Grain Science has been out for a month, and our first update has just been released. Version 1.1 brings quite a lot of new stuff!
The most exciting is probably the virtual MIDI/background audio support. This allows you to launch another app while Grain Science continues to play music in the background, either to combine their output, or because you want to use the other app as a controller. It’s pretty neat tapping, say, the controls in Polychord and hearing Grain Science’s distinctive sounds in response.
(Note that normally, iOS suspends apps when not in use, so as to conserve your iPad’s battery. This is a good thing! So, you need to turn Background Audio on when you want to use it – via the switch in the settings – and you should turn it back off when you’re done, to conserve battery life.)
There are a couple of new FX units, a new grain mode, a bunch of new instruments and various other improvements, bugfixes and more. Here’s the full list:
New: Background audio support (enable in settings)
New: Virtual MIDI – control Grain Science from other apps on your iPad
New: Flanger FX Unit
New: Pulse Width FX Unit
New: Single Shot grain mode – like Linear, but halts at the end of the sample instead of looping
New: UI improvement – Jump quickly to any panel without having to scroll one-by-one
New: UI improvement – Grain Mode, Blend Mode, Reverb Mode and AGC buttons can now be dragged up/down to quickly change modes without popping open a separate panel
New: 5 additional built-in instruments
Improved: Faster switching between instruments
Improved: Cleaner transitions when switching instruments
Improved: Reduced memory usage
Fix: Parameters in the control mapping panel now show “FX switched off” when the FX Unit they apply to hasn’t been activated in the FX chain.
Fix: Issue transferring control map minimum/maximum/auto reset values to new instruments
Fix: Issue where Bounce grain mode would, in rare circumstances, loop instead
Fix: Compatibility issue importing certain audio files
Fix: Various other minor issues
You can see some of this stuff in action here: