MIDI Mockups

All of the MIDI mockups for Symphony from the Wild and Mariposa were created using the app StaffPad on iPad OS 14.x using a 2020 iPad Pro.

At a time when a composer dare not put forth a new work without a credible MIDI mockup using the latest digital orchestras, StaffPad has breathed new life into compositions by old guys who actually write notes on paper. For multiple decades, the primary interface for sequencing programs has been the piano roll editor in computer programs such as Logic, Cubase, and Pro Tools–known as DAWs (digital audio workstations).

The piano roll was developed for use in player pianos in the early 20th century and is usually made from paper or, less commonly, metal. A simple iteration of this principle can be found in a music box with a series of pins on a cylindrical barrel.  Unfortunately, when software engineers developed the interface for sequencing programs, they used the piano roll as a model instead of music notation. The end result is that there is an entire generation of composers out there who can’t read music.

Music notation is a system that has been developing for quite literally one thousand years. (Thanks Guido!) The amount of information that can be contained in the space on one orchestral page of notation would require the entire side of a building on a piano roll. It is a primitive interface by any comparison, and you can bet that anyone who would argue to the contrary doesn’t read music. That is not to say that the innovations that took place inside of the piano roll editor are without merit. To the contrary, many of the controls are being melded quite nicely with notation programs such as StaffPad.

StaffPad is far from perfect, and with a Herculean effort, you can most certainly create a more convincing mockup in a DAW, but who has time for that? Certainly not outfitters and bison farmers.

So many many thanks to David William Hearn for his extraordinary vision and innovation in the creation of this app and to Matthew Tesch the genius programmer behind the scenes.

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