Category Archives: Animoog App

Animoog Z Announced by Moog Music — my Beta Testing Perspective

2021/11/23Animoog App, Expansion PacksAnimoog, development, presets, timbres, updateSatri

Synths are like friends. It’s not how many you have that matters, it’s the time you spent developing familiarity and building a relationship with your synth that brings joy and value.
And today, our dear friend Animoog comes back to us
with a new dimension. Welcome Animoog Z !

I’m happy to announce Moog Music has introduced Animoog Z, a major new version of the iconic Animoog ‘appstrument’ for iPadOS, iOS, and for the first times, on macOS and as an AUv3 plugin. Here’s the official Animoog Z announcement, the direct link to Animoog Z on the App Store and Moog’s video introducing Animoog Z and its new features:

Animoog is now a free appstrument for which there is plenty to have fun with. If you’re reading this, chances are you’ll want to unlock all features for $9,99, which will enable you to modify the envelopes, the LFOs, modulations, apply effects, as well as support for the accelerometer and the Apple Pencil. Three expansion packs add new presets and timbres for $4,99 each. They’re named ‘Fundamental Elements’, ‘Evolving Oscillations’ and ‘Outer Orbits’.

Providing Animoog for free to everyone is a brilliant idea. You can play with the built-in presets and if you like Animoog, how it sounds, how you can interact and glide over its touch keys, then you can get the full appstrument for only $9,99. This is incredibly affordable if you consider this is one of the flagship appstruments out there. Here’s the second video Moog released for the occasion, an Animoog Z performance by Suzanne Ciani and her Buchla:

Z — The New Dimension

The Animoog keys and configurable scales have been allowing us to play with a dimension of sound, live with our fingers gliding on the touch screen. Animoog Z adds a third dimension to draw a path in a space of timbres named the Wave Cube ; the notes we play now follow a path in this 3D space of timbres. As Moog puts it in its manual, this third dimension allows “more dynamic waveshaping than was possible within the original Animoog.” Funny this website’s title since 2014 has been ‘Animoog Love — an other dimension of music’!

Animoog comes to macOS and AUv3

This will please many, Animoog is now available on macOS and as an AUv3 plugin. The macOS version offers plenty of playing expressivity and you can use your mouse or your keyboard to trigger Animoog keys. Might not be as expressive as gliding our fingers on the iPad, but works well for plenty of use cases and playing styles. Animoog is not the first Moog appstrument to have jumped from mobile to desktop, Model 15 made the leap in January 2021.

Animoog AUv3 is a welcomed new feature requested by many players. This will ease integration into various workflows involving DAWs and other tools. There are a number of additional new features for us to discover in Animoog Z, such as the timbre editor, the arpeggiator and now a 16-voice polyphonic synthesizer. Animoog was one of the first synths to support the MIDI MPE specification and Animoog Z is no exception.

Lots of New Presets & Timbres

Let’s start with good news: the 3,000+ presets and 5,000+ timbres available for Animoog 2 can be imported in Animoog Z with a relatively simple process. Before we get to it, this now possible thanks to a recent update to Animoog 2 which adds an important new feature ; Animoog 2’s files are now accessible through the Files app. This is major given managing our collections of presets and timbres has been cumbersome until now. You can import your presets and timbres into Animoog Z by copying the presets and timbres from Animoog 2, zipping them altogether and opening the resulting zip file in Animoog Z. The manual will walk you through with screenshots in the ‘Importing Legacy Presets & Timbres’ section. I’ve been able to import thousands of Animoog 2 presets and timbres in Animoog Z in a single attempt.

One of Animoog’s strength is its large fanbase and community of players. This is exemplified by the diversity of unofficial expansion packs already available for Animoog 2. And I have multiple new free Animoog expansion packs to announce!

The first one being ‘CS01_STR’, with 265 free Animoog presets and 227 timbres by CircledSquare. Thank you CircledSquare! :-)
The next free collections are from Lord Gogo (thank you!):
- the ‘MP4 Waves’ pack which contains 27 presets and 43 timbres
- the ‘Lunar Drones’ pack with 116 presets
The following collections are from returning contributor Justin Carter, thanks Justin!
- the ‘Le Noise’ pack contains 100 presets and 128 timbres
- Justin’s ‘Timbres 01’ pack offers 126 timbres
- Minimoog Model D presets included as well
The last expansion pack from windplayer is specific for EWI Breath Controllers, for the ones among you playing Animoog with an electronic wind instruments. The ‘Windcontroller pack’ provides the setup instructions, the EWI mapping and details for the 85 free presets. Thank you windplayer for these specialized presets! windplayer also included a track showcasing these Windcontroller presets:

Obviously, you’ll need to play with and edit Animoog 2 presets to make use of Animoog Z’s third dimension. This also means I’ll need to update the list of available presets and timbres, stay tuned! Let us know in a comment if you have new Animoog presets to submit for our list of third party expansion packs. Presets and timbres can now be easily managed and shared in Animoog Z and this is immensely useful.

