MIDI Designer Features



MIDI Designer on iPad in Peformance Mode

Dual Pages For Flexibility (or One Big Page)

MIDI Designer allows you to show any bank and page on either side. This means that you can always access any control alongside any other. Powerful.

Just want one big page? The “One Big Page” option lets you use MIDI Designer as a one continuous multi-page control surface.

Pages & Banks In Design

  • Name your pages and give them unique color-texture combinations. Group your pages into banks. Name your pages.
  • Add, remove and rearrange pages within and between banks.
  • Save and load individual pages, share them with others or use them in different layouts.

Pages & Banks In Performance

In performance, switch banks instantly. Within banks, move between pages with the labeled page tabs.




Knob and Slider Overlays (Patent Pending)




Your touch obscures the control you’re adjusting. That’s why we created Slider and Knob Overlays. Always see the value of the control. The overlays track your finger’s movement.

Supercontrols and Subcontrols

Supercontrols are a very simple idea: Any control can be a supercontrol. Supercontrols control other controls, called subcontrols. When you spin the supercontrol, the subcontrol also spins.

This simple idea can get quite complex: supercontrols can have multiple subcontrols. Subcontrols can, in turn, control other subcontrols.

The really interesting stuff is done by adjusting parameters of super- and subcontrols. For instance:

  • Supercontrols can have different display properties (ticks, display min and max) than their subs. For instance, create a coarsely “stepped” supercontrol for an existing dynamic control.
  • Supercontrols can have different MIDI properties than their subs. For instance, they can have a different min and max.
  • Supercontrols can have different “behavior” than their subcontrols. Make a momentary supercontrol of a toggle subcontrol, for instance.

Other uses of supercontrols:

  • Button Groups–Create radio buttons (button groups) by assigning a dynamic control (knob-slider-crossfader-xy) as the supercontrol of a set of buttons [More About Button Groups]
  • Steppers–Use momentary buttons to step up or down through the values on a dynamic control More about Steppers
  • Crossfader Overlap–Crossfade between any two (or more) controls in your layout More about Crossfader Overlap
  • Channel Changers–alter the channel on subcontrols. Optionally, have the subcontrols snap to their last value-per-channel More about Channel Changers
  • Snap Sub to Value–Use buttons to snap subs to a particular value over a certain time period (e.g., 2 seconds).

Beyond Supercontrols: More Ways to Relate Controls

Create other types of relationships between controls for more power.

  • Extra CC & Hold Button–Activate an additional button when you touch a knob, slider or X-Y pad. This allows you to turn on an effect, for instance, when your finger is down, and turn it off on finger up Video Showing Extra CC & Hold | [Explanation of Extra CC & Hold and Latch] (/qa/7/extra-cc-and-hold)
  • Reset to Default Button–Choose a button which will reset a control to its default value. Video Showing Reset to Default
  • Control Copies–Put the same control in more than one place (multiple instances). More about Control Copies
  • A Controls and B Controls–Link controls in an A-B relationship. Then use Copy A to B or Copy B to A to copy the values from one set of controls to the other Article on A/B Controls




Pedalboards for the Ultimate Hybrid

MIDI Designer was made from the ground up to be used with MIDI hardware controllers. The same hardware controls map to different controls in MIDI Designer depending on which page is showing [video].



We’ve thought of everything to make MIDI Designer the ultimate hybrid. This includes the ability to have toggles react to momentary buttons for one-way MIDI hardware (like the Line6 FBV Shortboard MKII). Or use a two-way MIDI controller (like the Behringer BCR2000 [not a pedalboard]) and watch your hardware LEDs change settings as you switch pages in MIDI Designer.

[More on the Ultimate Hybrid]

Playable Controls

  • MIDI Designer uses traditional controls: knobs, horizontal and vertical sliders (faders), buttons and X-Y pads. We’ve focused on making them as playable as possible.
  • All controls have display properties and MIDI message properties. Set a display min-max and number of ticks or use Named Ticks.
  • Perfect Throw Length–Knobs and sliders balance precision with distance. Want more precision? Use long-throw sliders, or tall sliders. For maximum precision and travel, use both!


Intuitive, Fast Design

Intuitive property panes let you design easily. Press the red LED to make any pane stay on-screen for multiple adjustments

Unique Channel-CCs

When you add a control, it is assigned an unused channel-cc combination automatically. Choose another one, or renumber an entire page.

Sysex and NRPN for Everybody

You’re not a MIDI expert, yet your MIDI target requires you to use sysex or NRPN. MIDI Designer provides all the flexibility you need but makes it easy.

Snap to Grid

Controls can be placed on a useful 16-point grid, or the grid can be removed.

Built for Speed

We’ve designed a lot of rigs with MIDI Designer. The Community has too, and they have given us a lot of feedback on how to make designing easier and faster. Just a few examples:

  • “Make similar” allows you to make a new control just like the selected one.
  • Swap a control with another control, or just its MIDI message.
  • Adjust size via a slider, and change aspect ratio via a button.

MIDI Designer multiple ways to get the same thing accomplished, because that’s how you work.



Save and Share Your Layout

Your current layout is automatically saved. You can also save and load an unlimited number of named layouts.

Share your layout via email directly from MIDI Designer. Open layouts from Mail, or Dropbox, or any other program that supports “open in.”

Load, save and mail individual pages. This allows you to copy pages between MIDI rigs.

Realtime Snapshots

Snap controls to prior values with the tap of a button.

20 Presets—Store up to 20 Value Presets (Snapshots). Snap your rig back to where it was 30 seconds ago, or the other day when you finally got it to growl. Presets are on the main menu for quick access. They’re also nameable, editable, and organizable.

Send All Values—Sometimes you have restart your hardware or your DAW. No problem. Tap send-all and send current values.

Reset to Default Values—Tap a button and it’s done. There’s even another button to set current values to default values.”

Get Connected via Wi-Fi

MIDI Designer can connect via Wi-Fi over an existing router or via an ad-hoc connection. Over a standard Wi-Fi connection, latency is imperceptible (below 5ms). See the connections page for more information.

With automatic reconnection, MIDI Designer will pick up right where it left off.

Get Connected via Hardware

For even lower latency, use a hardware connection. MIDI Designer works with all class-compliant hardware, including the Line6 MIDI Mobilizer II, iRig MIDI, iConnect and the iPad Camera Connection Kit. FAQ on MIDI Designer Without Wi-Fi

[Version Change Log]