Hum listens to your Voice and sends each Note to whatever instrument you point it at, quickly enough to play it live. As a Plugin it sits on a vocal channel in your Host. As an app it's a MIDI source for synth apps, a Mac or a Bluetooth keyboard. I wanted to play synths with my voice at gigs and nothing I tried was quick enough to feel like playing, so I made this.
Hum shows more or less depending on how big a window the Host gives it.
In a small window you get the Note as you sang it, the Note that left, your level against the Gate, Octave Shift and Panic. That's all, sized to read from a metre away with a mic in your hand.
Give it a taller window and the other controls appear below: the Scale, Smoothing, Velocity, Aftertouch, MIDI channel and Voice Through. Set them at soundcheck, then go back to the small window. Each panel has a question mark that explains it.
Behind the Note is a waterfall of the last dozen cycles of your Voice, one period each. It isn't for measuring anything. It shows at a glance whether Hum is hearing you, and I like how it looks.
There aren't many, and each one is there because I needed it at a gig.
The Gate is the level below which Hum treats your Voice as silence. Drag it on the meter so the room and the drummer don't start Notes. Smoothing is how sure Hum has to be before it changes Note: turn it up for fewer wrong Notes, down for less delay.
Choose a Scale and a Root, and a Note that's off the Scale moves to the nearest Note in it. There are eight Scales from any Root, and a preset for every major and minor key. Leave it Off and Hum sends whatever you sing, to the nearest semitone.
Octave Shift moves every Note up or down by whole octaves before it leaves, so you can hum a bass line in your own range.
Velocity is one knob. At the bottom, Fixed, every Note leaves at full velocity however you sing, which suits some instruments. Turn it up and it follows how loud you start each Note. Further up, it takes real force to get a loud one.
Aftertouch sends your level while a Note is held, as Channel Pressure, so you can swell into a pad by singing louder.
Pick the MIDI channel. Output turns sending on and off; when it's off, Hum still listens and shows you the Note. Voice Through sets how much of your Voice carries on out of the Plugin, from none to all, so Hum can sit on the vocal channel without muting it.
Panic is on both views, for when a note sticks.
Open the app and it appears as Selkie Hum in any synth app's MIDI inputs, and keeps listening in the background while that app is in front. Plug the iPad into a Mac and the Notes arrive there. A button at the top pairs a Bluetooth MIDI keyboard or sound module. The app makes no sound of its own, so there's nothing to feed back into the microphone.
Worth knowing before you buy it.
$2.99, one off. Priced in your local currency on the App Store.
Questions? hello@dykewerk.app