Animoog 10 years anniversary

The initial award-winning Animoog was release in 2011. Ten years later, we’re being offered a large diversity of incredible appstruments, musical instruments in their own rights, which lets you play music in ways not possible before. Animoog has its place in Jakob Haq’s video on the evolution of the iOS/iPadOS music making platform from 2007 to 2021.

Despite being 10 years old, Animoog still get lots of attention. I’ve seen Jean-Michel Jarre and Suzanne Ciani playing Animoog live in shows. Another recent example is Animoog’s presence in Apple TV+ Watch the Sound with Mark Ronson documentary.

Animoog Z Beta Testing Experience

I’ve got the chance to do beta testing for Moog since March 2015. Animoog Z has come a long way since the initial version I got access to as a Beta tester. The entire process lasted several weeks and we thus had the opportunity of discovering Animoog Z, finding bugs and providing feedback on features. Both the desktop and mobile versions were provided. This has been a unique opportunity to influence and contribute a bit to the design and features of Animoog Z. There’s some of me in it! :-)

We got our hands on presets only at the very end of the process. Presets obviously comes last. While I played quite a lot with Animoog Z, I didn’t record much of it at all. My previous Animoog solo performances are available for free in my ‘stars’ best-of album. Here’s the only video I have and it’s for my very first short test with an Animoog Z preset, the ‘The Meaning Of…’ pad preset. Nothing stellar, but you’ll quickly find out why I choose this preset to begin my journey into Animoog Z ;-)

Moog is pretty open to suggestions that makes sense. I focused testing for the context of my own music setup, which led me to find some edge bugs while getting familiar with Animoog Z. They have an excellent software development team led by Geert Bevin, which have been blazing at fast triaging and handling issues and requests. In the following interview, well worth watching in full, Geert explains how he initially got involved in the development of Animoog, which ultimately led him to become Moog’s software engineering and software product manager:

Onwards

Over the years, Animoog got updates with some new features and compatibility updates. Moog never abandoned Animoog. On the contrary, today we leap to the next level. This familiar yet new Animoog Z version offers an additional sonic dimension which promesses hours of fun explorations and inspired music playing.

I expect new community presets to become available over the coming months. Subscribe to our newsletter to learn about them and upcoming Animoog Z news.

Enjoy Animoog Z! – Alex / Satri

Animoog 2.4.5 & Animoog for iPhone 1.3.1 Released with Audiobus 3 Support

2017/04/03Animoog Apprelease, updateSatri

Good news, the first Animoog update since last October. Happy to see Moog is keeping our beloved app up to date :-)

What’s new according to the release notes:

Integrated Audiobus 3 with full support for MIDI routing
Improvements to pressure modulation behavior when playing over MIDI
Updated AudioCopy SDK to v3.4
Improvements to mod and pitch wheel rendering
Fixed media import for clips in the 4-track on iOS 10
Improved background audio compatibility with other apps

Animoog for iPhone gains one more feature:

Animoog for iPhone keyboard now sends polypressure when the MIDI Expansion Pack is purchased

The update has certainly been triggered by today’s release of Audiobus 3, which Animoog’s new version supports. Audiobus has been an essential app for mobile musicians needing to send audio signal from one app to the other. Audiobus 3 now supports inter-app MIDI routing as well. Here’s the video that presents Audiobus 3 capabilities, and yes, this overview showcases Animoog!

Thanks Moog for the Animoog updates and let’s hope there’s more for Animoog to come from Moog developers! Enjoy the new version — Alex / Satri

50% Discount on Animoog & Model 15

2016/11/23Animoog App, Model 15discount, Model 15Satri

If you’re reading this website, chances are you already own and play Animoog. But do your musician friends do as well? That’s the opportunity for everyone to get Animoog, both the iPad and the iPhone versions, as well as Moog Music’s Model 15 app, at a 50% discount. I suspect this sale will last until next Monday or so, enjoy it while it lasts.

