SoundTower has released Tetra Sound Editor – a dedicated iPad patch editor for Dave Smith Instruments Tetra synthesizer.
Tetra Sound Editor displays all Tetra Program parameters in a single, graphical interface. The interface resembles the look and feel of the real synthesizer, while streamlining your workflow and allowing you to view the complete details of any Program at a glance.
Features:
- Real time editing of all Tetra parameters
- Program Bank manager
- Load/Save of Program Banks
- Transmitting and receiving of Program Bank data
- Sequencer editor
- Resizable on-screen keyboard
- Direct USB/MIDI connection with Apple iPad Camera Adapter
- Wireless connection possible using MIDI network
- Magnified editing panels
This Tetra Sound Editor is available for US $24.99 in the App Store.
If you’ve used the Tetra Sound Editor, let us know what you think of it!
Well, based on experience of using their paid for desktop editor they have to be having a laugh with this pricing.
Oh god, Sound Tower is awful… Love the idea, but wont even think about buying another product from sound tower…
Looks like the desktop…so no reasons to believe it is better…one of the worse destop editor I came accross.
Will take a lot to convince me this finally works…and if it does, still doesn’t justify the price.
A no goer straight away!!!
Jeez, 24.99? I already plunked down money on their craptastic desktop editor. If this was a couple bucks I’d give it a try, but at this price, no way! My Sound Tower experience has not been great thus far.
Yeah at this price you might as well buy lemur, the mopho editor from the user lib works incredibly. I don’t have a tetra just a mopho but if someone can confirm that it works with the tetra I think lemur is a no brainer
It does work, at least in that I was able to program 1 of the four voices, it’s not too much fiddling to make it work for all 4. The main problem when I used it was that Lemur was unable to handle long sysex strings needed for dumping patches into the editor. Not sure if they fixed that yet, might have to check it out.
Soundtower : crappy products sold at unbelievably high prices.
The VST version on the mac works great, I know the windows version can be dodgy but that’s the good old drivers on windows for you.
Theirs a lot of interface to fit on to an ipad there, would prefer something a bit more minimal.
I’ve had a terrible time with the VST in Live on my MBP, much like the stand-alone version it is clunky and forgets things at random. Either version often manages to mangle patches too.
Not really sure what windows drivers have to do with anything.
DSI don’t make their own drivers for windows like say access do for the virus and the generic midi drivers for windows are poor. The drivers apple make work.
The problem with soundtowers software is as much to do with the implementation of midi on the computer and it’s ability to handle NRPNs as it is the programming.
My point was I’ve used both their VST and standalone editor on both platforms and they exhibit the same issues.
I haven’t had a problem with the VST version on a mac running live. My worst gripe is the work flow , but again that’s as much down to the way the tetra uses midi as with sound tower.
Their is another editor come on the market, I can’t remember who by try the KVR web site am sure I seen it there.
The ideal solution would DSI designed their own software, then the hardware could be built with an editor in mind and no third party trying to wing it. Havering said that access took along time to sort theirs out and am still not sure their windows version is right.
I bought their editors for the DSI Mopho Keys and Moog Little Phatty (Mac) and now have the free one for the DSI Mopho X4. All absolute shite products.
i am really interested into getting the tetra but there is alot of reports of problems with multi mode.
the last firmware seems to be from 2011, so apparently there have been no fixes?
i am considering controlling it either with the lemur or the ctrlr panels.
is tetra that buggy when used multitimbrally? has anything changed?
any insights are much appreciated.
Have a read of the Tetra section of dsiforum.com Pym is usually working on beta patches there and there are many posts regarding what bugs are still around. For me I have not made extensive use of multimode but it has been fine when I have.
I too went straight to Lemur and started writing an editor, but for what I wanted to do it was crippled by Lemur’s sysex handling at the time.
thank you for the info.
the forum over there is closed to visitors as i recall.
so there is still no way of using tetra as a soundmodule without glitches?
too bad.
AFAIK the forum registration is open to all, just for some reason you have to log in to read.
Regarding multimode, as I said, I don’t use it often enough to encounter issues. Has been fine in regular mode.
thanks, maybe i will register at that. it just feels odd to have to reg to read.
btw i do believe there were significant updates to lemur that might adress the sysex length troubles you had.
I am kind of annoyed that the editor doesn’t come with the synth and that it’s $25, which is not a great value compared with other iPad software.
But the fact that it’s from SoundTower is the garlic-pickle-horseradish icing on a very dry and stale cake from about five years ago.
The SoundTower editor for the Moog Little Phatty is $69 and that was for a $1300 synth. THAT felt like a slap in the face. Thankfully, Moog is now making their own software which is much better, works as a VST / AU plugin (Sub Phatty) and most importantly, FREE. I wish Dave Smith Instruments would follow suit. SoundTower products majorly suck.
Too expensive and only for iOS 7 and above. Fail.
I’ll join in the chorus and decry the $25 price tag. That is silly. I bought the Mopho editor and just haven’t been thrilled with it.
Slap in the face? Well I’ve got a special moog voyager for 4100.- and I haf to buy the standalone software for 79.- maybe a month later they brought the vst. Again 79.- but at least its working –> the options menu of the moog is the living hell (got it ob a mac and for the evolver as well) if you’re looking for an app with good sysex compability I can highly recomend tb midi (and believe me…i tried a lot of them) there is a free template for the alesis andromeda on it. Maybe the best editor I came across so far (exept the virus)
Party pooper here:
I’d buy an iPad for this.
And a Tetra.
Has anyone actually tried the iPad version? A lot of the whining here is based on the pc versions, which granted are a bit dodgy. But I wouldn’t mind paying 22 euros for a working Mopho editor (which is on the way). Looks like the interface could be well suited for touch screens, and would greatly facilitate creating sequences etc.
Hi! Do you know if sound tower app works with midi din conection, for example alesis io dock or another interface? Or just work with USB midi?
Thanks!
Cheers!
I hope so, since they’re working on an editor for Mopho desktop, which doesn’t have usb midi.
http://www.soundtower.com/ios/index.html
Dont have a tetra but wouldnt mind one i also do have an ipad now with the reviews on sound towers editors im not sold but i do like the idea of synth editors on ipad i will keep an eye out for more of this type of toy tool though i do think until something better comes along i will get and stick to lemur it was good enough for.bjork
wow another great soundtower app muhahahahaha
i made an elektron analogfour editor for touchosc, i already saw a twtra editor for touch osc for free on some webpage, which gave me the idea of making one for the analog four
SoundTower may suck, but the Tetr4 is an awesome synth!! It rocks both as a great-sounding and versatile standalone instrument and as an expander for the Prophet ’08. 😀
In case anyone is wondering, the QuNexus in channel rotation mode works great with the Tetr4 in multi mode, supporting independent key pressure and key tilt on each voice (since each voice has its own MIDI channel with independent pressure, pitch bend, modulation, etc.)
Which is to say: it’s a very practical option for polyphonic aftertouch and modulation on a modern analog synth.
And if you have more than one Tetr4, you can combine them (or poly chain them, although USB MIDI may be snappier) into a monster tabletop synth of up to 16 voices, all with independent key pressure and modulation!! Vangelis would be pleased. 😀
The only gotcha with the QuNexus/Tetr4 is that you have to either use the KMI MIDI expander or a computer to connect the controller to the synth.
I still wish DSI would update the firmware with regular polyphonic key pressure support, but this is the next best thing (and arguably better since you can get tilt as well.)