New AIR MPC Standalone-Compatible Plug-In: Iona

jaymack wrote:they're gonna have to come up with something pretty amazing and unique for me to give them any more money for a plug-in

They are too busy planning a 303 and Prophet 5 clones to come with a synth of their own.

But seriously, creating a unique synth nowadays is a very hard job.

And giving the limited hardware power and UI possibilities of a touch screen I don't think it will get any more "unique" than what NI is currently doing: releasing endlessly one-trick audio/synth blending gimmicks.

oldwired wrote:Can you trigger it from a drum track?

You can do this by assigning the desired pad to C3 in the drum track’s note map, setting “Send To” from the drum track to the Iona track, and using a MIDI filter to allow only C3 to pass through.

Does anyone know if it is possible to record the output from the sequencer into a clip on the clip launcer (as midi)

AndyPlankton wrote:Does anyone know if it is possible to record the output from the sequencer into a clip on the clip launcer (as midi)

They have the features; Convert Arranger track to a clip or copy a clip to an arrangement track.

B-Wise wrote:

AndyPlankton wrote:Does anyone know if it is possible to record the output from the sequencer into a clip on the clip launcer (as midi)

They have the features; Convert Arranger track to a clip or copy a clip to an arrangement track.

Thanks B-Wise. What I am actually after is not the notes I am playing into IONA but the notes that are output by IONA's sequencer. I want to do this so I can scale correct the output, or to have a mix of Major and minor patterns, or create variations of it for different clips. It seems at the moment each instance of IONA is limited to 1 sequence pattern so I cannot achieve what I want.

I would be SO stoked if the Iona sequencer output could be sent as MIDI.

Exactly. It's absolutely ridiculous that the MPC doesn't have the ability to trigger an automatically transposed midi sequence from a selected pad note : /

So not a lot of Love for the Iona then, it came out 3 months ago and just 2 pages of responses.

I played with a 101 in the 90's so can't attest for it's sound quality. I like that they added a second envelope to the Jura from the 106, so would have liked to see the stretch the functionality of the Iona a bit more, they've only really added more LFO shapes and extended the sequencer from what I can tell. The jura got a weak ass pre filter drive that was a total let down. I don't hold out much hope on them developing their plug ins more after release, but put in some requests this morning.

Add Velocity mod for amp and filter
Add a Velocity lane to the sequencer
Make the Lo-Fi effect switchable between Lo-Fi / Overdrive / Distortion / Wave folder
Make the Lo-Fi/drive section switchable to be able to insert it pre filter

I think that would add a really nice twist and spice things up a bit.

Been messing with it this morning driving it through the Air Distortion, gets quite tasty on the Wrap mode. Glad to have it in the arsenal.

I dig it myself. Iona has some nice sounds that can cut through the mix without a lot of work.

For me, it's not in the "show stopper" sound... but absolutely a plugin that can "add a little bit more" to the track.

And unlike Jura... I find if I reach for Iona, it'll likely stay in the track. Jura... I really like the plugin overall, but just find that 60% of the time I go for it... the sound doesn't sit right in whatever track I'm working on... and I just bounce it out of there.

Anyways... yeah... Iona could use a bit more modulation to make it a bit more dynamic and surprising... but like you... not holding my breath that it gets any update.

I'm not really into synth built in effects in the MPC, I get it, it's great for presets, but why use built in effects when you get better options and more flexibility in the track FX. In the OPX4 it's an exception because it has 3 parallel chains leading into master. I think built in effects should offer something you can't get otherwise. Hopefully they like my idea of the the Lo-FI having a pre filter option. The Hydrasynth added bit rate reduction to the oscillators and this sounds great through filters. But yeah, I'm not holding out.

Agreed it cut's through nicely, something I don't get form the Midi-D. And it takes FX nicely too, making up a little for if shortfalls.

I ended up buying a Roland AIRA S-1 new, for slightly more than the full price of the Iona and it's outstanding. There really is a lot to be said for the immediacy of live knob-twiddling without having to take time to setup Q-links and all that, and it's nice being able to output the sequencer data as MIDI into the MPC. If I ever see the Iona for around $25 or so I may consider it, as I fully agree it sits very nicely in a mix.

Yeah, the full price of the Iona is silly money. It could be picked up for about $55 from resellers with codes a couple of months ago. Maybe even better. If the price falls beneath this again, then I think it's worth adding.

I have a pair of Novation Launch Controls. I assigned about 8 faders and 20 knobs to control the Iona. But yeah, takes time to set up, but once done it really opens the synth up

Miklo wrote:I ended up buying a Roland AIRA S-1 new, for slightly more than the full price of the Iona and it's outstanding. There really is a lot to be said for the immediacy of live knob-twiddling without having to take time to setup Q-links and all that, and it's nice being able to output the sequencer data as MIDI into the MPC. If I ever see the Iona for around $25 or so I may consider it, as I fully agree it sits very nicely in a mix.

Yeah, but creating a track macro template makes it even, but not really, because that 1 plug in can be used at least 8x & each can have the same or different macro settings, each with at least 4 insert FX (not including the built-in FX). With MIDI-Learn you can map out the macros setup super quick & each macro can have 100s of parameters.

or Akai could just decide on a universal MIDI CC mapping scheme across all their plugin parameters . . .

chrisroland wrote:or Akai could just decide on a universal MIDI CC mapping scheme across all their plugin parameters . . .

How would that work if they all don't have the same parameters?
It's fast to just map each yourself & you only have to do that once. I don't want to be locked into their knob setup, organized by the whoever in a way I wouldn't set it up. I wish they gave us more than 2 Project Macros & or, let the track macros have more pages to go beyond the 16 knobs limit.