Jordan McDonald has updated Compa: Groovebox Companion, available for $24.99.
What’s new in version 1.3:
COMPA 1.3 makes it easier to capture, chop, route, and build a song,
- MIDI CAPTURE AND AUDIO RECALL – Play a connected groovebox or MIDI controller, then tap CAPTURE MIDI to replay the MIDI it sent through the instrument. Hold CAPTURE MIDI for latest phrase or whole- window capture, autoplay, looping, optional detected Session BPM, and Clips or Arrange placement. COMPA’s existing audio Recall has a new trim: it cuts dead air before and after your playing, so the rescued take is already clipped and ready to use. Hold RCL to choose a 30-second to 5-minute look- back (1 minute by default) and trim settings. Keep the original, or send a copy to Takes, Clips, Arrange, or an empty CHOMP pad. +REC catches the past and keeps recording forward.
- CHOMP AND QUOTA STEMS – Separate drums, bass, other, and vocals on device, aligned on one pad. Focus or mute a layer, adjust its level, and link trim, fades and pitch. Match a sample or all four stems to the Session with pitch-preserving Complex. Full-song separation and matching run offline, not instantly.
- CHOMP’s main waveform and editors now pinch-zoom around your fingers, pan, and show a moving playhead. In CHOP, find song- section cues, audition and move them, focus a section, then make equal, transient, or lazy cuts. Send cuts to pads with one choke choice; four-stem cuts stay aligned. CHOMP Pattern reaches all 16 pads in each A-H bank. Record a pad from a chosen source including the built-in mic. Send CHOMP audio to Clips, Arrange, or both, and resample its played output.
- SAMPLE TEMPO AND KEY – See a pad’s source BPM, estimated or tagged key, and playback pitch without digging through its editor. Analyze or correct source information, set the Session tempo, or match the sample to it. Optional Auto Match can align new samples to Session tempo; an ambiguous estimated key does not automatically change pitch until you confirm it. Estimates can be wrong and manual correction and Undo remain available.
- CLIPS. ARRANGE. PATTERN. AND FETCH – Play Keys inside Clips and Arrange. Hold to copy, paste, or duplicate clips and regions; duplicates find free space on the same track, and occupied paste targets ask before replacement. Adjust audio fades from waveform handles. Audio tracks can reopen their hosted AUv3 source instrument. Add Audio to Song from CHOMP, hosted instruments, or Link Audio. Pattern keeps favorites, filters, and Set BPM: iPhone shows steps 1-8 above 9-16. FETCH Listen adds editable Call/Answer phrases and Build Around Phrase.
- ROUTE, SYNC, AND CONTROLLERS – Route now starts with clearly labeled Input, COMPA, and Output controls. Choose the connected device. then its available stereo pair or individual mono channel. Optional input monitoring stays off unless requested with protection for groovebox USB returns and an explicit safety choice for conventional same-device interfaces. Compatible class- compliant USB audio interfaces no longer need a dedicated card profile. Bluetooth istening is available through the system output picker; wired or USB remains best for tight live timing.
Give your groovebox a compa. Tailored hardware controls, sampling, sequencing, AUv3 hosting, and Ableton Link Audio. Works with or without hardware.
Your groovebox and your iPhone, one USB cable Compa turns the phone or iPad into the brain your gear never had: it plays ideas into it, samples it back mixes it, and svncs the whole rig.
Audio in, processed audio back out, MIDI both directions, over the sinale USB connection your gear already has. No interface, no adapters. Monitor where you want: keep the gear as the input and send the mix out the phone’s own speaker or headphones, or return it to the device.
Every instrument Compa knows gets a card built from what that box actually speaks: real parameter names real ranges, values that match its own screen. All five of the SP-404 MK2’s effect buses from one place, its looper, its pads played chromatically,
Compa joins the Ableton Link session on your network and sends MIDI clock and transport out over USB, so an SP-404 MK2, T-8 or P-6 locks to the same tempo as every Link app around it. And Link Audio: stream Compa’s mix over the network into Ableton Live with no cable and no interface, for layering and capture.
One set of chords becomes a whole loop: CHORDS, BASS, MELODY, DRUMS and TEXTURE, all in key Every part has its own SOUND row, so send any part anywhere: Compa’s built-in voice. an AUv3 instrument you have loaded, or a connected USB device. Genres per part. 11 for bass, 9 for drums, 6 chord vibes, 4 for melody. Hit LISTEN, play a phrase, hit SPEAK, and Compa answers in key on the next bar. YES loops the answer, NO throws it away. ROAM evolves a loop instead of replacing it. REROOT swaps the chords under your melody. Export the whole loop, or any single part, as a standard .mid.
A 303-stvle library of 229 patterns across 21 genres. FETCH writes new ones. VARY evolves what is there. LENS bends it toward another genre, and SEND to FETCH hands your bassline to the co-composer to build chords and melody around it. Step sequencer with 16, 32 or 64 steps, per-step ratchets, swing, one- tap rhythm fills, and access to vour device’s own internal patterns.
Hold an empty pad and it records until you let go, Chop three wavs: EQUAL slices, TRANSIENT auto- detect, or LAZY tap-along. Drop a whole chop set onto one Selector Pad, up to 128 samples under one finger, and play it round robin, random, or swept by knob or MIDI CC. Per pad: pitch, 3-band EQ sidechain duck, choke groups, reverse, normalize attack, release. Tap patterns in live, every pass overdubs, 32 slots with count-in and quantize.
Import Koala packs, Ableton Drum Racks (.adg), MPC and Force programs (.xpm), Quota Stems folders, or point it at a folder of one-shots and Auto-Kit lays them out. Importing is included.
Sixteen effects built in, running QuotaFX’s own kernels over the whole session mix: your pads, your gear, and every app you have loaded. Filter, crush, reverb, stutter, gate, delay, backspin, tape stop, viny and more. Slide to ride it. hold to latch, stack as many as you want.
The whole app as a patchable mixer. Your hardware up to 8 AUv3 instruments each on its own channel AUv3 effects as inserts. 16 buses with sends, and a live oscilloscope so you can see what your gear is actually sending,
Roland SP-404 MK2. P-6. T-8, S-1. J-6 and E-4 Teenage Engineering EP-133 K.O. I1. Akai MPC Sample, Live IlI, XL, One G2 and Key 37 G2. the new USB-C generation. Earlier MPCs do not carry class- compliant audio over USB. Deepest control is on the SP-404 MK2. P-6 and T-8.
Chompa records and plays on the iPad itself, with or ithout gear. FETCH drives instruments: aim its parts at your gear or a loaded AUv3.
Watch the tutorial videos HERE.
For more information on Compa, click here:
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