Artiphon

Thank you. That is a good response. More than Orba has ever given. That being said, I think it would be a pretty simple add on to load a sound for a sample-based synthesis. This is able to be done through garage band and other software (albeit minimally) and I believe making it a stand alone feature would be a worthwhile endeavor. Especially on the new synth software they just put out. It would make it a much better product. Hopefully Orba can at least give it consideration in the future. 

Very interesting! I see why I was so confused: I wrongly thought you were running GarageBand on the PC (which is possible, but looks like a world of pain). Would it help your setup to do the modulation on the iPad rather than the PC? There's nothing on desktop, either Mac or PC, to compare with AUM as a routing app for audio and MIDI, and iOS also has some incredible MIDI manipulation tools like MidiFire and MidiFlow. But I suppose if it's a borrowed iPad that's not really an option. 

Yes, using third party software, it is able to play samples as you described and as I have already described. Simply making the software capable of doing the same thing would make their device even more diverse making it so you wouldn't need an ipad or have to pay for additional software. Saying it doesnt have any play capabilities itself while accurate is misleading since its ability to play simple sounds is very doable. Take Oddballs software for instance. It's able to connect to Orba and you can then play its samples through it. Although it not a sample based device, it is not only its hardware. It's software is very possible at making this happen and like stated previously, is already able to be done with third party software. 

''Well, once again, samples take up vastly more space than synth presets. You can verify this yourself by saving an Orbasynth preset to desktop (it's just a small XML text file) and comparing the file size to that of whatever sound samples you have around that you'd want to work with on the Orba. And even if the Orba had massively more onboard memory, samples don't play themselves; Artiphon would have to go back and build a sample player into the Orba, and create a user front end to it. If any of this were easy, rest assured they'd have already done it.

As you say, the way to use the Orba with samples is through desktop software, though I may be misunderstanding what you're proposing. What's the difference between storing samples on PC and using the Orba to control a sampler on PC?''

What i am proposing is nothing different than you can already do with third party software. You are most assuredly able to play samples through the device from software. I am doing it right at this moment. In fact, in garage band, you're able to play samples and still use the software to modulate which then correlates to the ability to do the same from the device itself. The only thing I'm asking is to be able to do this through the devices own software instead of third party software which requires you to have an Ipad or pay additional money. 

Once again, everything I've said, you're already able to do by paying extra money for someone else's software. I'd just like the ability to not have to spend additional capital on something that it should be able to do with its own software. 

The main reason is because I do live music streaming and connecting to my ipad to get everything set up is quite a chore. It's made much easier by using other software but that software comes with a very hefty price tag. And using an ipad is much less than ideal and buying a mac just for that reason is out of my price range. Having the same ability on software side would allow me to continue to play it from my monitors through my pc while also letting me continue to live stream from the device since being prepared with the desired sounds is always preferable to having to switch them out live. Which is what I'm currently doing. 

Sorry, our posts crossed! But you don't need to pay anything for third-party software if you don't want to (though on iOS in particular you can get some absolutely incredible sampler software for almost nothing; even Samplr, which is pretty much the top of the range, is half price this weekend) here are many free plugins out there if you're absolutely determined not to support any of those wonderful developers with the price of a coffee.

*There are. (Sorry, this is why I hate Freshdesk…)

Thanks for explaining your use case. I still don't entirely understand what you're doing, but it's certainly a long way from anything I've ever attempted, and if I were trying it I wouldn't be trying to do it on a PC.

(It does sound extremely cool, though!)

The only way to do it is through PC for me. All of my MIDI controllers connect through my pc other than a couple of my drump machines. That's how they're all able to talk to each other to relay what I'm sending. 

If we're just wishing here, my ultimate goal would be to be able to use the Orba to modulate any current live sound I store on my boss looper which would negate the need to save it to any software at all. Alas, I have not found the workaround for that yet. 

Could Bome help? On macOS and iOS there's a wider choice of MIDI-munging tools (I particularly like MidiFire), but Bome is pretty good, and their support is excellent.

I'm not talking about having the sounds come through the orba, just using it as a modulation device. The actual sounds come through my monitor speakers through the pc. If I use garage band, I am able to do just that while adjusting the modulation through garage band and then further adjusting it with the obra (orbas modulation does still work through although the parameters are a bit fussy). I shoulda have been more clear. I'm not trying to play these sounds through the Orba itself. 

So to be clear, you're not actually using the Orba to produce sound, either from the internal synth or as a MIDI note generator – just using CC messages to modulate sounds produced from another controller? (Apologies for struggling to get my head round this, and for the drift of this whole conversation away from the topic of the thread!) I'm quite impressed that you can even do this running GarageBand under virtualisation (assuming that's what you're doing to run it on PC)! – this is a very unusual and interesting Orba setup.