Running in background

[Joe_K]

Forgive my ignorance on the iOS architecture, but is there any possible way in iOS 7 for SLM to run in the background to still receive and send MIDI commands?  We are thinking about integrating some personal monitor mix solutions on our iOS devices and I'm trying to figure out how that will impact SLM if it gets pushed to the background.

[Christoph]

Arlo as the developer may have the final word on this, but a few thoughts from my experience: Sending and receiving MIDI in the background is already possible in the iOS Core MIDI architecture, there are a lot of apps using this, e.g. MIDI Bridge. However, I am not sure if this currently works with SLM. It would help to know your desired use case: Sending MIDI in background may be only necessary when you work with automation tracks. And receiving only if you use MIDI to switch songs or to trigger other actions in SLM. I see SLM more as a tool to display information and to interact with it - so I would expect that users primarily have SLM in the foreground and maybe switch temporarily to another app. For example, I myself use the Mackie MasterFader app (controls our Mackie DL series monitor mixer) in this way. No problems so far, but I have not yet tested MIDI in the background. Rumors had it that iOS 8 might be able to do split screen multi tasking - this would you allow to have more than one app in the foreground. Android can already do this. Maybe SLM someday can do this - but in the meantime the ideal solution is to have several devices for SLM and other things on the stage. That is why I am happy that SLM still supports all iOS devices that have ever been released and also Android in the near future. And two iPads mounted on the mic stand also give a better balance...

[Nordi]

Hi Cristoph - i checked today SLM with Midibridge. It do not work stable, sometimes SLM frezze. The problem comes from Midibridge, i am sure about that.

And yes, i am with you, SLM is an app for information on stage at first and after that it gives me a lot of comfort for control my keyboards and Synths and Git-Amp. And DMX.

Cheers - Nordi

[arlo]

Set List Maker can receive MIDI in the background, but only as long as it is still running in the background. Currently it will keep running indefinitely if it is playing audio, but only for 5-10 seconds otherwise. So if you are playing audio, it should work fine. If you are not playing audio, you should be able to make a very quick switch to another app to do something and then switch back again. But if you need to keep running in the background indefinitely with no audio playing, that doesn't work.

This should be possible because other MIDI apps do it, but I haven't figured out how. I can look further into it if you have a need for that.

[Joe_K]

I plan to start using a mixer app soon and since I have a MIDI Foot Controller using SLM as a bridge to controlling my guitar rig mid-song, if I have to switch over to the mixer and end up staying there for a bit, I lose the ability to step through the sounds in the song.  The video I posted in the "Stories" section lays out what's going on with that, but basically SLM stores a bunch of MIDI Presets in each song and I access those via foot controller during performances.

[arlo]

Set List Maker 4.2, which adds a Settings > Audio & MIDI > Receive MIDI in Background option, was released today:

http://www.arlomedia.com/apps/setlistmaker/support/release_notes.html#ios_4_2

This isn't officially supported by Apple, but it has worked in my testing.