Animoog for $14,99 instead of the usual $29,99
Animoog for iPhone for $2,99 instead of the usual $5,99
Model 15 for $14,99 instead of the usual $29,99

Share the good news with your friends! And maybe it’s time for you to discover and explore new sounds with Animoog? If that’s the case then head to the table of Animoog presets which lists over 2,500 presets. I have tons of incomplete Animoog-related posts to share with you and hopefully I’ll find the time to complete them in the coming weeks. One thing I can tell you though: the next version of the table of Animoog presets will add 4 packs of Animoog presets! Yes, this means new presets for all of us to enjoy! Thank you for your patience :-) — Alex / Satri

Animoog on the LinnStrument and the ROLI Seaboard with Expressive MIDI

2016/10/16Animoog App, Playingcontrollers, Linnstrument, midi, MIDI MPE, Roger Linn Design, ROLI, Roli SeaboardSatri

One of my ongoing quests is to find an alternative controller for Animoog that would suit my playing style. This post focuses on the compatibility and capabilities of the Linnstrument and the ROLI Seaboard with Animoog now that Animoog supports MPE, aka Expressive MIDI.

Animoog MIDI MPE Support

Animoog 2.4.0 released about a month ago brought support for MPE input with note-per-channel MIDI controllers. This changes everything. Everything when it comes for Animoog to support sophisticated MIDI controllers.

What is MPE and why it matters so much? MPE is an extension of the MIDI standard that stands for the Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression specification. It is also known as ‘Expressive MIDI’. You’ll learn a lot more in this previous post a year ago about MIDI MPE’s development and its technical specification.

In short, this new way of leveraging MIDI messages makes it possible to control the multiple expressive parameters of a single Animoog note over the same old MIDI cables. The ‘core MIDI specification’ wasn’t built to handle multiple dimensions per note. Dimensions in Animoog? Think of modulations such as the different polypressures or orbit rates for every note played.

The advent of MIDI MPE significantly reduces the limitations external controllers had when it comes to controlling advanced sound synthesis instruments such as Animoog and Model 15. If I’m not mistaken, it also enables better means to record Animoog performances over MIDI (I haven’t made experimentations myself yet, but I plan to — and of course, I’ll publish my findings on this very site). Expect more and more controllers and apps to support MIDI MPE over time. And be happy, thanks to Moog developers, Animoog now supports it! :-)

The LinnStrument

The LinnStrument by Roger Linn Design is one of the alternative controllers for serious players. Yes, it’s different from the MIDI controllers we’re used to, but don’t be afraid by this grid of lights, just look at how others play with it and you’ll understand why it attracts that much interest. Every cell will reacts to z-axis pressure as well as x / y-axises for vibrato and modulation. Pitch slides are easily performed on the LinnStrument’s x-axis. The Sonic Lab video below will show this to you.

The LinnStrument also happens to be built and played by incredibly friendly people! I wanted to try the LinnStrument and Roger Linn himself nicely arranged a meeting with a LinnStrument owner in my home city of Montreal. That’s how I met with the wonderful Nathanaël last April. Nathanaël happens to work for the famous Moment Factory studio. He generously spent time with me on his LinnStrument, testing not only Animoog (which at the time didn’t support MIDI MPE) but also let me test how it feels to actually play on the LinnStrument. Thanks a lot Nathanaël!

nat_linnstrument — Nathanaël on the LinnStrument

Unrelated to the LinnStrument, here’s a short video by Nathanaël showing Animoog controlling LED lights with note velocity and polyphonic aftertouch.

Sonic Lab just released a 22-minutes video review of the Linnstrument, and guess what, it extensively features Animoog! :-) This video not only gives you an idea of the capabilities of the LinnStrument, Gaz Williams goes into the details of many of its features. This is a must-see video to anyone looking for an alternative controller for Animoog.

After trying the LinnStrument last April, there’s one question I asked the LinnStrument developers: can we select playable notes ourselves, just like we can select which Animoog keys show up on the iPad? The answer is essentially no. From their FAQ:

Q: LinnStrument's rows always contain consecutive semitones (chromatic scales). Is it possible to set it so that the rows contain consecutive notes of a specific scale, for example only major scale notes while skipping over the accidentals?

