bleep!BOX for iOS is on sale today for roughly half price – 4.99$ USD. If you’ve been on the fence, today is a good day to snag it.

The iPad is gaining some more accessories that should help turn it into a more serious music production machine. One of them is the Alesis Studio Dock. It adds:

• 2 Inputs (XLR-1/4″)
• 1×1 Midi interface (Core Midi compliant)
• Video out (cool for VJ’s)
• 1/4″ headphone jack
• 2x 1/4″ outputs

The other is the SynthStation 49:

http://www.akaipro.com/synthstation49

It’s a pretty standard 49 key controller with 9 drum pads – what sets it apart is support for CoreMidi, which means anyone can write an app that takes advantage of the hardware out of the box, without any need for special SDK’s or licensing. Plus it works as a regular USB keyboard (no iPad required).

I’m looking forward to getting my hands on both of those!

The iOS version was [speedily] approved Thursday evening and the Plugin updates went out this morning. Please see prior posts for details on the changes.

An issue has been reported with patches sounding different starting with version 1.3.4 which was released a couple weeks ago. The bug stems from changes that were made to parameter numbering, which in turn threw off the Motion Sequence Target – essentially the Motion sequence is modifying the wrong parameter from what it was originally set to. The changes have been undone in the next update, so newer patches made in 1.3.3 should go back to sounding how they did before once 1.3.6 is released. Patches made in 1.3.4 and 1.3.5 may need to be fixed, if they used Motion sequences. The fix is detailed here. We will post when 1.3.6 is live in the app store – for now, hold tight. Our sincere apologies go to anyone affected by the bug.

1.3.6 will also feature a couple other bug fixes (sound coming thru the headset, and one other motion bug) and one new feature, which is the + / – buttons on the Motion page:

Version 1.3.5 is now available on the app store. This fixes an important crashing issue on the Song/Sequence page and also a minor annoyance on the Perf page (perf page now keeps the last tab you viewed). bleep!BOX Player is still at 1.3.4, but it will be updated shortly.

A crash bug was reported when using ‘sequence’ mode on the song page. We have fixed the bug and a new version has been submitted for approval. Approval times seem to be fairly quick right now, so fingers crossed that it gets approved speedily.

The bleep!BOX update has been approved and is now available for download via the App Store.  It adds a number of improvements, namely:

* Updated graphics for iOS 4.0 Retina displays
* Bug fixes and optimizations
* Added some functionality to the Looper page (tapping the bottom will snap to fractions of a bar).
* Made all parameter values display in caps for better readability.

bleep!BOX in the App Store

Fixed a few more crash bugs on the Plugin version. We will continue to tackle new issues as soon as they are reported so we can get the Plugin as stable as possible. The iOS version is coming soon – a couple minor issues were uncovered over the weekend and once those are addressed, we should be good to go.

Users now have the ability to try out the bleep!BOX Plugin before committing to a purchase.

Download the Demo here (VST / AU – MAC / PC).

The bleep!BOX Plugin (no longer referred to as ‘the VST version’) is now AU compatible thanks to Symbiosis. Symbiosis was released by the fine people at Sonic Charge, who also make great plugins btw. AU compatibility means that you can now run bleep!BOX under hosts such as Garage Band and Logic Studio. Be sure to check the plugin specific instructions for the full details.

A few things are in the works for the bleep!BOX Plugin. We are currently working on adding AU compatibility for those who might be interested in using bleep!BOX in Garage Band or Logic. The update will of course be free, and will also include a bug fix or two.

In addition to AU support, we are putting together a Demo version of the Plugin for those not lucky enough to own the iPhone or iPad version. The Demo will be very similar to bleep!BOX Player, in that you won’t be able to edit all the parameters (but otherwise the sound is not hindered in any way).

Finally, we are working on an update to the iOS version of bleep!BOX as well. This will include iOS 4.0 support (multitasking, retina display) in addition to some bug fixes. I can’t promise any new features yet, but there are some in the works.