AIRSTEP

These are fantastic devices that are hobbled by unintuitive software, and documentation that is both unorganized and spread out everywhere. They're sticking with these products which I really appreciate even though it seems like a struggle. Definitely no shame in that, but customers could use someone thinking about their experience to pull it all together. This software is usable, but is not designed to be intuitive. If you do each individual firmware update one after another, you might be up-to-date enough to then filter through all the documentation and hope not to run into out-of-date or superceded info. You'll probably spend a lot of time on the XSonic Users facebook group.

Tucker RyanFri, Jul 28, 2023

United States

Because this does not poll the device at start up you can only use your own programs on one device... This is a major problem because you cannot transfer data out of the app. For multi-device useers (like say you have an iPad and an iPhone) it is also frustrating that the presets you save cannot even be transferred from one device to another. It would pretty simple for this to use iCloud like many other apps which would allow you to use more than device. But, since you can't basically whatever device you have programmed is the only one that can store your programs. I have very complex MIDI setups with multiple messages on multiple devices. I need to back up these up and trasnfer them between devices. They also keep adding more and more presets which is nice for people who have no idea how to use MIDI but for those creating complicated programs and trying to manage their data it actually gets in the way and keeps updating because they are built-in to the app. The app also is not compatible with the M1 Macs, it refuses to connect to the Airstep. Overall I have decided to switch devices because of this issue. This a disappointment because this thing is NOT cheap.

ElricXSun, May 22, 2022

United States

The App is super easy to use and is great for getting started quickly. It can control the Airstep in real-time which is neat, but it has SERIOUS problems with data management that not only create problems for the user but also are a long term liability for owners of the device. This app is the only way to program this thing. If XSonic ever goes out of business or they stop supporting the app and it becomes incompatible with your iOS version, this device is hosed… So what are the issues? One key thing is that there is no way to share presets, all of the data is tied to the instance of the app on the device. So if you have multiple mobile devices (I have 2 iPads and 2 iPhones that I use regularly) you have to pick one to be the one and only device that ever stores data for the Airstep. If the app is ever deleted or device is rest/stolen/etc, your data is gone, on an Apple mobile device you cannot restore just one app from a backup AFAIK, so you would have to restore the entire device from backup just to get your Airstep presets back. It is completely unacceptable that a user cannot dump a preset or send it to another mobile device or a computer for backup, IMHO. This app needs a ‘share’ button at the bare minimum so you can use more than one iOS device. If for some reason you did not have a backup your work would be gone forever and while this app is easy to use creating many presets for this thing is extremely tedious. On iOS it really feels crazy that this does not use iCloud… This would solve MANY of the problems I have listed, you would have a computer backup as well as be able to use multiple devices. There is really no good reason not to support this at least for the iOS app, given how much work it is to setup a device for the Air-step and iCloud sharing is straightforward to implement and supported by many apps. One advantage of the Airstep hardware is that it can control MANY devices via multiple configurations. I have at least 6 different setups, I want to control with this, Some of them are very complex with multiple MIDI devices. Many of these are going to find 5 snapshots to be a limitation... The fact that you cannot group them and save them as a set feels limiting too. And even with the ease of use of the App, this is a TON of work to setup and tedious. I spent last night reproducing the Amp rig settings on a second device because I did not want to lose my work from earlier in the day. Programming buttons to do multiple messages is extremely tedious and time consuming with the drop down menus. There is no cut and paste, the keyboard can only be used for renaming and saving. XSonic has been contacted about this (about seven months ago) and responded that they plan to improve the system but all they have done is added presets for the spark and added some Bluetooth bug fixes. It has really reduced the value of the system for me.

ElricXSun, Jul 25, 2021

United States