ThumbJam Forum

Thank you, Jesse, for this app and for this update. This was the first music app I bought, in February, and it's still my favorite.

Four queries:

1. Can this be made to control Sunrizer? I can make it work with NLog, but when I try using it to control Sunrizer, there's no sound. (I know that it's doing something, though, because when I switch back to Sunrizer, it doesn't make any sound in the app until I close ThumbJam -- weird.)

2. What is the best way to silence TJ's native instrument when you are using TJ to control another app? (I love TJ's native instruments, especially the strings, but TJ also has a superior interface, and I'd like to use it wherever possible.)

3. Over the months, I have installed a number of user-supplied instruments for TJ. Most of these end up in the miscellaneous category. Is it possible to edit an instrument's category in the app, so that synth instruments (for example) show up in the synth category? If not, what do you recommend as the best way?

4. At some point -- I'm sure you have your hands full at the moment, or are taking a well-deserved vacation -- could you post the new manual on the website? I'd like to print it for study.

What device are you trying it on? Some combinations of apps are just too much for the CPU to handle when run together on some devices, but some things mentioned below might help.

1. Sunrizer appears to require a minimum buffersize of 512 to work right. So you can either start sunrizer first (while TJ was already killed), then start TJ, or you can go to the Prefs->Options in TJ and manually set the buffersize to 512. Then ensure that you turned on the Sunrizer output connection in Prefs->MIDI Control, and in Sunrizer, enabled background audio.

2. Good question, I didn't make this obvious. One way is start with a TJ patch that has all the controls you like, then go to Edit->Controls, set the Volume to Fixed, and set it all the way down to -40db. It won't be totally silent, but pretty darn close. Then you can save that as a new preset. Another option is to create a new instrument (Sound->Create Instrument), and record one short silent sample (turn auto off, hit record button twice quickly), name it something like Silent, then tweak the controls as you like and save it again, if you wish. You have to have a least one sample in it, otherwise a buggy behavior will result in the midi output, right now.

3. Well, as for the ones supplied by me on the in-app download page, I did re-upload categories, so if you click on them it will prompt if you want to re-download... then you can at least get those categories correct. As for user-provided ones, I still don't have an interface in the app for you to set them, but I will eventually. If you open the ZIP files on your computer, you can actually edit the metadata files in there to add a category, I can provide the technique in another thread.

4. Yes, I will do that shortly.

Thank you, Jesse. I got Sunrizer XS to work on my iPod Touch 4G using the second method described here, setting the buffer to 512.