Thank you for downloading Version 2 of the Jambé app!
Since Version 1 launched in 2021, nearly every part of the app has grown deeper — bigger kits, richer ways to use each pad, comprehensive MIDI and MPE support for both input triggering and output MIDI generation, a new convolution reverb, a Mac version, and a library system built for collectors. The original goal hasn’t changed: every nuance and touch on the Jambé is translated into sound with precision. Whole horizons of creative potential are now opened up. Here is what’s new in 2.0.
A Bigger Instrument
Jambé 2.0 now supports up to three connected physical Jambé heads simultaneously, enabling kits with as many as 30 active pads under the player’s hands — or under the hands of multiple players in a collaborative performance, if you wish.
A native Mac Catalyst version of the app is now available.
Jambé is now much more than a playable instrument — it is the control center for a performance that can include not only the visual act of playing the instrument, but can also trigger remote events via standard MIDI and MIDI Show Control — including any MSC-compatible lighting and stage equipment — that become an integral part of the performance. And the entire instrument itself can be performed remotely via incoming MIDI and MPE.
Pads That Do More — Actions
In Version 1, each pad triggered a single Sampler Instrument and that was the extent of it. In 2.0, each pad carries an ordered list of Actions, and three types are available:
- Sampler Instrument Actions — the Version 1 “sampler instrument” has been expanded with new capabilities including interval-mode playing using user-selectable scales.
- MIDI Actions — produce packets and streams of MIDI commands across the full gesture: Note On/Off, CC (including 14-bit), Program Change, Channel and Poly Pressure, Pitch Bend, System Exclusive, and MIDI Show Control. Values can be modulated by kit and action sources, and held after release.
- Delay Actions — insert user-definable delays into the pad’s Action list, optionally waiting for sampler voices or earlier actions to complete.
A single pad can chain any combination of these in any order. Modulation paths now follow each action through its own lifetime, with new options that include paths gating off during release, modulation-only triggering (the first strike modulates without playing), and mod source snapshots that freeze a source’s value at strike time rather than tracking it continuously across the gesture.
Expressive Playing — MPE, Interval Mode and Scales
Jambé 2.0 is a full MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) instrument. Per-note pitch bend, pressure, and CC74 streams come directly from the gesture on the pad, with per-device MPE configuration available in Setup. For expressive playing without MPE, you can choose your own MIDI controllers. Full support for XYZ control is now enabled for modulation, triggering, and MIDI output production.
Jambé 2.0 adds another whole new way of playing and performing — Interval Mode. Instead of each pad playing the same pitch (or sending out the same MIDI note number) each time you hit it, you can assign each pad to play a pitch that is a fixed interval, or number of scale steps, higher or lower than the last note played. Huge pitch ranges can be covered with only a few pad strokes, and entirely new performance palettes become possible.
Along with the ability to play in a selectable scale, Jambé now has a Scales Editor. It lets you edit and maintain a library of scales — including imported Scala scale files — that drive interval-mode playing on Sampler Instrument and MIDI Actions.
Sensitivity to hand and finger playing on the physical Jambé pads has been greatly enhanced. Hits made on a pad that already has pressure on it are now detected, enabling a wider range of finger-playing techniques on Jambé.
New Sounds and Effects
A new Stereo Convolution Reverb has been added to the existing digital effects available in the app. Any soundfile can be loaded as the reverb’s impulse response, and further modified within the app. Reverse reverb and both realistic and imagined spaces are now available at your fingertips.
Sampler instrument Envelope Generators now allow sample-accurate envelope segments that work perfectly throughout their range — especially important for percussive sounds that require very fast envelope modulation.
A Factory Kit Browser now gives you in-app access to the updated and expanded selection of free Factory Kits, available for you to download right now. Version tracking allows you to download new kit versions, revert to the latest version, and more.
A Manageable Kit Library
The 2.0 library system serves kit collectors directly:
- Hierarchical, editable tags on every kit.
- Filters — named, color-coded combinations of include/exclude tag operators that limit the Play view to a chosen subset of kits. Need a view showing just the kits you need for tomorrow’s gig or session? Tag the kits and create a filter.
- Sortable kit views, in either icon grid or list form, sorted by any kit attribute, or custom ordering.
- Additional per-kit menus for kit rename, delete, and export, within the Play view itself.
Import and Export
- New options are available for importing and exporting, as well as sharing, your kits, FX presets, MIDI pad triggering data, and so on.
- More access is now available to the outside world, including device-attached storage and iCloud, for imports and exports.
- Additional audio file formats, including compressed formats, are now supported for sound files imported into Jambé kits.
Connectivity and Setup
- Audio inputs and outputs from built-in and attached USB audio interfaces are now selected from a hierarchical list that scales gracefully to audio interfaces with large channel counts.
- MIDI devices are split into Sources and Destinations, each with per-device MPE configuration and per-device output-cable routing.
- Jambé can advertise itself as a Bluetooth MIDI peripheral.
- The new Archive Manager — reached from the Setup menu — backs up and shares your entire application library, including all your kits and other Jambé data, between multiple iOS and MacOS devices via iCloud. Adding the Jambé app to additional devices is now straightforward.
We hope you enjoy all the new capabilities of Jambé 2.0, and look forward to seeing how these new tools push your creativity in new directions.