I did however have to force myself into using CrossFire, as at first I was A LOT slower than using my standard DAW interaction methods or entering patterns via Push 2 or LaunchPad 3 Mk3.Ĭontrollerism can lead to creative freedoms or creative cul-de-sac’s.There are a lot of generic MIDI controllers available on the market, but as we have seen over recent years, a controller specifically designed for a certain software platform can really open up the possibilities. As does editing via a screen or via tactile interfaces. Creating a track in Ableton, Bitwig or via Cubasis on iOS all leads you down different creative paths.

But I’m a huge believer in switching modalities as part of the creative process. In truth I can work just as quickly via the computer directly as I’ve been using both trackballs and stylus’s to control my desktop for many years and I can work as quickly as one might with a touch screen. Crossfire enable you to quickly scan through the bars and you can enter velocity via one of the scroll wheels as you go. I tend to write percussion parts with a minimum of two bars, on average four bars and sometimes longer. I like that it allows me to take my eyes of the screen and lay down the basis of a groove quickly and easily. I strictly use it for it’s core purpose of adding drum hits quickly. But on the plus side they’ll be a ace learning journey even if you don’t get things working exactly as you’d like. But to get the breadth of the CrossFire workflow working would still require a lot of work.Īll of those options will require a pretty deep knowledge of MIDI and SysEx. If you’re an Ableton Live user you could make use of the nativeKontrol toolkit that’s provided with CrossFire to create something bespoke and midi out from Ableton to your iOS device via a laptop. I reckon to do something similar on iOS that maybe Mozaic won’t be enough, maybe exploring Midi Fire/Streambyter would get you closer, but that would require some deep scripting. Luckily a provider of control scripts for Ableton (nativeKontrol) did all the heavy lifting of mapping everything to work with Ableton Live as it’s no easy task to attempt it yourself. But I did purchase an Akai Fire as it’s wonderful to have a midi controller laid out X0X style as a drum programmer. I’m not an FL user although I adore Sytrus their FM synth (which I have as an individual plugin).

Akai fire pro