Audio Apps and AudioUnits (AUv3) for Apple platforms (iOS, iPadOS, macOS and visionOS)
We transmitted 2 new TestFlight betas:
Both are release candidates and scheduled for release soon. These are super universal releases, available on iOS, iPadOS, macOS and the Apple Vision Pro.
There will be intro prices (9.99$) possibly with pre-orders for both items and early adopters. Final price probably will be 17,99$ and becomes active after preorder period.
We also renewed the latest public beta versions for our release candidates.
Manuals are available for JAX Dynamics Flow JAX 3Verb.
The second item in our upcoming Berlin Series of synthesizers is JAX Tempelhof.
This is a Multi Channel Drum Computer with 16 freely assignable pads and a key triggered performance sequencer (polymetric/polyrhythmic) with swing parameter. There is an independent sequencer for each key/pad.
It comes with 78 (ROM) drum sets, each with 24++ sampled drum (and also melody) sounds. The drum sounds for each pad/key can be assigned individually from the available drum kits. each pad/key is plying on its own internal sound channel (16 sound channels in sum). But the drum computer responds to MIDI channel 10, which is mainly for traditional reasons.
JAX MOABIT is the first synthesizer item in our BERLIN SERIES and it is a bass synthesizer with certain recognizable DNA. But rather than just cloning a 303 legend, we decided to extend the features significantly.
We will also transit our entire UI (user interface) frameworks to real 3D, meaning we will use Apples spatial environment views and programming APIs for the BERLIN SERIES releases. This ensures best performance and user interactivity, even prepared to be used in augmented spaces on the Apple Vision Pro natively later.
If you develop x-platform projects with AudioUnits (AUv3) we want to warn you, updating to Sonoma 14.5 !!!
You will no longer be able to debug and test your apps on the Mac directly, as Apple has broken AudioUnit registration. ( A similar problem still consists on the Apple Vision Pro simulator since appearance, not registering AudioUnits at all – making testing compatibility for this case even impossible. ) The units do not get registered on the machine and will fail to load therefore.
We currently do not know how this will affect users and distributed files via the AppStore. But one just cannot test the Mac compatibility locally anymore.
You have to debug on the real iOS devices explicitly, which complicates everything. It is also not sure, whether this breaks iOS AUv3 units on the Mac in general. We think : PROBABLY YES. And usually such problems do not get fixed by Apple.
( There are some rumours from users, that there are several annoying (extremely delayed) loading problems with some AUv3 ( designed for the iOS platform ) after update, now suddenly not loading correctly anymore. or needing ages to load… )
This problem also applies to all Mac Catalyst apps with embedded audio units, so even specifically compiled apps for the macOS.
Apple promised to run iOS apps seamlessly on the Apple Silicon Macs, which now is no longer the case ( if you even managed to get that working at all due to several inconsistencies with ‘auval’ validation ), especially if you distribute apps with embedded audio units this most likely will result in diverse problems.
Be careful with promises, that the iOS apps and embedded audio units will run on Apple Silicon Macs or that the audio units will be usable with any supporting macOS host application. If the system does not register the components ( technically app extensions ) correctly, no host ever would be able load these AUv3 units, as these are sandboxed and registration is a private system process, out of the focus of a 3rd party developer.
If such extreme problems with Apple platforms continue, we seriously have to think about stopping all development for it, as it consumes endlessly giantly (wasted) time and everything, possibly years of active developments, may be broken the day, Apple releases an update.
Note: At first we thought it is the latest Xcode compiler update (15.4) causing this issue. But this is not the case. I checked twice and it took several hours of research. It is definitively the latest macOS update (14.5), making everything worse, tracing the development efforts with AudioUnits AUv3 to the extreme now.
Fortunately we have updated merely one Mac with this shitload from Apple. So we can continue developing on another machine.
You should have been asked.
A selective range Mid/Side audio processor, which also can apply a sample delay to the side signal for phase shift and correction and other parameters for special stereo control and ‘airy’ effects.
So why ‘selective range’ ?
You may not want to apply the effects to the entire audio signal but merely to a selected frequency range, i.e to achieve ‘airy’ sound in high range or just remove mud and phase issues from a bass and so on….
