Orbeat listens as well as it talks: play the eight lanes live from any controller or app, lock the whole groove to an external MIDI clock, and drive it from a piano roll inside your DAW. No setup screens to hunt through — plug in and hit something.
Play the pads live
Orbeat connects to every MIDI source automatically — USB controllers, Bluetooth devices you've paired in iOS, and other apps. It also publishes a virtual input port named “Orbeat”, so any app with a MIDI output can target it directly. Note input is always on; velocity comes through exactly as you play it, whether the transport is running or stopped.
The lanes answer to the General MIDI drum notes, so most drum controllers and DAW drum maps line up out of the box:
By default Orbeat listens on channel 10 (the GM drum channel). If your controller sends on something else, open Settings → MIDI → Note-in channel and pick its channel — or Omni to accept everything. Connected sources are listed right below the picker, so you can confirm Orbeat sees your gear at a glance.
Follow an external clock
Running hardware or another app as the master? Orbeat can follow its MIDI clock — tempo, transport, and song position — so your groove stays welded to the rest of the rig.
- Open Settings → MIDI → Sync and choose External MIDI Clock.
- Start the transport on the sender. Orbeat starts from step 1, right on the downbeat.
- Change the sender's tempo and watch Orbeat glide with it — the BPM display turns read-only and shows an EXT badge while syncing.
While syncing, the sender is the boss: START, STOP, and CONTINUE drive the transport, and a song-position locate in your DAW lands Orbeat on the same bar when it resumes. The play button dims (the clock owns it now), but the pads stay live — you can keep drumming over a stopped transport. If the clock disappears — cable pulled, app closed — Orbeat stops within half a second and the badge flips to NO CLOCK until ticks return. Switch Sync back to Off and the manual transport is yours again, keeping the last synced tempo.
In your DAW (AUv3)
Inside AUM, Logic, GarageBand, Drambo, or any AUv3 host, Orbeat is an instrument that speaks MIDI both ways: sequence into it from the host's piano roll using the same notes above (any channel — the host does the routing), and let its sample-accurate MIDI out sequence your other instruments. Clock sync isn't needed there — the plug-in already follows the host transport natively.
Troubleshooting
My controller triggers nothing
Check Settings → MIDI → Note-in channel — if the controller transmits on a channel other than 10, match it or switch to Omni. Also make sure it's sending notes in the map above; notes outside the eight are ignored on purpose.
My device isn't in the Sources list
For Bluetooth MIDI, pair the device in another app or iOS Settings first — Orbeat picks up every source the system knows about, and reconnects automatically when devices come and go. For USB, try re-plugging; the list refreshes live.
The badge says NO CLOCK
Orbeat is in sync mode but no clock ticks are arriving. Make sure the sender actually transmits MIDI clock (in most DAWs that's a per-output “send clock” switch), not just start/stop. The moment ticks reappear, Orbeat locks back on.
The play button is greyed out
That's sync mode doing its job — the external clock owns the transport. Set Settings → MIDI → Sync to Off to take back manual control.
Something else? Email zhi@digilog.tw — we read every message.