KVR Audio

BiancaNeve · Post by **BiancaNeve** » Fri Sep 16, 2016 6:39 pm

Stagelight from open labs has a UI that's actually legible on the small screen of a tablet.

There's a full review here.

http://surfaceproaudio.com/open-labs-st ... ll-review/

iPlogger · Post by **iPlogger** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 4:00 pm

I have been using Stagelight for over a year. I use it live with my keyboard controlling VSTis. I have done very little music production on it, though I do a lot of tweaking sounds/effects and sound design. I am using a Surface Pro 3 i5. I definitely like how it was made for touch, which was a big factor in my decision to purchase it.

You still have to deal with individual VSTs not built for touch and having tiny controls/fonts. Stagelight contains a scaling factor option in the settings, but I haven't tried that out yet. I probably should.

Have you used it yet or still trying to find out more information? Let me know if you have any questions.

Cinebient · Post by **Cinebient** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 4:18 pm

How is the latency compared to iOS?
Is it usable for live playing on the virtual keys/knobs?

BiancaNeve · Post by **BiancaNeve** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 6:09 pm

I've had a small play with it on a linx 1010 leather. Which is very much a beginners tablet that I got for £40 on eBay yay for eBay bargains.

"The Linx 1010 Leather Edition comes with respectable specs packing a 10.1″ IPS screen, an Intel Atom CPU Z3735F running at 1.33 Ghz paired with 2GB of RAM and a 32GB hard Disk, additional storage is possible through a microSD card slot.

Connectivity is provided through micro-USB and Mini-HDMI connections along with WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0.

The screen is reasonable although not exceptional running at a resolution of 1280 x 800 with a density of 149 pixels-per-inch, which is fine for general use but will look dull next to high end tablet screens."

But what I like about stagelight mainly though is not just that it's touch friendly but that it's got an App style interface i.e. everything scaled to be readable on a small screen.

It runs the vst I wanted to run in it (AAS strum 2) just fine as far as I can tell.

Cinebient · Post by **Cinebient** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 7:11 pm

BiancaNeve wrote:I've had a small play with it on a linx 1010 leather. Which is very much a beginners tablet that I got for £40 on eBay yay for eBay bargains.

"The Linx 1010 Leather Edition comes with respectable specs packing a 10.1″ IPS screen, an Intel Atom CPU Z3735F running at 1.33 Ghz paired with 2GB of RAM and a 32GB hard Disk, additional storage is possible through a microSD card slot.

Connectivity is provided through micro-USB and Mini-HDMI connections along with WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0.

The screen is reasonable although not exceptional running at a resolution of 1280 x 800 with a density of 149 pixels-per-inch, which is fine for general use but will look dull next to high end tablet screens."

But what I like about stagelight mainly though is not just that it's touch friendly but that it's got an App style interface i.e. everything scaled to be readable on a small screen.

It runs the vst I wanted to run in it (AAS strum 2) just fine as far as I can tell.

But that doesn't answer it....so i think bad latency, or?

It's sad that there are not enough good multi-touch apps for windows.
IPads are still the king but i want my big synthies to go. IPad Pro 2 may getting faster than my i7 soon but with iOS it's in the cage

Maybe the Surface 5 Pro and other coming hybrid will bring developers to code things for multi-touch.

iPlogger · Post by **iPlogger** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 8:17 pm

Cool. Sounds like you may already have it then and works with the vst you want.

Regarding latency, I have not noticed anything unless I'm using the headphone audio driver (an option in Stagelight). Playing sounds with a quick attack is so off you can't keep time. I often use ASIO4ALL or the built in Stagelight driver at 512 samples. When playing live and practicing with my Yamaha keyboard, I use the Yamaha/Steinberg driver at 256 samples. I don't feel timing issues with any of those drivers.

Stagelight itself has a built-in keyboard and drum pads and I hear the sound as soon as I hit the screen. The keyboard they have has never quite felt as comfortable to play as ones on the iPad. Not sure why that is. Turning knobs in Stagelight and VSTs is quick and smooth. You can also use MIDI learn which is what I do.

