Update coming to MIDI Designer Pro X Subscription Policy

We have heard your feedback.

We will be updating our subscription policy to honor commitments to prior purchases.

However, Dan is off the grid this weekend and enjoying some time off from the big push for Pro X.

Standby for an update next week. No subscriptions should be charged for prior users before that point as prior users originally had a free year.

Update from Feb 20, 2024

Our users have spoken! We changed policy on this topic as of 2024-02-20: All users who purchased MIDI Designer Pro (2012-2017) or MIDI Designer Pro 2 (2017-2024) prior to our switch to free + subscriptions on January 25, 2024 will have lifetime access to all existing features before the 10.0 update.

This change is already live on the App Store since 10.1.0.

Thanks for your patience and understanding. Please see our official announcement to learn more.

MIDI Designer Pro 2 Version 2.3300 Released

This is our 88th update.

Our Product and Engineering Teams went through the user requests and took no prisoners. Meaning we implemented a lot of stuff.

Enhancements That Make More Things Possible

  • MIDI Message Feedback is now possible: see midiDR.com/qa/9524 for more details
  • Randomize Subcontrol: have any subcontrol switch to a random value on button press
  • Enable/Disable Button midiDR.com/qa/8783: allow a control (or subcontrol) to be turned OFF dynamically
  • Shorter “Snap to Value” times for returning to default or snapping subcontrols to a value (midiDR.com/qa/8908, thanks 5din)
  • Allow for wider labels and add option for bold Multiline labels

Other Enhancements

  • On iPad and iPhone, Swipe Up and Swipe Down will no longer interfere with your performance
  • Mac: lots of enhancements and polish including a fix for the glaring window-size issue
  • iPad: finally, a better fix for 3-dots More-button issue since iPadOS 15. Now swipe-down to access More menu
  • Mac, iPad, iPhone: Open layout from Files menu when App is not open is fixed
  • And many smaller enhancements, fixes and under-the-hood changes prepping for the future of MIDI Designer

More details about the updates in our user manual.

This demo layout walks you through the new features.

12+ years, 88 updates, still going strong, and more to come!

Thanks!

MIDI Designer Team

Stand-alone MDs now available for MDP2

The former stand-alone MIDI Designer applications MDXG and MDClav are now available as layouts to use in MIDI Designer.

MIDI Designer XG (MDXG) provides easily access the often hidden YAMAHA XG sounds built-into YAMAHA’s XG compatible instruments, including all CVP Clavinovas, and certain top end CLP Clavinovas, Avant Grands, Portable Keyboards and Workstations.

MIDI Designer CLAV (MDClav) provides convenient access many of the voices and functions available in the Clavinova’s built-in LCD screen located to the left of the keyboard. MDClav brings these functions (and many HIDDEN ones) FRONT AND CENTER on an iPad placed on the instrument’s music rack.

These layouts are provided courtesy of thepianoguyspianostore.com contact: craig [at] thepianoguys [dot] com

Update to a classic layout – RD 2000 Manager

The RD 2000 layout has been one of our classics since the first version was uploaded in 2018.  There were multiple updates until the layout was mature (and completely full) in 2020.

Usually, when a board gets to ~ five years old, you do not expect much new content from the manufacturer.  However, Roland recently released a V-Piano expansion pack for the RD 2000, based on a German Concert Grand.  It includes 17 new tones built on the German Concert Grand model.  (The supporting software update for the RD 2000 has two new expansions slots, so hopefully we will see another V-Piano expansion.)

The original update intent for the RD 2000 Manager was simply to add the 17 new tones to the picker.  However, the improvements in MDP2 since the last Manger release meant there was lots of opportunity to improve functionality of the layout.

Updates include:
– Support for German Concert Grand
– Sound Chain Functional View
– Sympathetic Resonance Editor (from the RD 2000 Piano Manager)
– Interface Upgrades and simplification

Sound design capability with the V-Pianos is nearly unlimited.  While Roland provides 17 new tones, you can use the V-Piano Designer and Individual Tuning to create your own sounds based on the German Concert Grand.  The RD 2000 Piano Editor layout provides a set of tools to simplify customizing your piano design.  (Check back – we expect an update to the Piano Editor based on the new German Concert Grand content.)

See more at midiDr.com/qa/6548

Learn about the Roland V-Piano


— New sound chain functional view

And don’t forget, MDP2 now runs on Apple Silicon Macs.

Happy Holidays & 2022 In Review

Happy Holidays from Confusion Studios

During 2022, we released three major upgrades and several bug fixes

New capabilities and improvements:
– Mac M1 capability, file handling improvements
– Ableton Link integration
– Control “loopers” – adjustable length, reloop, mute
– Transparent panels
– Transparent X-Y pads
– No MIDI Send / Receive control option
– Propagate MIDI min-max changes to Display Min/Max/Ticks
– Log enhancements

More coming in 2023!

Join our conversation on Q&A, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

#communityPowered #dreamCreatePlay #iosMidi

MIDI Designer and StreamByter

MIDI Designer Pro 2 provides a flexible, customizable MIDI control surface.

StreamByter, by Audeonic, provides processing of a MIDI data stream.

Working together, they provide a complete MIDI processing and control solution.

Example use combinations
– SB decodes a SysEx status dump from target hardware into individual MIDI commands for display in MDP2
– SB remaps MDP2 controls to different target addresses (e.g., one set of controls for part and master effects)
– MDP2 provides control of SB channel cloning / remapping
– SB provides advanced relationships for MDP2 controls

StreamByter is built in to MDP2 as an in app purchase for input and output processing.

For more advanced processing, add the stand alone version of StreamByter, for looping output back to input.

