Crystal XT Synthesizer for the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch
Crystal XT is a full featured semi-modular synthesizer, ideally suited to creating lush evolving soundscapes. Crystal VST has long been a popular synthesizer on the desktop. Crystal XT brings that same powerful synthesis engine to the iPad and iPhone. Crystal XT features MIDI keyboard input via the iPad’s camera adapter or any CoreMIDI-compatible MIDI interface such as the Line 6 MIDI Mobilizer and sharing of sounds with the desktop version of Crystal.
What’s New in Version 1.6
Multitasking – Use the Settings app to turn on the CrystalSynthXT Background Audio mode if you’d like Crystal to play audio when in the background, for example to play from a virtual midi controller app.
Note on Virtual MIDI: While this version works with controller apps like StepPolyArp and Genome, we’ve learned there are other controller apps with which it is incompatible. We will have an update with wider compatibility in just a few days.
Positive reviews are always welcome and encourage us to provide updates!
Browse through the included sounds and use the 2 octave keypad to trigger notes to produce evolving, rhythmic, or melodic sounds. Create your own sounds with a single button press using the breed feature. When using an iPad, you can delve into a tweaker’s dream by using the extensive editing features to sculpt sounds to your heart’s content (editing features are only available when used on an iPad).
Crystal features both subtractive synthesis and frequency modulation (FM) synthesis. It offers abundant modulation control with over 90 parameters which may be modulated, multi-stage envelopes with graphical editors, extensive tempo sync of envelopes/lfo rates/delay times, built-in effects for chorus/flanging/comb filtering/echoes, and a band splitter for effects processing by frequency band. Not only that, Crystal has wave sequencing and granular synthesis. The musical applications for Crystal are literally boundless.
With MIDI keyboard input, you can connect a MIDI keyboard to your iPad and play Crystal XT like a hardware synth. Or use a CoreMIDI-compatible MIDI interface such as the Line 6 MIDI Mobilizer and connect your MIDI keyboard to Crystal XT on an iPhone.
With patch sharing you can create sounds on your iPad or iPhone while away from the studio, then transfer them to the desktop Crystal when you get back to the studio to use in recording projects. Or, create banks of sounds on the desktop Crystal, then transfer them to the iPad/iPhone Crystal to use in a live performance for a truly portable rig. Use Audio copy/paste to record your performance on Crystal and transfer that performance to another app.
If you don’t need all the features of Crystal XT, try the basic version of Crystal, also available in the app store from Green Oak Software. With the basic version you can browse sounds, play notes, and create new sounds, taking advantage of its powerful semimodular synthesis engine. Crystal XT adds MIDI keyboard input via the iPad’s camera adapter and sharing of patches with the desktop version. Choose the app that is best for you!
Important note for iPhone and iPodTouch users: Crystal XT runs on both the iPad and the iPhone/iPod Touch. Because of the limited screen space on the iPhone however, the editing pages, which contain the edit controls, are not available when running on that device. But on the iPhone you can still browse sounds, play notes from the keypad, create new sounds with the Breed feature, modify patches with the Design feature, and share sounds with desktop Crystal VST.
Crystal Synth is available for $4.99