How does it work ?
The stereo signal is split into 3 wide, overlapping frequency bands. Then the mid frequency range (the selected range) is processed by extracting mid and side signals and these 2 signals will be processed further, separately, with several options for stereo enhancements. This can be the entire frequency range too, of course.
The result is a more or less modified mid/side relation and tonal adjustment. The processing result can be applied in parallel, meaning the dry/wet mix will sum everything to the final output. A quick mono compatibility check is possible on the fly.
What is the result of a ‘side delay’ ?
Applying a delay to the side signal can produce the famous ‘air’ effect of some ancient analog gear and also eliminate bad phase summing effects. But this should be applied with some care, destined and sparingly.
Can I create new fancy and unheard cool effects with this ?
No.
The effects are more or less subtile and should be applied merely if you exactly know, what you are doing. This requires generally good audition abilities. (My experiences are rather, that most people are obviously just deaf and do not even recognize, if something sounds really problematic, awful or degraded and so on…
So this tool is for the ‘Tone Engineer type’ of audiophiles.
Is this a replacement for JAX Stereo Tool or JAX §Stereo ?
No. By no means. It does completely different things and can be used in conjunction with our other stereo tools and analyzers.
Synth minimalism maximized.
The closed beta of a (very) long secret work in progress has been started.
Unlike on the screenshot – this is a picture of the alpha version – the synth will be named SH-116 OMNI and is a 16 channel multi timbre polyphonic unison monster thingy, something that would not even be possible with 16 single items of a real SH-101 legend ( these are late 80’s, very popular monophonic, one-oscillator synthesizers from Roland Corporation – regularly sold for thousand++ dollars even today on the second hand market. The original is neither polyphonic nor multi timbre nor unison capable ).
With the start of the beta phase, we redesigned the vector based user interface completely to become a real 3D interface.
With using Apples SceneKit or maybe RealityKit the UI will be presented in a controllable 3D environment. Previous UIs did react somehow sluggish because of using loads of stitched image resources.
GM MIDI Player was our very first iOS release. After 5 years, we updated this ancient but still excellently working piece of software for support of latest technologies and the latest Swift language. It now should perform on macOS (Apple Silicon) and Apple’s Vision Pro without any issues.
GM MIDI Player was and is completely written in Apples Swift programming language and comes with some nice features, like downloading MIDI files from zip packages. It initially was thought as an essential tool for playing MIDI files on iOS, especially iPhones, as Apple did not provide a default system player for this kind of popular audio files at all.
The price was re-adjusted. GM MIDI Player was also prepared for future enhancements. Note: It is not available as AudioUnit, so for this purpose, please take a look at our latest JAX MIDI Module&Player, which is available as standalone and AudioUnit (AUv3) package.
We compiled a new update for JAX MIDI Control Pad (version 2.6).
On user request a new feature was implemented, which aims to emulate popular hardware behavior with snapping back to a definable position.
Update version 2.6:
This update will be uploaded to the Apple AppStore today and scheduled for auto release after review.
We added new features with the latest update for our JAX MIDI Control Pad version 2.5 :
This update will be uploaded to the Apple AppStore today and autoreleased as soon it gets accepted. The price for the super universal audio unit, available on all major Apple Silicon platforms was re-adjusted to the final.
JAX 3Stereo (3.6) was released on the Apple appStore today. An update (version 3.7 was appended too). 3Stereo is the successor and (replacement?) of our popular JAX StereoTool and adds triple band processing.
JAX 3Stereo is the evolution of our legacy JAX StereoTool, one of the very first iOS releases we ever made. It extends the essential functions for stereo analysis and processing for usage on an analog style triple band-split. The old all-pass mode is still available and so it aims to replace this existing legacy release.
JAX 3Stereo is super universal, thus being available on iOS, iPadOS, visionOS and macOS now.
Existing customers of the purchased version of the JAX StereoTool 1/2 are entitled for a free upgrade via promotion code. Please contact us via email.
( JAX StereoTool was originally free, customers of the purchased versions can provide the AppStore receipt for getting a free promo code for JAX 3Stereo. )