A: It is fundamental to LinnStrument’s design that each of the eight rows always contain only chromatic scales. While it is true that some controllers (like our Tempest drum machine) permit you to set consecutive pads to play only scale notes (for example, only major scale notes, skipping accidentals), this is really only useful for controllers with few pads like drum pad controllers or Ableton Push. However, LinnStrument has 200 note pads so it is not necessary to delete any notes of the chromatic scale. The problem with removing the notes outside of the scale is that you can't play them, which is useful in all but very simple music. There are other problems with non-chromatic scales: 1) you must always change the scales to play in different musical modes so you never get a chance to develop any playing skills because the notes are always moving. 2) Pitch slides will no longer be consistent, with larger jumps between note pads that are a whole tone apart than between those that are a semitone apart. 3) Vibratos on a pad with a semitone interval on one side and a whole tone interval on the other will be asymmetrical, bending twice as much on the whole tone side than on the semitone side. Instead of preventing you from playing accidentals, LinnStrument borrows an idea similar to the piano keyboard's black and white keys: it provides access to all the notes but highlights the naturals. By default, it highlights the natural notes (C, D, E, F, G, A and B) in green lights and highlights all “C” notes in light blue lights, but you can change it to highlight any scale and in any of 6 colors (red, green, blue, cyan, magenta or yellow). This is done in Global Settings / Note Lights.

While I understand their valid arguments, I still think that it’s the single absent feature that stops me from purchasing a LinnStrument. The good news is that the LinnStrument firmware is open source, anyone can modify the LinnStrument’s software. Enthusiastic players could thus implement this features themselves. I thought of crowdfunding this feature with Bountysource for everyone to benefit from it. I went as far as creating this little explanation of what I was looking for.

My recent discussions with the main LinnStrument firmware developer highlighted the following: “there are physical spacers between the rows of LinnStrument that prevent smooth transitions across cells in the vertical axis.” Despite this limitation, I still foresee this LinnStrument keys layout as valuable and being a useful way to play Animoog on it, similar to how we can configure Animoog’s keys on the iPad. At this point, the LinnStrument developers aren’t interested in even maintaining this feature if we successfully implemented it. I of course respect their decision and it made sense to me to postpone working on crowdfunding this feature.

But don’t stop yourself at my sentiment regarding this feature absent from the LinnStrument, the LinnStrument is clearly an excellent alternative controller and it usually pleases bass and guitar players because of its keys layout, Gaz Williams explains why in his extensive review. Here’s a nice LinnStrument track from Geert Bevin to give you a sense of how it can be played.

The LinnStrument is available for $1,499 from Roger Linn Design.

The ROLI Seaboard

If you haven’t seen the ROLI Seaboard yet, I’m glad you’re reading this. One could dare think this keyboard came to existence to be Animoog’s companion. Let’s first have a quick look at what the Seaboard can do — notice the x & y gliding effects in the video, akin to the slides our fingers do on the Animoog keys on the iPad.

The following impressive video successfully demonstrate the Seaboard capabilities with human-like voice. No wonder why the ROLI Seaboard won several awards!

Anyone excited or considering a Seaboard should read the Sound on Sound Seaboard GRAND review which goes in depth and provides valuable details.

Ok, but how does this the ROLI Seaboard sounds with Animoog? We’re very lucky, Steffen Presley, the sound designer who created the Song Haven pack of presets for Animoog, recorded the following video showcasing Animoog on the ROLI Seaboard Grand.

The ROLI Seaboard has the scales physically locked to the piano scale, meaning my main reticence to adopt the LinnStrument is also valid for the Seaboard. Steffen Presley also warns us that playing micro-tonally, which was possible on the GRAND but never the RISE, is not an option anymore. Steffen provide the details in the description of the following video. Those interested in having access to this feature again should request it to ROLI directly.

Can I have a ROLI Seaboard? You can and you have multiple options. The smaller ROLI Seaboard version available is named the Seaboard RISE, the 25-keys is priced at $799 and the 49-keys is $1,199. The latter is currently out of stock. I haven’t found a comparison of the RISE and its bigger brother the Seaboard GRAND, but the GRAND features more inputs and outputs and has different keywaves. It also costs more, the 37-keywaves GRAND Studio is $1,999, the 61-keywaves GRAND Stage is $2,999 and the ultimate Limited First Edition version featuring 88 keywaves is $8,888.

For such an expense, you’ll probably want to try how a Seaboard feels like and sounds like before purchasing one. Here’s the worldwide map of ROLI Seaboard retailers. Trying one is the next step for me — despite the fixed scale, will I fall in love with it?

