Settings and background audio

Settings holds the choices that apply across sounds: the colour theme, how touch becomes pressure, how Keys follows a slide, MIDI devices and clock, and what the Library auditions with. This chapter maps each page to the chapter that explains it, gives the scope and Init of every setting, and covers What's new, background audio and first launch.

Settings opens from Settings (cog icon), left of the key in the top row. Its first page lists the sections; each row opens a page of its own. A choice applies at once and the sheet stays open.

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#Navigation

• Tap a row to open its page. The value in pencil at the right of a row is its current setting. A chevron (›) opens a page; an arrow (↗) leaves the app.
• ‹ Settings at the top left of a page returns to the first page. A page opened from another page names that page instead: ‹ MIDI, ‹ Routes.
• Done, Escape on a hardware keyboard, or a tap beside the card goes back one page. On the first page it closes Settings.

#The first page

Under ABOUT INK, a pencil line gives the version, then the build in brackets.

On iPhone and iPad the standalone app has the single MIDI row, and Clock is a row on the MIDI page. INK MIDI plays no sounds and takes its clock from the host, so its Settings has no LIBRARY section and no Clock row (INK MIDI).

#Paper

Paper is the colour theme: Paper (ink on cream), Dark (light ink on black) or Blueprint (white ink on blue). Tap a theme's small sheet to switch; the chosen one has a heavy outline and its name in bold. Init: Paper.

The theme is an app setting. The app and the INK plug-ins share it, and it is not saved with sounds or projects.

#Settings and their scope

App values are kept when you change them and apply in every project. Project values are saved by the project's Save and in a host session (Projects). An AUv3 instance keeps the values marked "own in the AUv3" in the host's session, starting from the app's.

#On the Settings pages

On a Mac, Slide control and Settle return to In tune and 45 ms when INK quits.

#Outside Settings

#Where the other controls live

#What's new

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What's new lists what each version of INK added. It opens from Settings › ABOUT INK › What's new. It also opens once by itself, in the standalone app only:

• on the first launch after an update that added a new entry, a moment after the app comes to the front;
• if another sheet is already open by then, at the next launch instead;
• never on a first install, and never in the AUv3.

Two headings at the top switch the list: What's new for what each version added, Coming next for what is planned. The one shown is bold and underlined. Under What's new, a tab per version, newest first, selects the version. Each entry is an icon, a name and one line; small changes follow under ALSO.

The foot of the sheet holds @randommachines on Instagram and the main button: Continue when the sheet opened by itself, Done when opened from Settings. The button, Escape, a drag down on the top of the sheet or a tap beside it closes the sheet.

#Background audio

On iPhone and iPad, the standalone app plays on when you leave it, mixed with other apps' audio. This is background audio. When nothing needs it, the hidden app stops its audio so iOS can suspend it. In a host, the host owns the audio session and none of this applies.

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The hidden app stays awake while any of these holds:

A pattern playing, armed or waiting for a clock, or notes latched with Hold (the arp included), keep the app awake through silences of up to 60 s. A pattern that makes no sound, or one waiting for a clock that never comes, lets the app stop after 60 s.

With none of these, the app stops its audio after 5 s. Before it stops, every note at MIDI out ends, and a Stop goes out if INK's own transport was playing with Send on Clock and transport. The audio starts again when the app returns to the front.

While an INK plug-in runs in a host and INK in another app is Plug-in only, the hidden app leaves incoming notes to the plug-in; those notes do not keep it awake (MIDI in). With Both play, the hidden app plays them too.

iOS can start an app hidden, ahead of a launch it expects. Until INK has been in front once in that launch, it makes no sound and ignores MIDI in. Audio starts the first time INK comes to the front.

#First launch

A fresh install opens on:

• the Factory project (Projects), with the 24 factory patterns in bank A;
• the factory sounds, Piano Room included (Sound library), and the factory kits;
• MIDI In and Out Off on every engine;
• every setting at its Init value from the tables above.

iOS asks for microphone permission the first time the record screen opens on Mic (Import and record).