Wizdom Music has introduced Geo Synthesizer – a new software synthesizer and MIDI controller for iOS, available now in the App Store for $10.49.
Geo Synthesizer is a collaboration between Wizdom Music’s Jordan Rudess, Kevin Chartier (MorphWiz, SampleWiz) and Rob Fielding (Mugician). Geo Synthesizer is intended to be an ‘expressive musical instrument specifically created for a multitouch surface’.
Some of the more unique features of Geo Synthesizer are microtonal support, ‘snap speed control’ – which allows for accurate pitch control on a continuously pitched instrument and a unique key layout.
See the demo video above by mvpadrini for a preview of Geo Synthesizer’s patches and potential. Details on Geo Synthesizer are available below.
Geo Synthesizer is a serious & ambitious software synth – but it’s also one that doesn’t fit neatly into the ‘software synth module’ category, with its alternative keyboard and emphasis on microtonal playing.
If you’ve tried Geo Synthesizer, leave a comment and let us know your thoughts on it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9p_XLanjVE
“Geo Synthesizer….is the fastest truly playable iOS instrument that I have put my hands on to date,” says Rudess. “I can fly through the range of an instrument while expanding on the kind of advanced pitch control we introduced in MorphWiz. As someone who grew up with synthesizers, I can tell you that pitch bending has never been this good!”
Features:
- ability to load waveforms from SampleWiz presets
- octave rounding for effortless soloing over large ranges
- whammy slider with absolute and relative modes
- 12ET, 24ET, 53ET, and 665ET temperament options
- mono, string, and full-polyphony modes
- tuning and transposition controls
- snap speed control to affect how quickly the instrument pulls notes in tune
- playing surface options for number of rows and columns on screen
- octave and fifth harmonics synthesis options to rich, organ-like sounds
- gain control to add distortion to the sound
- FM and touch FM controls for timbal variation
- mono out for use with guitar amps
- sine, sawtooth, square, and custom (SampleWiz) wave options
- attack and release controls
- synthesis body control
- lowpass filter with resonance
- stereo delay
- reverb
- MIDI output with polyphonic note bending and multiple configuration options to allow compatibility with a wide range of hardware and software synthesizers
- performance menu lets you make your own custom menu so all the controls you need are always right at your fingertips
- 40 presets carefully selected by Jordan Rudess, including patches from Jordan’s personal sound library
I know you guys visit this site so I thought I’d leave feedback here instead of iTunes. The virtual MIDI does not seem to work. I’m trying it with Sunrizer on iOS 5 with an iPad 2.
Hey Kevin! It was created primarily for Virtual MIDI, though you could guess that it was tested very heavily with things like SampleWiz and ThumbJam. Kevin Chartier and Jordan have used Sunrizer, though I don’t remember if we got 100% fixed on problems with this particular one. Reach me on email and I will get you squared away. Did you go to the MIDI out and select it as a destination? If you reboot your iPad are you unable to reproduce any of these issues? Anyways, hit me with details at [email protected], as we haven’t gotten any problems we can’t resolve yet.
Update: Kevin, Sunrizer requires a larger buffer than the low latency buffer that we demand. Apparently, when this was discovered in testing over a month ago, nothing was done about it on either end. (Either Geo puts in options to satisfy synths that break when given a smaller buffer, or Sunrizer stops breaking when it gets the smaller buffer – you are supposed to handle the buffer size changing because even unplugging the headphone jack will change it on you). Use another synth. Both apps may need to be updated for Sunrizer virtual MIDI to work.
Hi. Thanks for posting my video. Please also take a look at this review http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONn6JVlRqrE with very nice parts showing some fingering techniques to play with it really fast. Skill that I have to improve a lot 🙂
It is a very nice synth and also a great MIDI controller for other iOS music apps, virtual and hardware instruments. The MIDI implementation is complete, so you can play bends and poly bends (according to your hardware/software limitations) even when controlling other instruments.
Great! Just bought it!
