FAQ

Q: How do I scroll the Piano roll so I can see other octaves / bars?
A: Tap with two fingers and swipe up / down / left or right. Additionally, if you tap with two fingers further apart you can select a group of notes.

Q: Why doesn’t GMS support Line6 and Core MIDI simultaneously?
A: We had originally planned to allow for this, but differences in the way the two API’s handle timing make this impossible.

Q: Does Genome MIDI Sequencer handle audio recording or synthesis?
A: No. GMS is a MIDI Sequencer only. You will not hear any sound out of your device and will need some MIDI gear or software to get any use out of it.

Q: How well does Network MIDI work?
A: Users should expect some amount of latency when working with Network MIDI. This is true for all iOS apps. Your mileage with Network MIDI will depend on many factors, such as: Your device (iPad 1 or 2?), your Network (what kind of router, connection speed, etc) and things like what other apps you have running, free memory, etc. Rebooting your device or closing other applications may help performance.

Q: Does GMS support Network MIDI with other apps on the same device or other iOS devices?
A: Yes, it does. Genome fully supports background operation and will continue playing and receiving MIDI as long as the song is ‘playing’ at the time that Genome enters the background.

Q: Does GMS work with all other iOS music apps?
A: No, it does not work with every app. In order to work with Genome, an app needs to support CoreMIDI, MIDI input and output and should create it’s own virtual MIDI ports. For more information, and a list of compatible apps that we recommend, see the OMAC page.

Q: I’m trying to sync with another app but it’s playing at 2x the speed!
A: To understand why this is happening, you need to understand a bit about virtual MIDI ports. Genome creates it’s own Virtual MIDI port and will show up in other apps as ‘Genome’. Other apps will also generally create their own ports too and will show up in Genome’s list of MIDI destinations. If you have another app accept midi from the ‘Genome’ virtual port AND you choose to send MIDI to that App from within Genome, then you will be sending double MIDI messages. Either don’t accept MIDI from ‘Genome’ within the app or turn off that App’s virtual MIDI connection in Genome to fix the issue. It’s unintuitive, I know. Ideally all other apps would create their own I/O ports but Genome would not (that way you just pick within Genome which apps to send to), but there are some apps that don’t have their own virtual I/O’s (like Animoog) which is why Genome has it’s own virtual output port.

Another reason for double MIDI messages or messed up timing could be because you are using the Network session and virtual ports at the same time. If possible, use the virtual ports instead of the Network session, because it will have lower latency.

Q: I’m trying to slave Genome to another drum machine while it’s in the background, but it’s not working.
A: Genome will enter background mode when you quit if the Play button is pressed. In order to slave to another app, you need to press ‘play’ before you enter background mode.

Q: Is it normal to have latency between the time that I enter notes and the time I hear them playing?
A: Yes, there is a latency of about 1 beat + 200 ms, between entering notes and hearing them. The delay is there to ensure stable timing across all possible configurations.

Q: Is rtpMIDI supported for sending MIDI to a Windows machine?
A: rtpMIDI works fine most of the time, however we have observed instances where latency was not usable. Obviously this may depend on your network or windows machine, or it could be an issue with the driver itself. For these reasons, we cannot officially support rtpMIDI at this time.

Q: How do I record MIDI?
A: Make sure that any devices you want to record are activated in the MIDI Input setup. Then just play the song and click record on the Pattern Editor page. Genome will continue to record MIDI even when it’s in the background, so you can use it with other apps.

Q: I’ve heard of Genome Studio, is GMS the same thing?
A: No. Genome Studio is an experimental WNAS project that is still under development. GMS takes some ideas from Genome Studio, but focuses on MIDI.

Q: Will there be a free / lite version?
A: We are investigating this and may release a ‘lite’ version in the future.

Q: Why are some of my keyboard keys blue on the keyboard controller?
A: Notes outside of the current ‘scale’ will be disabled (blue). Switching the scale will turn them on again.