Expect more surprises

We’re just at the beginning of a new era of controllers and advances like the LinnStrument and the ROLI Seaboard are pretty exciting. Combined with Animoog, the most popular iPad synth, there’s certainly lots of wonderful explorations ahead! And expect even more surprises in the future, hey, synths are even making it to the augmented and virtual worlds. You got that right and this is nicely demonstrated by the Behringer DeepMind 12, which crosses the chasm and dives into augmented reality. The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed ;-)

Wrapping up this article, you might want to revisit this June 2015 article named Alternative Controllers for Animoog and the few posts on custom Animoog controllers. Now that we have MPE support in Animoog, the doors of the LinnStrument and the ROLI Seaboard are wide open to all Animoog players!

If you have comments or if some of the info I shared is wrong, let us know in the comments! Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the numerous ways we can be expressive with our beloved Animoog! — Alex / Satri

Animoog for iPhone 1.3.0 Released, as well as Model 15 1.1.0 and Animoog 2.4.4

2016/10/11Animoog App, Model 15Model 15, updateSatri

For those amongst us playing Animoog on their iPhones and iPod Touch, we have great news! The first update since last February, here’s a welcomed major update to Animoog for iPhone which includes several features we already have in its larger brother Animoog for iPad. The latter got minor improvements and is now at version 2.4.4.

If you’re an Animoog fan, chances are you’re a Model 15 enthusiast as well. If that’s the case, you’ll be happy to hear that Model 15 version 1.1.0 has been released, the first update since June and its first major update since the launch of Model 15 last May.

The Animoog for iPhone 1.3.0 release notes:

Animoog now requires iOS 8.2 or later
Support for ‘path-width’ as modulation source for presets created with Apple Pencil on iPad Pro
Support for accelerometer modulation controls as ‘accel-x’, ‘accel-y’, and ‘accel-z’
Support for Bluetooth LE MIDI devices
Support for MPE input with note-per-channel MIDI controllers
Added collapsible Inter-App Audio transport bar
Consolidated ‘poly-pressure’ and ‘chan-pressure’ into one ‘pressure’ modulation source
The vertical position of the keys on initial touch is now used as the ‘velocity’ modulation source
Tapping left or right of the scale slider will now transpose octaves up or down
Timbres panel improvements for easier sound design
Single-tapping on a left panel timbre now highlights it, while double-tapping scrolls to its location in the Timbres list
The Timbres list on the right panel no longer collapses when switching presets
Values of CC mapped controls are now sent out at preset change
Incoming MIDI CC 120 now turns off all active sound
Incoming MIDI RPN 0 now sets the active pitch bend range
Application settings are now saved immediately when changes occur
The keyboard now allows more space between keys
Fixes to timbre list where auto-scroll would overshoot at times
Fixes to built-in scale definitions
Fixed crashes when Animoog goes to the background
Fixed crackling sound when using hold from a MIDI controller
Fixed sound cutting out when switching between certain audio devices while Animoog is running

The Animoog 2.4.4 release notes:

Improvements to sample rate / buffer size behavior
Improvements to scale slider

The Model 15 1.1.0 release notes:

The SETTINGS -> SHARE panel now allows you to create and share a music video from audio in the Recorder module
Saved patches, arpeggios and CC maps are now automatically stored on your iCloud drive. They can be retrieved through SETTINGS -> SHARE -> iCLOUD DOCUMENTS from any device that uses the same iCloud account
Keys can now be released when HOLD is active by tapping any currently pressed key
Recordings now use much less memory
Recordings can now be up to 5 minutes in length
Recordings are now persisted across application restarts and the undo buffer
Added crossfading to the Recorder Module to prevent clicks at the beginning and end of a recording
Added a configuration option to prevent controllers from being changed when presets are loaded
Added a progress indicator for tutorial presets
Tutorial presets now continue highlighting areas during wiring
Added support for highlighting individual ports, knobs and switches in the tutorial presets
Updated factory tutorial presets to reflect new highlighting capabilities
Factory tutorial presets can no longer be accidentally replaced
Values of CC mapped controls are now sent out on preset change
Added support for incoming MIDI RPN 0 to temporarily set the pitch bend range
Added support for “shake to undo”, which also works during tutorial presets
Added “rate on app store” and “contact us for help” buttons on the SETTINGS -> ABOUT panel
Support for iOS 10
Improvements to inter-app audio connectivity
Improved core audio engine
Improved Ableton Link support
Improved stability on iPad Air 1
Improved fluidity of GUI rendering on older devices
Improved precision of the Apple Pencil as a controller
Improvements to the built-in manual
Updated AudioCopy to v3.3
Fixed stability problems when using incoming messages on MIDI channel 16

More Animoog news to be published probably within a week. Stay tuned :-) Enjoy the apps updates! — Alex / Satri

Animoog 2.4.0 Released

2016/08/31Animoog AppBrother El, updateSatri

Animoog players rejoice, a new version has come :-) And the official list of new features is long, there’s possibly something for you in there. Amongst the highlights, you find Bluetooth LE MIDI devices support, support for MPE input with note-per-channel MIDI (see this previous post on Expressive MIDI and Animoog) and Apple Pencil support for the lucky ones amongst us who have an iPad Pro.

