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XPad is a professional sound module app with focus on modern pad sounds for iPad. The goal was to get the warm and vibrant sound of analogue synths onto the convenient platform of an iPad and combine those sounds with the benefits of state of the art digital features while still preserving that analogue tone and feeling.
GlissandoXPad introduces a new way and technology that we were developing for our apps to achieve realistic large interval Glissando, which means you can glide a tone continuously e.g. from the lowest octave up to the highest octave and vice versa, in any desirable speed and without causing an artificial impression to the listener.
But this is not just about tone. We were also thinking about how to improve the
usability aspects for playing Glissando in a much more intuitive and
convenient way for a keyboard player, while still preserving the player's full
control.
Foremost this app allows you to mix Glissando with regular polyphonic notes
(e.g. chords) simultaneously or switch between these playing styles quickly at
any time, and that without leaving your hands off the keyboard.
So for instance you might be playing and holding a chord with your right hand
while playing a Glissando slide with your left hand and punching through the
right hand's chord from an octave lower than the chord, up to some octave
higher than the chord, effectively crossing whatever that other hand is
currently doing. Tone WidthReplicating some analogue boutique pad synthesizers is nice, but what about having a huge stack of them? That's where "Tone Width" control comes into play.
Especially the important pad sounds of this app allow you to morph the sound
with the "Tone Width" knob in real-time steplessly between a very thin and clean
sound up to a huge and fat tonal sound as if an army of pad synths was working
under your finger tips. Sensible ControlControls for the individual sound aspects is good. But it should be in a sensible way. Nothing is hard wired here. Every sound of this app presents controls that make sense for the individual sound. For instance the following sound uses a built-in sequencing feature, so there is a control for adjusting the tempo. Other sounds might show you a dedicated control for "Decay" if that is really useful for the sound. And all the controls presented are always fine tuned to the individual elements that make up that overall sound.
Of course you can also alter these controls remotely by MIDI e.g. with sliders
at your keyboard. The most important sound controls for each sound are mapped
to things that you are most likely using anyway at your keyboard. For instance
all sounds use the Aftertouch information of your keyboard to bring more
dynamic behaviour into the sound even while just holding some notes. And just
grab your modulation wheel at your keyboard to bring in some more variance. Never LostXPad offers up to 462 sounds, but don't worry, it never lets you down and always assists you finding just the sound you need in a glimpse. You can quickly search for sounds with any combination of several criteria like sound characteristics, articulations, controls and of course your own personal favourites.
ConnectivityLike all our apps, XPad is very easy to use and start with. Just connect your keyboard with your iPad and you are ready to go.
And of course if needed, you can simply tweak the setup, e.g. use a Bluetooth MIDI
wireless connection to your keyboard instead of a cabled one, restrict MIDI
input to certain devices or apps, connect to other apps with Inter-App Audio
or use the sounds of this app as Audio Unit v3 plugin directly in the
DAW app of your choice. RecorderThe app comes with a built-in MIDI recorder that allows you to quickly record your musical ideas. You can share them as audio files with other people or transfer them as MIDI files for further work e.g. on your Mac.
Sound Sets
XPad is divided into 14 optional sound sets of different sound categories and
provide up to 462 sounds in total. Even though the app is focused on pad sounds,
this is not all this app has to offer sound-wise. The "Atmo" pack for instance
contains atmospheric sounds for generating very emotional sound bases and
backgrounds e.g. for film and entertainment. The "Perc" sound set contains drums
and percussive sounds. The "Silicon" sound set covers synthesizers also offside
the pad field, and much more.
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