AKAI Synthstation 25?

I'll post this on KVR also, but here is my step-by-step sure fire recipe for getting the SS25 to work with GarageBand via MidiBridge (order is important):

1. Reboot the device to ensure starting from clean slate

2. Start MidiBridge first

3. In MidiBridge, connect 'Akai SS25 Kb' on left to 'MidiBridge' on right. Remove any other connections.

4. On MidiBridge Preferences page change 'Run in Background' to 'On' if not already set.

5. Press Home button and start GarageBand

GarageBand should now respond to SynthStation25

Hi, I'm the developer of MidiBridge and I can say with almost 100% surety that Apple will probably never add support for the SS25 to GarageBand. It's a different kettle of fish from CoreMIDI and is not in their interest to support devices with proprietary SDKs like the SS25 and original Line6 Midi Mobilizer. For now, the only option to connect an SS25 to GarageBand is MidiBridge.

About the price - I do realise that in this world of free and 99cent apps, the price would be on the high side but in my defense I'd say that the number of apps I'm ever going to sell (and this is my day-job) is limited compared to say a game, and in order to make this viable and allow me to continue producing apps and feeding my 3 screaming kids I have to set what I think is a fair price. In real life, is nine bucks too much to pay to breathe life into your SS25 to connect it to GarageBand, other CoreMIDI apps and wireless MIDI?

Also, the size of an app is no indication of its worthiness! I spent a lot of time creating the most efficient app and smallest size that I could. With an app like MidiBridge, the smaller the better!

I'm willing to answer any questions/respond to comments here, so fire away. I've recently written a guide to understanding MidiBridge which many MidiBridge users have found helpful. You can find it at our website here: http://www.audeonic.com/mb_guide.shtml

Thanks for mentioning MidiBridge as a solution in this thread.

Regards, Nic from Audeonic Apps (Dublin, Ireland)

Hi Joey,

The 8 buttons all generate controller events which MidiBridge faithfully passes on, so if GarageBand (and I'll come clean here in that I have personally never used it) can be setup to react to those controller events, then yes it should be possible to use them. If GarageBand can respond to controller events but they are fixed then you can remap the SS25 events to the GarageBand ones using our free add-on for MidiBridge called FreEWI.

However you'll need some understanding of the underlying MIDI that is being sent for this. At the moment I'm not aware of any app that will specifically translate the buttons to something meaningful to apps like GarageBand. I've thought of creating such an add-on but that is as far as I got. ;-)

Regards, Nic.

OK, that sounds much more positive if your cable is working.

To control GarageBand from the SS25, in MidiBridge you just need to make one connection as follows:

- Touch the port marked 'Akai SS25 Kb in' on the left so it goes green.

- Now touch the port 'MidiBridge' on the right. You should now have a green line between those 2 ports.

- Touch the 'Akai SS25 Kb in' port again to deselect it

Switch to GarageBand and the SS25 will control it, but remember (as you have found out) that the sound will come from the SS25's headphone/line outs only.

For other apps, say Animoog or BeatMaker, configure their MIDI settings to accept input from 'MidiBridge' and they will also respond to the SS25.

If still no go, you could take a screenshot of the main MidiBridge page and email it to me. Might give me some ideas.

Regards, Nic,

You can do it via Midibridge, 7$ on the appstore.

The app will catch signal from synthstation and let you connect it to garageband.

Hi Joey,

Not 100% sure, but:

In MidiBridge do the following:

- make sure 'Run in Background' on the Preferences panel is 'On' (off by default)

- connect your SS25 to your iDevice

- touch the 'Akai SS25 Kb in' port on the left to highlight it green

- touch the 'MidiBridge' port on the right to connect

- touch the 'Akai SS25 Kb out' port to deselect

- switch to GB

GB should then see the events coming on MidiBridge's virtual destination (I think).

Maybe Andy could chime in if he had to use the 'localhost' trick with GB or what has to be set in GB to accept MIDI from an external source?

Regards, Nic.

Thanks man!

It's stupid to pay 7.99 euro for a 1MB app... ****... but I'll do it anyway :-). I hope that apple releases an update!

I found this video about midibridge on youtube and it works with GB

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVDMGrauG3Q

Also for anyone who's interested I made some songs on my ipod touch in GB you can check them out via

http://www.facebook.com/LFGRD

Greetings from Belgium

Hi Joey,

I just got Synthstation/Midibridge/GB up and running. I can confirm that some of the keyboard sounds will respond to the pitchbend controller, so the GB instruments must recognise control messages.

The other controllers don't appear to do anything (Drums, Synth1, Program change)...) 'out of the box'. I had a quick experiment with FreEWI & managed to connect it into the signal path (transposing works). Now I'll try to remap the controller messages. It would be nice to use the pitch bend & mod wheels for something useful like adjusting the rotation speed on the B3 emulator. Time for some Googling about Midi CC messages...

-Andy

Hi,

When the SS25 is recognised, you will see a total of 4 new ports appear in MidiBridge, 2 on the left and 2 on the right. If you are not seeing the ports when plugging in your iPad to the SS25 via an extender cable, then here are the probable causes:

1. You need the variety of extender cable that has more pins connected than the usual sync/charge. Not all extender cables will work and the ones that do work are a bit more expensive. You need the 17 core version. If you have the 4 pin version that will be the problem.

2. Sometimes the batteries don't have enough grunt to power the thing. Try fresh batteries (and don't forget to switch the SS25 on using the pushbutton on the back - sometimes it is the obvious things).

3. Finally, make sure that the extender cable is nicely homed into the SS25's 30 pin dock. Sometimes it needs a little bit of gentle persuasion. Suggest unplugging and plugging in again.

Hope that helps.

Hi Joey,

Sometimes this happens. For some reason CoreMIDI (in iOS) reports a ghost port for MidiBridge and you get the two ports. I think this is an issue with iOS where ports can hang around for some reason. The easy way to deal with this is just to turn off and on the SS25 which forces MidiBridge to rescan everything and the two ports should revert back to one. When there are two ports, everything gets confused and no-one knows which port is which.

MidiBridge remembers all ports it has seen and how you had them connected previously and re-instates those connections when the port appears again. To MidiBridge the ghost situation is interpreted as two newly seen ports which it doesn't equate with the corrrect single port.

If the power cycling the SS25 doesn't work and you still get the multiple ports, let me know and I can get you to do some tracing which might show something up..

Regards, Nic.

I am very late to the party, but I wanted to publically acknowledge what an amazing program you have created! I have been downsizing my portable studio and really needed a way to use the SS25 with my iPods and iPad. Your program provided the solution and I happen to think you are undercharging. MidiBridge is not a workaround, but a utility app that is just as essential as a guitar cable is to a guitarist. Keep up the good work!

Ok - you can do this using an app called MIDIbridge that lets the Synthstation output to CoreMidi.

Search in google for 'Synthstation MIDIbridge....

...enjoy!

Ed

Hi Nic

This makes my day!

It works :-)

Thank you for the service.

Kind regards

Joey

I would also love to have this ability. My synthstation was damaged and replaced by akai, while I was waiting I downloaded the iOS Garageband and fell in love with it! I was SOOOOO hoping it would work with the Akai SynthStation 25, but it does not appear to work.

Any chance for an update that might make it compatible?