Geert Bevin has been working on this plugin and now he is inviting beta testers:
Description from thread pasted here for convenience:
MIDI Tape Recorder is an Audio Unit v3 plugin with an opinionated approach towards MIDI recording. Every message is captured and played back in a sample-accurate way, like you would record audio.
There is no MIDI note editing, no quantizing, no individual CC tweaking, nothing that you wouldn’t do with audio. Instead, playback of very expressive and ultra-dense MIDI streams is perfectly stored and reproduced exactly as it was played. MIDI Tape Recorder excels at capturing and playing back expressive performance with MPE controllers and MPE MIDI plugins.
The controls are purposefully simple and intuitive, making it fun to record and playback your MIDI performance.
Features:
Four independent tracks for recording MIDI channel voice messages
Sample accurate MIDI recording and playback
Real-time display of active recorded notes and other received messages
MPE support
Multi-level undo and redo
Overdub recording
Punch in and punch out recording for automated regional overdubbing
Automated storage and recall of all recordings inside the AUv3 host project
MIDI file import and export for the project or each individual track
Repeated playback with start and stop locators
AUv3 parameters for all controls
Snap to beat option for positioning playhead and start/stop locators
Detection of MPE configuration message (MCM) reception for each track
Envoy of MCM at start of play or when pressing the track’s MPE button
Host transport and host tempo sync
Clear all recordings or clear a single track
Activity indicators for MIDI input and output on each track
Optional per-track record enable, input monitoring, and mute
Four virtual MIDI cable inputs if the AUv3 host supports it
Optional routing of first virtual MIDI cable to all tracks
I’m beta testing … and it’s amazing! Highly reccomended. The simplicity and ease of use is outstanding! No questions … just install and ready to record everything (using it inside AUM on my iPhone … just wow!)
It actually reminds me a lot of the Bastl Midilooper , similar concept… think of midi as a continuous stream like audio. (but unfortunately it does not support MPE , afaik)
I think it makes a lot of sense, esp for MPE, since the volume of data makes it a bind to edit anyway,
and so invariably with expressive controllers, Ive just recorded the audio from anyway.
though, recording the midi does let you later alter the sound engine parameters…
I was trying to work out if this will work on macOS. looking on GitHub, I suspect it might… or at least might with a bit of fiddling.
that said… not sure it adds much, considering we now have more daws supporting MPE.
edit: just checked out the support page, and apparently does run on macOS 11.2 +
Yes there are DAWs that also support MPE. If one of them meets all your needs, by all means get it instead of spending time beta testing Geert’s app.
But apps like this get created because the developer was not satisfied with the status quo. Also, this developer is not an ordinary one. He worked on MPE itself and pushed it through the MIDI Association approval process, despite some resistance from other developers who disagreed with his ideas. I remember some harsh comments about how MPE takes up multiple channels.
Geert is great — he also did the firmware for the Linnstrument. I wonder if he’d port this to LV2 so it could run on the Mod Duos… Would be nice to have it something more hardware-like.
For a hardware solution, keep an eye on the Deluge. MPE is currently in beta testing… including recording and playback of live MPE play for both internal synths as well as external MPE MIDI synths. It’s got me wanting one of those fantastic Linnstruments!
The Geert Bevin imprimatur alone makes this project worth following. I’m glad to see it supports MacOS. Still, I’m not so sure how useful I’d actually find it, as I agree that
More than changing a softsynth’s sound engine parameters, I’d want to change hardware modules, but my experience has been that you have to customize, for example, the LinnStrument per device (and even then with variable results) so that you couldn’t simply modulate the same performance between different devices. Even MPE-capable stuff from the same manufacturer (e.g., Black Corporation) requires adjustment. At the price, it’s certainly worth messing with, though I don’t have the time for that these days, so I don’t expect to beta test.
Is it possible for this app to record midi information from a hardware sequencer or synth? Or is this purely meant to be used with other iOS music apps?
Geert himself plays hardware controllers like Eigenharp and Linnstrument. I think it would be hilarious if he designed his own app to not work with his favorite MIDI controllers.
I understand that, I wanted to know if I could use something like the Model:Cycles or OP-Z with the app to record multitrack midi information from the hardware
So this app does work very nicely. I need it to accurately capture rhythms that usual MIDI resolutions will mangle (whether audibly or not) so that I can save to MIDI files to use elsewhere. I haven’t tried recording MPE yet. I just wish there were a lightweight AUv3 plug-in host for Mac. It’s working for me in REAPER. I’m less familiar with Main Stage, and couldn’t figure out how to get the MTR to hear the incoming MIDI in the short time I tried it.
You can test it yourself if you already have your Osmose. Mine is not arriving for a good while yet. The cost is low to nothing, depending on how much you decide to donate.
There is not much to test, for it just works, best together with AUM on an iPad. I have used it successfully with my Linnstrument (input), Hydrasynth and Roli Equator 2 (input, output).
