Sound and MIDI
MIDIpad plays itself and sends MIDI at the same time
MIDIpad makes its own sound. It also sends MIDI. The two run side by side, and turning one off doesn't touch the other.
This matters for how you set the app up, so it's worth stating plainly:
- The MIDI ports are always open. Whatever you do to MIDIpad's own sound, the notes keep leaving MIDIpad Chords and MIDIpad Drums exactly as before.
- MIDIpad's own sound can be silenced. That silences the app, not the ports.
The picker is the switch
There is one picker per instrument, in the control bar - Voice for Chords, Drums kit for Drums. The first entry in both is MIDI Only. Choosing it silences MIDIpad and leaves the ports running; choosing any voice or kit turns the sound back on, and the picker remembers what you had.
There is no separate on/off switch. The picker is the switch, so it can never disagree with itself.
MIDI Only is one setting shared by both instruments. Selecting it on Drums silences the Chords voice too, and the other way round.
Volume, at the right of the control bar, sets how loud MIDIpad plays itself. It's not a MIDI control: velocity, pressure and everything else leave the ports untouched by it. One level covers both instruments, because only one instrument is ever audible at a time.
The internal sound is the full instrument
MIDIpad's own sound plays the instrument's whole expression - it swells and fades with each string's energy and brightens with your touch, whatever the ports are sending. It's how you hear the full instrument before a licence, and how you check the instrument is doing what you think before any DAW routing is involved - which is the first split in No sound from MIDIpad.
The MIDI side is where the instrument goes to work: your own synths, per-string expression, one synth per string if you want it. See Set up your DAW and MIDI and MPE.