Just bought the Korg Polysix app...

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Lounge' started by Greyskull, Jan 30, 2013.

  1. Greyskull

    Greyskull Well-Known Member

    Dec 13, 2009
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    Photographer/Social Sciences adjunct/sweet sweet l
    Fort Lauderdale
    My god does it sound awesome (not quite as warm and analog-sounding as the ms-20, of course)...but it looks like I won't have much of a game budget for a while. Eh, it was get it now or watvh the price go up in 2 days. Did anyone with half a brain buy the Korg Gorillaz synth? It can't actually be used for much, since the samples/patches are not for free use.
     
  2. Teknikal

    Teknikal Well-Known Member

    Oct 26, 2010
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    Does seem a bit expensive although I know Korg is very well regarded in synths, personally I'd have just imported the korg soundbank into something like nano studio. Not quite the same I admit but I'm a cheapskate.
     
  3. MidianGTX

    MidianGTX Well-Known Member

    Jun 16, 2009
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    #3 MidianGTX, Jan 30, 2013
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2013
    Holy crap, I just noticed the iMS-20 got updated for retina. Can anyone link to some screens? I didn't buy it because I'm obsessive about apps looking good when I'm paying a lot of money for them.

    Also, does anyone know if it's a strain on the iPad 3 performance-wise? I'm not sure how intensive these apps can be, but something is telling me it can get fairly serious pretty fast when you start getting creative.
     
  4. chris1a

    chris1a Well-Known Member

    Mar 10, 2010
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    It's only 15 bucks, I wouldn't call that expensive for a perfect emulation of a Polysix (or 8-9 Polysix synths in this case depending on how you look at it:)), with a host of effects, kaos pads, full automation and sequencer.

    Ims-20 runs just fine on iPad 2. It's when you start using'em in Audiobus together with other apps things get a bit too much for iPad 2/3.
     
  5. chris1a

    chris1a Well-Known Member

    Mar 10, 2010
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    By the way, I just bought FabFilters Saturn plugin (only 20 bucks compared to upwards $200 for the same exact thing on pc/mac) and it sounds amazing. Will definitely spice things up. Running iPolysix trough it is way to much for my iPad 2 to handle tho so I'm really thinking about upgrading to iPad 4, but it would sting if Apple releases a faster iPad this April. :/
     
  6. krautboy

    krautboy Well-Known Member

    Apr 20, 2011
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    It's a well known problem with Korg apps and audiobus. If you happen to have a NLog synth app start that up first (after closing all other apps). It happens to be that the first app you start decides the buffer size. Nlog synth automatically decides the best buffer size for your device.
    Far from a elegant solution but it works for me anyway. The audiobus guys are looking for a solution for this.
     
  7. krautboy

    krautboy Well-Known Member

    Apr 20, 2011
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    Hi Friends,

    this is how it works:

    AudioBus has a fixed preferred buffer size of 256. This is simply too short for some devices like iPad mini or iPad2. Especially when involving multiple CPU hungry apps like polyphonic synths etc.

    For these devices a larger buffer size of 512 works better at a little cost of extra latency which is acceptable if you trade this with avoidance of crackling.

    If you start NLog before all other apps, NLog decides the buffer size in a way AudioBus and other apps are not able to change it to something else. NLog chooses the buffer size depending on the device like 1024 for iPad1, 512 for iPad2 & mini, 256 for iPad3 & 4. I made some extended tests and they seem to be a good compromise. Also they are based on 4 years of iOS synth experience ;-)

    This is why NLog is able to do that:

    iOS has some specific un-documented mechanisms of setting the buffer size. All apps have to use same buffer size, so they might request a specific one, but iOS might decide differently in order to find the optimum for all apps.

    In order to make this decisions, iOS uses some extra information which is contained in the "Audio Session Type". Each app registers its audio work to be handle within a specific session type. There are a couple of these types. For example apps, which just produces audio but don't consume from input, are using some kind of playback session type. Other apps which read from input are using a recording session type.

    When testing NLog with AudioBus I found out a mechanism how iOS manages the buffer size. The first app with a recording session type determines the buffer size. Other apps later cannot change it to something, no playback apps nor recording apps.

    NLog is a recording app since it reads from the audio input for effect processing. Thus, when you start NLog first, all is fine. You even do not need to put NLog into AudioBus. It just works since NLog manages the buffer size depending on the device capabilities.

    Hope that helps!

    Best Rolf

    This explains it way better than i can!:)
     
  8. chris1a

    chris1a Well-Known Member

    Mar 10, 2010
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    #8 chris1a, Jan 30, 2013
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2013
    Should add that Krautboy copy & pasted the above from a thread on the Audiobus forum where Rolf, the creator of Nlog, explained work arounds for Audiobus low latency requirements.

    Actually any app that grabs the recording session first dictates the buffer. So if you have Auria or Meteor for example and start any of those first it will do the same.

    Anyway, Audiobus with the buffer switch between 256 and 512 was released today so the above workarounds aren't needed (unless you need a even higher buffer/latency).
     
  9. krautboy

    krautboy Well-Known Member

    Apr 20, 2011
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    Yes,my bad. It became a bit hectic in the house as my 2 year old daughter went on a rampage.
    Thanks for adding Chris.
     

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