Here’s the official changelog:

Animoog now requires iOS 8.2 or later
Fully optimized graphics, keyboard layout and interaction for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro
Support for Apple Pencil pressure on the keyboard
Support for Apple Pencil angle as a ‘pencil-angle’ modulation control on the keyboard
Support for Apple Pencil angle as a ‘path-width’ modulation source along the path
Support for Bluetooth LE MIDI devices
Support for MPE input with note-per-channel MIDI controllers
Added collapsible Inter-App Audio transport bar
Consolidated ‘poly-pressure’ and ‘chan-pressure’ into one ‘pressure’ modulation source
The vertical position of the keys on initial touch is now used as the ‘velocity’ modulation source
Left and right tapping next to the scale slider will now transpose octaves down and up
Timbres panel improvements to make sound design easier
Single-tapping a timbre on the left panel now highlights it, while double-tapping scrolls to its location in the Timbres list
The Timbres list on the right panel is no longer collapsed when switching presets
Values of CC mapped controls are now sent out at preset changes
Incoming MIDI CC 120 now turns off all active sound
Incoming MIDI RPN 0 now sets the active pitch bend range
Minor user experience improvements when working with modal dialogs
Settings are now saved immediately when changes occur
Fixes to timbre list where auto-scroll would overshoot at times
Fixes to some built-in scale definitions

If you’re on a non-retina iPad, please wait before updating. We learned there’s a startup crash on non-retina iPads and the fix is coming. From a publicly accessible comment on the iPad Musician Facebook group: “We’ve implemented and tested the fix, submitted it to Apple for review and requested this to be expedited. While waiting for that to go through, we continue testing on all other devices. Sorry for this!” Update: less than 24 hours after 2.4.0, Animoog 2.4.1 came to us to fix this issue.

The previous version, Animoog 2.3.5, came out on March 11th. While Animoog for iPhone has not been updated since February 4th, this iPad update might be a sign for an upcoming Animoog for iPhone update as well?

Here’s a bonus for Animoog Love readers, most of you know I’m fond of Animoog solos, even considering myself an Animoog soloist — I’m always genuinely interested in how others are playing Animoog and I’m happy that Animoog player ‘Brother El’ contacted me to share the following video of his own Animoog performance earlier this month. Hey, there’s even other players that made full albums out of Animoog, such as Luigi Bairo.

I have quite a few unfinished posts to share with you Animoog enthusiasts, while I somehow find the time to complete and publish them, enjoy the new version of Animoog! :-) Cheers — Alex / Satri

Step-by-step Instructions to Install Third-Party Animoog Presets and Timbres with iFunbox

2016/06/24Animoog App, Expansion Packs, Wish listiFunBox, presets, timbresSatri

There’s well over 2,000 Animoog presets available now, lots of them free, and let’s be honest, the official mean to install third-party Animoog presets with iTunes is cumbersome and limiting. Animoog players ask the question often enough that I’m convinced it’s worth providing these step-by-step instructions on how to install third-party Animoog presets and timbres with iFunbox.

What are the benefits of of using iFunbox for installing Animoog presets and timbres?

You can quickly and easily install new Animoog presets and timbres from your computer to your iPad or iPhone
You can create folders and move presets in the folders you want
You can rename Animoog folders and presets, and thus order them to your liking
You don’t need iTunes which, for installing presets, is error-prone and for some of us, simply does not work
You can import your own presets for backups and then share your own presets with others
You do not need your iPhone or iPad to be jailbroken for installing Animoog presets and timbres with iFunbox

Is iFunbox safe? I’m not kidding, this is important: no one wants to install malware on his computer and suffer the consequences. I spent significant time searching the web and found no evidence that iFunbox would be malware. The proprietary software will show you ads but no source provided indications that iFunbox is unsafe in any way. If you have good reasons to believe installing iFunbox is actually unsafe, let us know in the comments below!

