Not what I expected – Instrument 1 Review

To be clear, this is a review of the app, not the instrument. Artiphon is a very nice MPE controller that is slimmer than most others while offering a grid. I foolishly didn't check out the app or software before my instrument came in the mail. What a disappointment. It's just not intuitive to change all of the elements. They are interdependent when they should be completely open and orthogonal. for example, changing from fretted to unfretted will also change your tuning. What? Why? You're supposed to be able to save presets to the dots but they always revert back to factory settings when you switch away. Presets just forever go to die in the my presets folder. I figured out i could Drag one around but i cant put it anywhere or delete one. Also it's complete crap that I can't change the settings of the guitar, violin, keys, and drums. Especially for the string instruments, I like nonstandard tunings and every time i pick up this thing i'll look at the guitar icon but then have to say to myself "no. Wait. Don't use that one because it's tuned wrong." Last thing: this is a MIDI device so I NEED some control over what channels it's sending. There's a bunch of apps the instrument 1 can't talk to probably because they don't understand MPE. You've got to let users turn that off if they want to. Go back and rewrite this app, Artiphon. You made a beautiful piece of hardware that's just so crippled by the software.
Review by Wrave on Instrument 1.