Demo vs licensed

MIDIpad is a free download. Demo Mode has every gesture and both instruments, with no time limit. It plays at MIDIpad's default settings.

What's always free

• Both strums, the block chords, softening and muting on the left trigger, and Stretch, and everything Drums does with the sticks and thumbs.
• The key's root.
• The tempo.
• Single-channel Chords output: plain notes and velocity.
• Drums on its own port, at the General MIDI notes on one channel.
• The Controller Overlay.
• Brightness and contrast, switching the visuals off, and auto-hiding the instrument controls.

What a licence unlocks

• The full Chords output: the four output configs - MPE, Multi-channel, Poly aftertouch, Single channel - and the expression in every one of them. The demo sends notes and velocity on one channel and no pressure or brightness, so the touchpad's brightness and hold and the shake's swell are heard only in the full version. See MIDI and MPE.
• Minor keys: whether Major or Minor is home on the wheel. The demo plays every root with Major as home.
• More time signatures: the demo plays in 4/4, the full version has 2-12 for numerator and 4/8/16 for denominator.
• Each instrument's character: Chords' String sustain, Energy bias, Dynamics and Shake response, along with its voicing, stretch and tilt settings, and Drums' Energy, Dynamics, Swing, Snare offset and Half-time. In the demo these all stay on their defaults.
• The Automation lanes: the fixed CCs that drive the instrument controls from your DAW - see App settings. The demo ignores them.
• The Drums settings: what notes get sent per-drum; MPE or Multi-channel, with each drum on its own channel and how far you push its control sent alongside; and Backbeat can be switched from Automatic to Manual, giving you a bit more control over backbeat placement.
• All themes: the demo gets the default one.
• The Instrument Overlay, a floating always-on-top HUD you can position over your DAW for visual feedback without the full window open. See The overlays.

Activating

1. Buy MIDIpad from the purchase page. Your licence key arrives by email.
2. Click Activate on the purchase page, which opens the app with the key filled in, or open Settings → License and paste the key in. Press Activate. It checks the key online once and then everything unlocks.
3. After that MIDIpad works fully offline. The licence is verified locally, and the app quietly re-confirms it in the background whenever it happens to be online. If that check ever comes back with a no, the app goes back to Demo Mode and tells you.

Once you're activated the pane shows Activated as and a name for this machine - its model and a short code, something like MacBook Pro · 4f9c. That code is generated for the activation, it isn't your computer's name.

One key covers two machines at once. Remove Key in the same pane deactivates this machine and frees the slot back up.