Just posted this on the ongoing thread over at KVR. Still think there's mileage in a tablet-based approach as a stopgap until a proper universal hardware controller is developed. Its nothing like the same tactile experience, but in the light of our conversation here regarding restrictions being a breeding ground for creativity, this very nicely channels you down the programming paths of these synths.
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Despite my real actual physical MS-20iC being on the way, I found myself playing with tablet control again at the weekend in quiet moments. I've given up on Lemur as a) being too flaky on Windows, b) insanely complicated and c) now unsupported, so I'm trying out Midi Designer Pro 2. I've made it work nicely in Windows using a cabled connection and the MusicIO app. MusicIO needs iTunes installed, but not necessarily running, to work, and you need to put dummy midi and audio channels in the DAW - the audio channel hosts the MusicIO VST plugin that communicates with the iPad, the midi plugin needs to be set to input monitor and fed to Omnisphere (I figured it was a bad idea to add this new virtual midi input to All Midi Inputs in Cubase and feed random CCs to literally every plugin in the project).
It's MUCH nicer to use than Lemur, and is mostly nicer on the eye graphically (annoying that there's no waverform icons though). I've had one total loss of communication which required a complete iPad reset, but that might be related to a dodgy value I sent accidentally. Apart from that its been rock solid. Thus far just done a couple of low hanging fruit plugins, the JU-06 and VP-03 boutique synths:
I'm not going to go crazy on this, but as a background activity I'll probably plug away at hardware profiles that look interesting. There's a nice SE-02 on the Midi Designer website that already works really well, but surprisingly few others. There's a Prophet 12 but I find it really messy.
Obviously its not hardware, but its still a good experience to program along the specific lines of the hardware models, it was very quick to create a few nice patches that were very evocative of those two synths. Hardware Integration works great.