With these instructions, you can easily install plenty of great third-party Animoog presets, lots of them free, provided by nice sound designers sharing their work with us

The step-by-step instructions:

Get the new and shiny third-party presets and timbres you want to install. You’ll find them on this table of Animoog presets and timbres
Download iFunbox. I’ve seen reports that other similar tools work as well, if you can confirm, share it in the comments below. iFunbox is free and ads-supported, and I’m not related to them in any way
Launch iFunbox. On macOS, the first time you launch an unsigned app you need to right-click on the app’s icon and select open
Quit Animoog on your iPad or iPhone. To do that, double-tap on your iOS ‘Home’ button, browse opened apps to find the Animoog app and drag its thumbnail up to quit the app. If you ignore this step, you won’t see the new presets until you quit and relaunch Animoog
Plugin your iPad or iPhone. It will show up in iFunbox
Open the Animoog folder under ‘App File Sharing’. See screenshot above. The Animoog folder under ‘User Applications’ can’t be accessed and that’s fine since you don’t need it
Create a new folder to host the presets you want to install
Open the new folder and move your Animoog presets from the finder to your new folder. Note about the location of timbres: you can apparently copy your timbres in any folder under ‘categories’, presets are able to find the timbres no matter which subfolder there are in
That’s it! You can use this opportunity to move and rename folders and presets while you’re there, otherwise you’re done, you can quit iFunbox and unplug your iOS device. When you’ll relaunch Animoog, the new presets and timbres will be there for you to enjoy!

If anyone knows better options than iFunbox or have related tips to share, simply write a comment below for all the community to benefit from your knowledge. Better together! :-) Maybe a future Animoog version will provide a better official option than the current one that relies on iTunes, that has been on our Animoog wish list since day 1, but as of today, using iFunbox is a useful, simple and free way to manage your Animoog presets.

And for those who read so far, I have good news, I got tons of fresh new presets for you from a few nice Animoog sound designers that contacted me. The new presets will be announced with the next version of the table of Animoog presets. I hope to have the time to release it by mid-July. Hope this post helped you better enjoy Animoog :-) — Alex / Satri

Video Tutorial: Connecting Animoog to Model 15

2016/05/12Animoog App, Model 15, PlayingAudiobus, Model 15, SubconscienceSatri

Great news! Italian sound designer Tiziano Gileno Fasano, aka Subconscience, recorded a video tutorial just for us, showing how to connect Animoog to Model 15 with Audiobus, a process which further opens the door to endless possibilities!

Here’s the short video which shows every step and ends with a quick demonstration of how Animoog presets can be morphed from within the Model 15 app itself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aEES5aiPUI

Thanks Tiziano! Now we know how to easily mix my two favorite musical instruments, Animoog and Model 15! Subconscience also provided 25 excellent free Animoog presets, you’ll find them here in our recent update to the table of expansion packs.

While we’re at it, here’s two videos he made with Animoog, enjoy! — Alex / Satri

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upMh2_UWKgo&app=desktop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry1kKjS8urA&app=desktop

Animoog 2.2.5 and Animoog for iPhone 1.2.4 Released

2016/03/15Animoog AppupdateSatri

Dear Animoog players, here’s about the latest Animoog updates.

But first I apologize to have not posted about it right after the updates, as an Animoog beta tester, my version doesn’t update when the actual Animoog gets updated. I have configured a tool to ensure I don’t miss the upcoming updates. While I’ve been publishing here all Animoog updates so far, what do you think if I only publish blog entries only when updates bring significant changes to the way we interact with the app? If you think I should post about minor Animoog updates as well, please let me know in the comments below.

Personally, I’m excited by minor updates. Of course, I’m eager for new features, but minor updates perfectly demonstrate that the app is being taken care of and that developper love is being sent towards it. Here’s the changes for the last two versions we haven’t mentioned here.

Animoog 2.2.5. March 11th:

Stability improvements
Updated AudioCopy library
Updated AudioShare SDK

Animoog for iPhone 1.2.4, February 4th:

Program change messages now work on all MIDI channels
Animoog now reacts to sample rate changes from IAA hosts or Audiobus
Stability improvements for when background audio is turned off

I haven’t found the log of what’s changed for Animoog 2.2.4 and Animoog for iPhone 1.2.3. If you know where to find it, please let me know in a comment. Since Moog appears to follow the semantic versioning principles, I suspect those versions essentially contain minor modifications such as bug fixes and updates to the latest third-party libraries (e.g. Audiobus, AudioShare).