With a USB hub you can still use your iPad as a touch controller.

BiancaNeve · Post by **BiancaNeve** » Sun Sep 18, 2016 8:58 am

Do you know if it works with StudioMux?

iPlogger · Post by **iPlogger** » Sun Sep 18, 2016 7:12 pm

I did a test with MusicIO (similar to StudioMux) and I recall it worked. But that was over a year ago and I can't remember specifics. I'll have to try it again as I don't recall the latency. I do remember it being a little more involved than I had hoped.

BiancaNeve · Post by **BiancaNeve** » Thu Sep 22, 2016 5:00 pm

I see there's a version 3 out today. But what I can't work out is if it's a free update or a paid one.

Littlewoodg · Post by **Littlewoodg** » Fri Sep 23, 2016 2:46 am

Bitwig is amazing on Surface Pro 3, as is Usine Hollyhock...Stagelight is amazing for the price, but can't really touch these other 2...the real bargain for touch on Surface Pro is Bremmers MultitrackStudio...there's a free one to try as well

BiancaNeve · Post by **BiancaNeve** » Fri Sep 23, 2016 9:13 pm

I've got multitrack studio on iOS - sorry can't say I like it just find theUI hard to get my head around

Littlewoodg · Post by **Littlewoodg** » Fri Sep 23, 2016 10:14 pm

It's definitely an acquired taste and it took me a while to acquire it.

I'm using it because it's so broadly cross platform. I can run it on XP with Creamware Scope and I can then work on those tracks on iOS or Surface Pro.

This is especially given the MTS feature that allows one to turn an audio track back into midi, so that an audio track recorded in Creamware can be copied to a midi track to drive an onboard synth (iOS or PC)

The PC version has those things that you would want on iOS. (Edit multiple tracks on one screen, for example) For projects that start and end on surface pro Bitwig is still king hands down. it's very well thought out for touch and kicks the ass of any DAW on iOS. Not to mention you can run Omnisphere, Diva, Falcon, all at once if need be. Amazing to have that power on a tablet

iPlogger · Post by **iPlogger** » Sun Sep 25, 2016 11:14 pm

I'm willing to look into another app if it has a certain feature I'm looking for. Stagelight 3.0 removed a feature which was a top 3 reason I got Stagelight in the first place. I'm looking for something that will allow me to play patterns live in any sequence and also let me use my controller to play sounds on different tracks. For example, while playing a pattern, I may have my controller playing a sound on Track 4. Then I press a button on the keyboard to play a layer of Tracks 5, 6 and 7. Unfortunately, this has been removed in 3.0, though there is a possibility of it coming back.

So I'm looking for something else that may be able to handle this. I don't understand why this is a hard to find feature in DAWs. It is how I played live on my ESQ-1 from 1986 and since then, almost everything seems to be song-based now. Maybe FruityLoops or I'm almost positive Ableton can do it.

It's a bummer because I was finding Stagelight worked nicely for my needs.

Littlewoodg · Post by **Littlewoodg** » Mon Sep 26, 2016 2:57 am

Bitwig does this, it's what it's for, really. In fact it's GUI, and the linnstrument style onboard control surface may get you to leave your outboard controller aside. But price-wise it's much more than Stagelight. For me, given what's onboard, Bitwigs worth the difference. Adding Stagelight's IAP, extra instrument and fx packages, the sample banks, makes for a fairer comparison, because when you see the included instruments, fx (and brilliant presets) and free addon packages that keep popping, Bitwig reveals itself to be the real steal. There's really no comparison, Bitwigs depth and features are far beyond Stagelight (and ought to be, the devs of Stagelight I'm sure would agree, the two packages set out to do very different things)

BiancaNeve · Post by **BiancaNeve** » Mon Sep 26, 2016 8:41 am

So what's the lowest spec bigwig will work on and how much storage does it need?

Finally found something useable on a Windows tablet