App Shopper: Cyborg GCF - Wireless MIDI Button Accordion Control Surface (Music)

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Nov 10 '11	Version 1.1
Jul 12 '11	New App: $4.99, v1.0

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Cyborg GCF - Wireless MIDI Button Accordion Control Surface

iOS iPad

Cyborg GCF is a WiFi-based wireless 31-button three-row Button Accordion MIDI control surface for the iPad.

The app uses the standard GCF (Sol) button layout popular for Tex-Mex, Norteño, Tejano, Conjunto, Vallenato, and similar styles of button accordion music.

Please visit the app website for a live demo video showing the app playing a Roland JV-1080 synth module!

Cyborg GCF doesn't produce any sound on it own, it is designed for controlling hardware or software VST-style MIDI synthesizers via a WiFi connection to a Windows or Mac OS X based computer running a DSMIDIWifi server.

Touch the buttons with the fingers on your right hand to play. Buttons highlight when playing.

Multiple buttons may be pressed at the same time to make chords.

This style of accordion plays different notes depending on whether you are pushing or pulling on the bellows.

Touch the anywhere in the bellows image at the top of the screen for PUSH notes, lift your finger for PULL notes.

The PUSH/PULL indicator shows the current bellows direction. Also, the sides of the bellows light up tracking the bellows motion

You may slide your fingers between the buttons.

Touch the MIDI connector icon at the upper left corner to show the MIDI controls.

Using the controls, you may set the overall instrument MIDI volume, MIDI modulation, MIDI channel (1-8), key attack velocity playing style (fixed or variable), velocity min/max, and transposition (+/- 12 semitones).

Both fixed and variable velocity modes are provided to allow for expressive playback. In the variable velocity modes, the X or Y touch position within the bellows sets the velocity for the notes being played. The range for the velocity is set using the Min and Max Velocity sliders.

For fixed velocity, the Max Velocity slider value is used.

You may also set the Max Velocity to less than the Min Velocity to reverse the direction for velocity mapping in the bellows touch areas.

The app is based on the standard GCF tuning. Other common tunings can be achieved by setting the transposition control.

For example, for FBbEb tuning, set a -2 semitone transposition. For EAD, set a -3 semitone transposition.

Touch the '?' icon to show the base layout note names for each button (without transposition).

Touch the '!' icon at the top center to send an "All Notes Off" message to silence any "stuck" notes should they ever occur.

Touch the 'i' icon to show the instructions page.

Multiple iPads can run Cyborg GCF on the same wireless network, each sending messages on its own MIDI channel to the hardware or software synthesizer.

All settings are saved when the app exits.

Cyborg GCF requires two pieces of software to do its job. The first is the Cyborg GCF app itself, running on your iPad.

The other is a small free open-source DSWiFiMIDI server application that you run on your PC or Mac before launching Cyborg GCF.

The server application receives the MIDI messages from Cyborg GCF via WiFi, and sends them along to either an external MIDI interface or a loopback MIDI driver to talk to software synthesizers running on the same computer.

Please read the instructions on the app website for information on downloading and installing the free open-source DSMIDIWiFi server application for your system.

For the most reliable performance with the lowest possible latency, I highly recommend that you connect the PC or Mac to the wireless access point that will be used by the iPad via a wired ethernet cable rather than use wireless for both the computer and the iPad. The computer and wireless gateway that the iPad is connected to must be on the same network.

To get the full benefit from Cyborg GCF, you should be very familiar with the use of MIDI control surfaces, hardware and/or software VST synthesizers. You may want to try other free DSMIDIWiFi based apps before purchasing this one to make sure your system is compatible and optimized for wireless MIDI use.

What's new

As per a user's request on the Reyes Accordion board, changed the MIDI channel slider to a large selector next to the button board to make it easier to change MIDI channels during live play.