I hope to share news of the upcoming free presets from sound designers ‘Subconscience‘ and ‘Sound of Izrael‘ within the coming weeks. They’re excellent presets! More soon :-) — Alex / Satri

YouTube Videos about Animoog Music and Tutorials

2016/02/21Animoog App, Playingperformances, playlists, solos, tutorials, videosSatri

I started to populate YouTube playlists with the intended benefit of providing an extensive list of videos to help us learn more about playing Animoog and increase our fun with it. The playlists I created and populated so far the the following ones:

The ‘Animoog tutorials’ playlist
- For any video that explains how to use Animoog
The ‘Animoog solos performances’ playlist
- Tracks for which only Animoog is played
The ‘Music with Animoog performances’ playlist
- Music videos where Animoog is prominent
The ‘Animoog with other apps’ playlist
- Videos showcasing the use of Animoog along with other apps

If you found other videos that should be included in these playlists, let me know and I’ll be glad to add them! If you think we should maintain another complementary Playlist, let us know! :-)

Here’s what videos currently in those lists look like.

Animoog tutorials

There has been a surge of Animoog tutorial videos when the app came out but few recent ones as far as I could find. That said, do not miss watching those ‘old’ videos! They have been instrumental to my understanding of how Animoog works and how to exploit its features in order to have even more fun playing it.

One of those examples is the following video, an amazing live Animoog performance by Argon Vancouver in which layers of Animoog are added one after the other, along with additions from other apps. In the long intro, Argon Vancouver provides the details to help you create your own Animoog tracks with such beats and loops.

Head to the on understanding Animoog sound design.

Animoog Solo Performances

Don’t worry, I won’t annoy you further with my own Animoog solo performances on YouTube ;-) Here’s a nice Animoog solo performance from keksautomat which includes looping.

https://youtu.be/kY-hTFzNnX4?list=PLgK-NrQ_wqMk2xfnb8WJKcOilvgxJP8oo

It’s great to see the variety of ways Animoog can be leveraged to play music. The next video below is alternatives controllers that players can experiment with and this is an excellent example.

Head to the ‘Animoog solos performances’ playlist to watch the other videos I found so far in that category.

Music with Animoog performances

Many Animoog musicians within the community are playing Animoog along with other instruments. In the following video we get two Animoog players playing together, along with a few other instruments, including Improvox, an app to sing in tune for those amongst us who aren’t Pavarottis.

Another example of Animoog’s flexibility is the following example in which Animoog is played from a MIDI Guitar along with the ToneStack app.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7RGsilkxfg

Head to the ‘Music with Animoog performances’ playlist to find out which other examples I found so far.

Animoog with other apps

Animoog is great in itself, and you juxtapose it to other music creation apps, you can play wonderful things! Watching how others leverage Animoog clearly inspired me to try some new combinations myself. Here’s a nice example of Animoog and the moodscaper app, currently in beta. Developer Rob Jackson informed us that moodscaper is itself using heavily-processed Animoog timbres.

You might also want to see Rob playing Animoog with Borderlands Granular. Head to the ‘Animoog with other apps’ playlist to get to the entire current list of videos where we see Animoog with other apps.

What about the other Animoog videos?

Think I should create a new and share a new Animoog playlist? Let me know about your suggestions :-) Don’t forget to watch the ones directly coming from Moog Music. One of such Animoog videos from Moog is the funny announcement of the ‘Biomimetically Augmented Synthesis Expansion’, also known as the ‘B.A.S.E.’ expansion pack, presented by Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater and iOS music app developer.

Making its way to my first free album of Animoog solos, a track named ‘Brutal awakening’ was somewhat successful at leveraging the ‘Heartburn Lead’ preset from the BASE pack. The BASE pack has brutal sounds, and in this case it resulted in a brutal solo!

More to come!

I plan to maintain these playlists up to date when new Animoog videos are posted online. If I miss any, let me know :-) I have to thank Animoog enthusiast Tiziano, who suggested me to pull together those playlists. You’ll hear again from Tiziano soon since I hope to update the list of third-party presets: there’s two new excellent free Animoog presets packs and he is one of the sound designers freely sharing his presets with the community of Animoog players. Cheers — Alex / Satri

Z — The New Dimension

Animoog comes to macOS and AUv3

Lots of New Presets & Timbres

Animoog 10 years anniversary

Animoog Z Beta Testing Experience

Onwards

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