Now all i can wish for is an iPad version of the Hotz box, with MIDI output, of course.
Anyone?
I don’t know, to me all these apps sound the same since the release of BeBot followed by Morphwiz and Samplewiz.
I’ll pass on this one, I’m afraid…
Agreed.
As a controller, this looks like a really interesting update to Mugician.
As a synth, I’m not sure if those presets could be less appealing to me.
I have a question, how do I load presets from samplewiz? Thanks in advance.
From SampleWiz, click on the current preset name so that you are looking through the menu of presets to scroll through. There’s a button to export to Geo. It will launch Geo with the SampleWiz patch turned into a Geo patch. But before you press that, make sure that the SampleWiz sample is properly tuned to match what you would expect to come out of a MIDI instrument at same key, trim off silence (to avoid creating latency at low pitches) at front and back of sample (to not let it be unnecessarily large), and set the loop correctly (so that the attack versus sustain is right).
So my finger accidentally hit the “X” button next to the scroll list of presets. Now, my favorite sound is missing!!!!!! Is that sound permantly lost? That would be awful if it was….please lemme know how to get the sounds back
-Mckendree
which sound? have somebody mail it to you. 🙂
must admit i’ve been worried about accidentally hitting the X button…
Maybe it can be moved to à diiferent place, or made to require a confirmation (if a confirmation is not requested yet – haven’t tried)?
I did the same thing and had to remove the app and re-install it.
I just bought Geo,not able to controll sunrizer. It worked with Sample Wiz and Nlog pro. I have Sample Wiz and the Geo’s presets and sounds are Really Superior!
Also the use for controlling other midi equipment is a plus. The way the keyboard is laid out and its functions makes this a new instrument well worth learning. Check out the youtube videos! I am able to do some awesome runs that I can not do on my guitar (I’m a lead guitar player) and not even dream of doing on a piano keyboard, ever!
This is a great new instrument all together! Glad I decided to get it!
see comment to Kevin about Sunrizer. I wanted to avoid saying in public that I didn’t think there was a Sunrizer workaround, but it seems to be true. i put in code changes that i thought would resolve the problem but didn’t have the beta Sunrizer myself, and i guess we moved on to other stuff. Sunrizer and Geo may both need to be updated to handle this. I can accomodate it, but I consider the Sunrizer behavior to be something that’s badly handled too.
I emailed a bit with Mr. Fielding about this. It turns out that Sunrizer is not compatible after all. Maybe the two developers can put their heads together and figure out a solution?
I have talked to him. He is doing something about it, but also suggested that I simply use the larger buffer (whaa??). I believe that the issue is this: I request low latency. I have no idea what apps break when this request is made, and it’s a perfectly reasonable request for me to make. Everything except Sunrizer so far survives me making this request. Anways your app needs to SPEAK UP if it can’t handle it. It should just deal with the low latency that it is given at the time, but request higher latency. Sunrizer assumes that if it requests a big audio buffer that this request will be honored forever, while simultaneously not having a recovery plan if it gets lower latency buffers. But iOS multitasking creates a big mosh pit of every app changing the TV channel to what it wants. Once your app starts, the buffer size can change on you at random, so you have to monitor it and take action if it puts you into a hosed state. It changes when you unplug and replug into the headphone jack FFS.
A workaround for Sunrizer is described on the new FAQ page: http://wizdommusic.com/GeoSynth/faq.html.
Is it true that the scale select is limited to 8 diatonic modes? Or am I missing something? Custom-scale is about the feature I use most on Morphwiz and Samplewiz.
Mostly. The 7 diatonic modes, and a minor sharp seventh. But it’s not necessary to have many modes as it’s still chromatic play, and the markers are just visual reference anyway. However, there are new instruments in the works, and we already have moveable/reconfigurable frets to support locking to modes as well as general microtonal scale snapping.
When you say there are new instruments you mean that we will need to buy another app to use the microtonal features? That’s the only reason I got Geo Synth, to explore microtonal on the iPad…