MIDI Fire adds other tools, such as flexible MIDI routing, with multiple StreamByter modules.

See more about StreamByter.

See MDP2 layouts using StreamByter.

If you need help, post your question on our Q&A forum

MIDI Designer Pro 2 for the Transitioning Lemur User

Liine have announced the end of support for the Lemur MIDI / OSC controller application – see liine.net 

MIDI Designer Pro 2 offers the Lemur user an alternate application that supports many of the use cases of Lemur.

Lemur MIDI Designer Pro 2
Control surfaces for MIDI devices – Buttons, knobs, sliders, lists, VU meters, dynamic labels, XY controls, accelerometer
– Eight banks with up to six pages each
– Abstract visual style controls ? – MDP2 focuses more on hardware realistic interfaces, some abstraction possible
Advanced relationships between control settings – programming required – Super / sub control relationships and named ticks provide no-programming implementations for preponderance of controls
– StreamByter for advanced control relationships 
Open Sound Control – MIDI only
Sequencer, Multi-Ball Controls ? – MDP2 does provide control loopers, but no direct sequencing
iOS Supported, M1 Mac Provisional – M1 is provisional, functional, with in-work interface improvements
End of Support – MDP2 continues active development and support, most recent update in July 2022
?  Active application help and user groups – MDP2 has active users, FB group, shared layouts, and developer provided support
? – Library of user shared layouts

There is no conversion capability to convert a Lemur application into a MDP2 layout.  But with MDP2 you can build a layout without any programming – place controls, adjust settings, connect, and take control of your devices.

When advanced control relationships are required:

  • Super / sub control relationships provide basic control interconnection
  • Named ticks provide scaling, arbitrary relationships, control down-sampling, and more, without writing any code
  • StreamByter provides advanced control relationships with straight-forward lexicon

MDP2 is not a one-for-one replacement for Lemur, but can cover many use cases.

Our user group and support team are standing by to help you transition.  

Check out our Q&A site for help and user layouts – midiDr.com/qa/

Join our FaceBook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/mididesigner

StreamByter is a audeonic.com product, included in MDP2, available stand-alone and in MIDI Fire

MDP2 – a capable SysEx solution for device control

Many current and classic boards provide ability to edit settings via System Exclusive (SysEx) messages.  SysEx provides more data options than Continuous Controller (Cc) or Registered Parameter (RPN/NRPN) messages.  Instead of two MIDI bytes, the data field can be (somewhat) unlimited, allowing for exchange of patch, performance, or even complete system backup.

MDP2 SysEx message format provides for up to four Data bytes, and an extra “channel” byte, for five selectable bytes in a message.

MIDI is already a somewhat non-standard format, since it uses 7 (vice 8) data bits in a message byte.  MDP2 automatically handles conversion from decimal to hex for typical 1 to 4 byte values.  But many manufacturers use even more complicated formats, such as “four bit” encoding (used a lot by Roland), or even somewhat random encoding.  MDP2 has you covered in these cases with “named ticks” – supporting manufacturers completely arbitrary encoding concepts.  In the Roland four-bit per byte case, we can provide a spreadsheet to do the required numerical conversions to load the named ticks.

Many board will have a “transmit edit” setting that will send messages, often SysEx, when edits are done on the board, to keep a MDP2 control layout in sync.  But what if it doesn’t automatically send?  MDP2 can generate the required interrogation messages to obtain status to synchronize the layout.

A board can report data with individual SysEx messages for each parameter, or a longer combined message with multiple values combined.  Each is supported by MDP2.

For individual messages, the board response does not require any translation – with a SysEx address match and MIDI receive enabled, the appropriate control will update.  But, say you need to request 200 parameters, that is a lot of coding.  No problem – a SysEx scanner (https://mididesigner.com/qa/6964) will let just a few controls (typically one for each data byte length) do all the work for you.  (Example – RD-2000, X(m) and RD-88 layouts.)

For a single combined message, the work of separating the single message into individual control messages is done by StreamByter.  Ugh, but now I need to handcraft 200 lines of StreamByter code.  Nope – again, a spreadsheet can automatically generate the needed SB code.  Each situation is slightly different, but we can provide an example if needed to get you started.

Often a manufacturer uses the same SysEx code for a new board, just with different addresses.  In this case an existing layout can be quickly extended to the new board.  But, now you have to change umpteen controls to the new SysEx address format, even though all the data formats are the same.  Nope – SB code can translate the messages in both directions, allowing the layout to be used unchanged with the new hardware.  (Example – some pages in RD-88 editor)

We do have a few limitations.

  • We only process data values up to four bytes, and a fifth “channel” byte.  Again, there are work arounds. One is to have StreamByter compressi data inbound to process, re-expanding outbound.  (Example – eight bytes required to select ZEN-Core waves in X(m) ZEN-Core editor).  Other methods get around the limitation of trying to manipulate a >four byte value range on a single MDP2 control.  Again, using SB, split the inbound data into smaller pieces (say, digits of timecode) for display and control, reassemble on outbound.  Some data may be more amenable to using a section of the data to show/hide controls for the remaining range – an alternate solution to the ZC wave selection problem.
  • We have a current bug where a few specific cases of V and L are not recognized (https://mididesigner.com/qa/9013)
  • We cannot pull out complete patch names for display, or enter patch names, but this in in our think-about pile.  We have several examples of using individual controls (by letter) as a work-around.
  • We do not provide storage for SysEx backup, but MDP2 can be the front end to request patch/performance/board backups to be recorded in a separate SysEx librarian.

MDP2 SysEx controls, supported by named ticks and StreamByter code should be able to handle your most complex board implementations.  If you need help, post a Q&A.