Hi All,
I just picked up Midi Guitar 2 on my ipad and tried to get version 3 working only to find out my ipad is too old. So it would appear I am confined to using v2. Are there any work-arounds to this problem? And by the sounds of things, v3 works better, so should I save up for a new ipad before investing in Midi Guitar 2? Thanks
Greetings.
YMMV of course, but for what my opinion is worth, the improvement you would get in going to MG3, and simply from a newer iPad that can run it, is pretty intense. I invested in MG2 on both iOS and Mac back in around 2018, and was pretty dang happy with what I could get it to do then. Then this MG3 beta program started, and on a 2018 MacBook Air it started blowing my mind almost immediately: it’s not an evolutionary improvement on MG2; it’s a revolutionary improvement. When the iOS version became available, I was super excited at the prospect, but had to wait (nooo!) because I didn’t have access to an iPad that could run it either.
Fortunately, I since have gotten access to both an M3 iPad Air and an M4 MacBook Air; not only did that get me into MG3 on iOS, but it also illustrated just how big a leap forward the whole Silicon architecture is over what came before. Wow, okay, now I get it!
I’m pretty broke, and so am always pinching pennies myself, but I think the M3 iPad Air and MG3 is a pretty spectacular ROI story. If you have access to a suitable desktop machine, you might see if you can acquire the MG3 Beta for that format, and you can see for yourself what it’s like–the behavior on iOS is pretty much just the same as it is on desktop. (I prefer iOS because of the AUM Mixer plugin host app, and the lower cost of equivalent apps over desktop.) For me, when the iOS release is final, I know it will be an additional purchase for that format, but at this point I’ll pay that happily. (My MG2 desktop license should already be good for MG3 desktop when that releases, yay!)
If this helps paint a picture, here are some of the things I find myself using MG3 for, on iOS running in AUM, that I’d never have been able to predict from my MG2 experience:
- I now use MG3 not just for “MIDI instruments”, but also for guitar audio to send on to amp sims downstream. On my instruments at least, the MG3 Transposer Module gives me as good a polyphonic pitch-shifter sound (e.g. “12-string” 8va, “bass guitar” 8vb, and both fourth and fifth intervals) as any hardware pitch-shifter I’ve tried. There are still (from MG2) the hidden-gem Deep Expressor and Sweetspot modules (I love DE for the overtones). I am really starting to like the Synth Mod specifically, of the new Guitar Mods package, as a way of quickly approaching the sound of a guitar synth. And most recently there is now an internal Module for running a NAM amp model; I haven’t really dove into that one yet, having gone the TONEX route pretty happily, but I think that may be worth pursuing.
- I now use MG3’s Patchbay features to remap the incoming linear curve of a MIDI expression pedal, into a customized pedal taper/curve to send to CC7 (for more natural-feeling volume pedal swells, coming after the amp), or to CC11 (for a curve customized to wah or other filter plugins, typically before the amp). These remaps can be sent to both my “guitar sound(s)” and/or my “MIDI instrument” sound(s)” using the tools available in AUM, and the instance of MG3 that does the remaps doesn’t even have to produce any audio of its own–I sometimes have it on its own AUM channel, tucked away, with no audio input (thereby reducing its overhead), simply acting as a sort of MIDI remapper for whatever other plugins might want to use the customized pedal curves.
- I can use an MG3 instance as a channel-separated freeze pedal for guitar. I’m still working on a couple of limitations I’d like to see if I can sort out, but the basic concept does seem to work.
- I can make use of MG3’s Patchbay and Modulators (the humble Invert, for switching, is huge) for pretty sophisticated within-a-single-patch, real-time control over what actually gets sent on from MG3, whether that is audio, MIDI data, or both.
- And of course there is the elephant in the room: MG3 can send MPE data to modeled instruments designed for it, and this is just so intoxicating. Once I sorted out the right way to set it up to use MG3 as a controller, I could not believe the sounds I was getting, from my own hands, from some of the SWAM instruments (e.g. cello, bass clarinet, bassoon). Wow!
- Specifically relating to how MG3 “does” MPE, and using its Patchbay/Modulator control options, it can control MIDI channel pressure in a way that gives you something a guitar actually cannot do. On its own, a guitar inherently is only a “sharp attack, quick decay” sound–that’s physics. But you can set up MG3 to “hold channel pressure”, and even adjust it upward, in real time, with a footpedal, to make the play/phrasing of modeled instruments like bowed strings and woodwinds actually sound authentic–even driving in to a note (not volume swelling, but digging in to the instrument) in a way a guitar simply cannot do. It’s not 100% perfect since you can’t really hold it forever (without using e.g. an eBow or Sustainiac), but once I heard that coming from my own hands, I was hooked.
Anyway, that may have been too much–I am often guilty of the TL;DR problem 
–but hopefully it gives you a picture of what the move from MG2 to MG3 might bring you.
