Nord Beat - performance step sequencer (and it's free)

[Guest jasondonervan]

Nord Beat is a 4-track CoreMIDI Step Sequencer for iPad. Nord Beat is a perfect companion for your Nord Drum and is available for free at the App Store!

 

Sequencer

 

Nord Beat lets you create drum beats in classic 16 step grid with up to 8 patterns and offers great control over velocity.

Patterns can be played back in two ways: In Sequence Mode, up to 8 patterns can be cued and will play in a chained fashion. Each pattern can be set to repeat up to 8 times to create a song progression.

When Sequence Mode is turned off, a single pattern will loop until you cue another.

Any pattern can be edited while playing and the Copy/Paste function lets you create variations over a pattern very quickly.

There are 3 velocity levels represented by colors, and are easily changed by swiping up or down on the desired notes. The actual velocity values can be altered with the velocity faders for changing accents and dynamics in real-time.

The Shuffle amount can also be changed on the fly and each of the 4 tracks can be muted individually. The Pattern length can be shortened (1-16) while playing for creating breakdowns or alternative time signatures.

 

Pad Mode

 

 

Nord Beat also features a Pad Mode that lets you play the Nord Drum (or other MIDI gear) with your fingers and even gives you great control over the velocity! The center zones transmit full velocity and gradually gets lower towards the edges. The pads can be used simultaneously with the sequencer.

 

Easy Setup

 

Although designed with the Nord Drum in mind, Nord Beat can be used with any MIDI instrument. Just choose the desired MIDI-channel and Note Numbers in the Nord Beat Settings menu and you're ready to go!

A CoreMIDI compatible MIDI interface is required.

[Guest ryanmcallister]

Nice to see they've gone for the larger pads in Pad Mode, which means I can probably play this with drum sticks like one of those Roland units or something right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...for real though, velocity control relative to center position on those pads is quite brilliant!

[th555]

Is this meant to (/will this) work with the nord drum?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZt7ZUqzOkc

edit: oh never mind, just read in the OP that it is haha.

 

...for real though, velocity control relative to center position on those pads is quite brilliant!

That's indeed a neat solution! But what we really need now is a pressure sensitive touchscreen of course. (Maybe you can already approach that by looking at the size of the touched area...)

[Guest sirch]

hot damn

[Guest The Bro]

I downloaded it yesterday although I don't know if I have any use for it lol.

[th555]

Since ios devices have multitasking now it can be a great performance controller with this and touchosc. I've seen beardyman use 2 ipads this summer, one of which ran touchosc. Pretty neat.