The first time you open MIDI Designer, you will see two sets of three pages on either side of the screen and a “more” button placed directly in the middle. The more button will display a set of other buttons that bring up more advanced pane, and give access to saving and loading presets.

iPad Screen Layout

1. more Button: The more button is the gateway to all MD features. When you are connected and playing your rig, it's small and unobtrusive, but it's the key to all the power of MD.

• 2. Design Button: Enter Design mode from Play Mode.
• 3. Config Button: Bring up the Config Pane for access to layout-wide parameters
• 4. Log Button: Bring up the Log Pane for troubleshooting
• 5. Accelo: Toggle accelerometer response in MD
• 6. Global Preset Buttons
• 7. Global Preset Alt and Save Buttons
• 8. Page Tab Selectors
• 9. Page Bank Selector (right)

Bottom Toolbar

iPhone Screen Layout

• 1. Design Mode ON/OFF icon: Enter Design Mode.
• 2. Presets: Browse different presets
• 3. Config: Bring up the config panel to access layout wide properties.
• 4. MIDI Log: shows the outgoing and incoming MIDI Data.
• 5. Accelerometer: Toggle accelerometer response in MD
• 6. Page Select
• 7. Page Bank Selector
• 8. Hide Button: Hide the bottom toolbar for more real estate
• 9. Page Up and Down gutters.

Controls are the basic building blocks of your layout. In MD, a control can be of two types:

• Dynamic Controls: Respond to touch and can both send and receive MIDI messages. All types:
  • Knob
  • Slider
  • Crossfader (sideways slider)
  • Button
  • XY Pad
• Decorative Controls:
  • Shape
  • Label
  • Panel

Each control has multiple display properties like LED color, name and label properties. In addition, dynamic controls have:

• MIDI properties
• Additional display properties that affect messages sent and received
• Relationships to other controls including supercontrols and subcontrols

Dynamic controls can also be in more than one place in your layout via Control Copies.

MD, like most MIDI controllers, does not itself produce sound. Instead, it controls one or more MIDI targets. A MIDI Target can be any hardware or software you can control via MIDI. Examples include:

• Musical hardware including mixing boards, keyboards, MIDI guitars, electronic drums, and DJ consoles
• Other iOS apps such as synths, DAWs, and effects
• Software on other platforms, e.g., Ableton Live on OSX or Windows
• Lighting for television and film via a MIDI-enabled console, e.g.: Ma Lighting

Each MIDI Designer layout controls one or more MIDI targets. It consists of Page Banks containing Pages, and Pages containing Controls like knobs and buttons.

Layouts may be saved, loaded, and shared in a variety of ways.

Examples of layouts are a layout for the Roland JD-990, or a layout that a guitarist uses to get through a two-hour performance using MD.

Controls are organized into Pages

Pages have a name and other decorative properties including background color, background texture, and LED color for all controls on a page.

To switch between pages:

• iPad: Press the Page tabs on the top of the GUI.
• iPhone: Use the right and left arrow keys on the left hand side of the bottom tool bar, alternatively use single tap on the far right and far left side of your interface.
• Across both platforms: Jump Buttons let you use a button to change pages.

Pages of controls can be further organized into Page Banks. Each Page Bank can hold as few as one page, and a maximum of 6 pages.

In Play Mode, two principal methods may be used to change Banks: the Page Bank selectors and Bank Jump Buttons.

Presets represent all the values in your entire MIDI Designer setup. For example, a knob called “Sweep” might be set to 45° (or an outgoing MIDI value of 32). When you store a preset, that value is saved. When you recall a preset, all controls snap to the value they had at the time the preset was saved.

So your sweep knob would snap to 45° regardless or what position it's in, and that value would be sent out to all connected MIDI targets.

There are two types of Presets in MD:

• Global Presets
• Presets for Groups of controls

Chapter on Presets

Design Mode is used to create and modify your layout.

The main functions performed in Design Mode include:

• Controls
  • Adding, deleting, copying and moving controls
  • Modifying control properties
  • Establishing relationships among controls
• Pages
  • Adding, deleting, copying and moving pages
  • Modifying page properties
  • Saving, Loading, and Mailing pages

In Play Mode, your layout controls your MIDI target or targets and responds to external MIDI controllers.

• Enter into “Design Mode” by pressing the Design Button (2).
• A blue button will pop up saying “Exit Design Mode” with a lock next to it
  
• To return to Play Mode, press Exit Design Mode.

• Enter into “Design Mode” by pressing the Design Button (1).
• The Design Toolbar will come up, and the Design Button will now be blue.
  

  

  Design Toolbar, iPhone

  
  

• Press the Design Button again to exit Design Mode.

The Config button brings up the Config Pane. The Config Pane contains MD-wide and layout-wide configuration options and actions. The Config Pane has the following tabs:

Config Pane

1. Connectivity: all options for connecting MD to MIDI inputs and outputs: hardware, Wi-Fi and virtual
2. MIDI: Options relating to realtime performance in MD, including Global Preset editing
3. Actions: All layout-wide actions, including saving, loading and mailing
4. Options: More layout-wide options for Play and Design Mode
5. Pedalboards: All options related to Pedalboards in MD
6. About: Version information and credits for MD

Log Pane

Panes are the small “dialog boxes” in MD for iPad:

• Design Properties Pane (controls)
• Design Page Properties Pane
• Config Pane
• Log Pane

Normally, when you touch outside of a Pane, it disappears

Press the red LED in the top right corner of a Pane to make it “sticky”

• The green LED in the top right corner of a Pane indicates that it's “sticky”
• You can move the Pane by dragging the title bar
• The Pane will remain focused on whatever you were editing last. This is particularly useful in Design Mode for editing the same parameter for multiple controls.
• Close the pane by pressing the (green) LED again