (like I am) and want to use an external synthesizer or vocals, you could plug right into the iRig or use one of the inputs on your sound card. It’s a balance between application and sound quality, so the choice is yours.
Well, there you have it! If you’re more of a visual learner, here is a video tutorial for your viewing pleasure.
If you’re having some issues, your best bet is to get your fingers dirty and search the interwebs for a solution. If you’re completely stuck, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to help.
We’ve been working on a little something special for you. Well, to be honest, it’s more like re-gifting since we’ve been playing with it first. To get to the point, we made a TouchOSC layout for iPad for Roland Alpha Juno-1 and Juno-2 keyboards! Yay! Now, this isn’t something totally original, but we’ve taken the layout and made it a bit easier to navigate and use. Let’s get started, shall we?
Next, buy the TouchOSC app from the App Store. It can be used for so much more than this, not to mention you can create your own customized layouts to control your DAW via WiFi. Just do it. Make us proud.
Now that you have two of the three essential ingredients (we’ll get to the third later on), download the Palatial Crest layout & save it to a convenient place, like your desktop.
Download the TouchOSC Editor from hexler’s website. Once both the app and the editor are downloaded, open up both of them simultaneously. If it’s not exactly simultaneously, it won’t be as cool, so try harder. Once TouchOSC is open, you should see an icon that says “Sync.” Click it. Now, on your iPad, go to Layout then go to Add. You should see your computer’s name pop up there. If it doesn’t, you need to make sure your iPad and your Computer are on the same WiFi network. And if that doesn’t work, you can transfer files via iTunes when your iDevice is connected via USB (it might work via WiFi, but I haven’t tried it yet, so via USB is your best bet at this point). In iTunes, find your iDevice and click on it, then click on the Apps tab. Below you should see TouchOSC and then be able to transfer files on your computer by uploading them via iTunes.
Once the layout is downloaded onto your iDevice, go back to the Settings screen and go to the Host part of Connections. This should be enabled. Then for the Host IP, you need to find your computer’s IP address. With a Mac, you can find this under your Network Preferences, and should be a four digit add.re.s.s. Type that in. Next, set your Outgoing port to 9000, and your Incoming Port to 9001. The local IP address should self-populate.
Next, download the latest stable version of Pd-extended. Once downloaded, go to the Preferences and click on the MIDI settings. You need to make sure that the “output device” is set to whatever device is sending MIDI into your Juno. Once that is figured out, then click Apply and then OK. Next, open up the junOSC.pd file. You should see a confusing spiderweb of a mess. This is a good thing. Now, make sure that the four digit number after mrpeach/udpreceive is 9000. If it’s not, change it to 9000. Now go ahead and play with the layout on your iPad. You should be seeing values change on the Pd window. If you can’t see that window, click Window from the menu bar and find Pd window. As you move sliders and knobs on the iPad, puredata should be receiving those changed values and showing you them on the Pd window.
Now, since Ableton is my personal best friend, I’ll show you how to set that up. Go into your preferences and go to your Midi Settings. Make sure you’re sending MIDI out to your Juno. Next, create a new Midi track. Choose the Midi controller that is sending signals to your Juno. Create an External Instrument. Under Midi To, choose that MIDI instrument again, and for Audio In, choose whatever channel audio is coming into your computer/sound card from your Juno. As you play your Midi controller, you should be getting sound out of your Juno coming into the Midi track you’ve created in Ableton. To get a feel for what you can mess with in the layout, try recording a simple loop and start playing with the layout!
*If you experience “hanging notes” like I sometimes do, click the Chord Memory button on the Juno. This happens mainly when I’m changing multiple values at once.
Now, if you’re more of a visual learner, below is a (lengthy) video tutorial on how to set everything up. If you’re experiencing any issues, Google is your friend. If you’ve at your wits end and you’re dying for some help, leave a comment and I’ll try to help as best as I can.
More tutorials are on the way. In the meantime, have fun and have a Happy New Year!
