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Developer Geert Bevin (Moog Music, Roger Linn Design LinnStrument, MPE Standard) shared this video demo of MIDI Widgets, a new application for Apple Vision Pro that lets you add virtual controls to your hardware MIDI instruments.

MIDI Widgets is the first spatial MIDI designer. It lets you create virtual faders, buttons and knobs that you can position, anywhere in your physical spaces. The MIDI control widgets will stay anchored in space where you put them.

In the video, Bevin demonstrates adding custom virtual MIDI controls for the Subsequent 37. While the Subsequent 37 is already a knobby synth, it’s easy to imagine using MIDI Widgets to expanding the capabilities of synths like the Yamaha DX7 and the Sequential SixTrak, which have great-sounding synth engines, limited by clunky patch editing.

Features:

• Designed specifically for Apple Vision Pro
• Create as many faders, buttons and knobs as you need
• Freely position and orient individual controllers
• Spatial snapping makes it easy to build out perfectly aligned larger control surfaces
• Controllers automatically remain anchored to their location, even across restarts
• Controllers can be grouped in scenes and are easily recalled for different purposes
• Freely re-position and re-orient entire scenes
• Scenes can send MIDI messages to multiple configurable MIDI ports
• Support for Bluetooth LE MIDI devices
• Built-in virtual MIDI to send MIDI to other Vision Pro apps on the same device
• Per controller MIDI channel selection
• Per controller MIDI Control Change, Channel Pressure, Program Change or Pitch Bend messages
• Per controller 7-bit and 14-bit Control Change resolution
• Controllers can optionally reset to a neutral position upon release
• Faders and knobs can be unidirectional or bidirectional
• Every part of a control can be assigned a different color for recognizability
• Colors can easily be copied and pasted, individually or as complete color schemes
• Controllers can have optional labels that can be placed on any of the four edges
• A floating tool window follows your left or right hand and allows editing anywhere
• Multiple controllers can be used simultaneously, allowing for dual hand interaction

MIDI Widgets For Vision Pro is available now for $9.99

Synthesist Espen Kraft shared his switched-on arrangement of Debussy’s Clair de Lune.

Some listeners may hear similarities to Isao Tomita‘s iconic 1974 synth arrangement from his album Snowflakes are Dancing.

What Kraft shared about the technical details:

Live MIDI-sequenced and parts recorded live as you see it on screen.

Synths used:

Sequential Prophet X

Arturia MiniFreak

Yamaha TX802

Kawai K3m

Roland Jupiter-8 & D-550

All reverbs are Valhalla VintageVerb and SuperMassive

IK Multimedia’s hardware room correction system ARC Studio, promising to ‘instantly upgrade your studio monitors’. This standalone processor is designed to run the new version of IK’s room correction software, ARC 4.

IK Multimedia has announced the release of ARC Studio, a standalone hardware processor for its newly-updated ARC 4 acoustic room correction software that promises to “instantly upgrade” your studio monitors.

Room correction software compensates for the acoustics of the room your monitors are placed in by analyzing its acoustic profile, identifying problematic frequencies and adjusting the output of your monitors accordingly. Everything from a room’s size and shape to the furniture in it can dramatically affect its acoustics; room correction accounts for this to achieve a neutral frequency response.

IK Multimedia has been in this game for a while; previous iterations of its ARC software were designed to run on your machine, whereas ARC Studio gives you the opportunity to run the software on a dedicated processor that sits in between your interface and your monitors. There’s a number of benefits to this approach, eliminating the need to place the ARC 4 plugin on the master bus of a project or introduce additional latency to your monitoring set-up.

ARC Studio arrives bundled with a precision MEMS measurement microphone that’s used to measure the acoustic profile of your listening environment through the ARC 4 software and compensate accordingly, delivering “controlled low-end, tighter transients and pinpoint stereo imaging”. Separate profiles can be created, stored and instantly recalled for different monitors, listening positions and room configurations.

In addition, ARC 4 now offers monitor emulation, so you’re able to emulate the frequency and phase response of well-known studio monitors from other manufacturers, hi-fi speakers and even mobile devices to get a sense of how your mix will sound on other systems.

• For pro studios, whether DAW-based or console-based, ARC Studio with ARC 4 offers sonically transparent correction and custom-tuning for any monitoring setup from nearfields to mains, while preserving the inherent system’s sonic quality.
• For DAW-based studios, ARC Studio eliminates the need to insert the ARC 4 plug-in on the master bus of a project and preserves zero-latency monitoring setups. It also lets you listen other sources, like streaming music, with acoustically corrected monitoring.

Designed and manufactured in Italy to exacting specifications, the ARC Studio hardware boasts a 120 dB(A) analogue input to analogue output dynamic range, 0.5Hz-40kHz frequency response, and ultra-stable clocking. The company says it offers the transparency and accuracy of mastering-grade converters at a far more affordable price.

ARC Studio – Make any studio monitors sound better (including the ARC 4 software and measurement mic) is priced at $/€299.99, but existing ARC users can upgrade for a discounted price. ARC 4 – Mix faster and more confidently than ever can be purchased on its own for $/€149, or $/€199 with the measurement mic.