Lastly, this little video was shot just with my iPhone and the built-in mic. Sampletank is an average-sounding software rompler - tweaking some of the presets, I think, will yield some very nice instruments, although I don't expect it to ever sound like a Motif or Kronos. There is a 'Sampletank Free' app available that contains a smattering of sounds to get you initially up and running. I haven't played with Garage Band on the iPad much, but it doesn't seem to have a very large instrument library, which is why I plunked down $39 (?) for Sampletank.

IRig can allow any MIDI keyboard (with MIDI jacks, not USB MIDI) to play core MIDI compatible music apps on iOS devices, including Garage Band. There's nothing about how to do this in the very basic manual, but I eventually figured it out (the answer was literally staring me in the face). The only initial glitch I had was figuring out how to assign different MIDI channels to the four different parts in Sampletank, and how to be able to hear them all at the same time. IK Multimedia has announced that SampleTank 1.1 for iOS is now available as a universal app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, through the iTunes App store. It can run independently on the iPad, in a very basic sequencer (enough for goofing around on plane rides but not to do anything really serious). Sampletank on the iPad (or iPhone) is a four-part multitimbral software instrument. I connected it to my iMac and got everything humming along just nicely.

I finally bought one of those little iRig MIDI interfaces for the iPad, and bought the full version of Sampletank for iOS from the App Store.

Ipad sampletank