05-10-2025, 12:29 AM
This post is about playing midi files, in the background on my ipad while I'm in MobileSheets. Right now I'm only using them to practice with (I sing and play piano). I haven't ventured into trying to use any as backing tracks while performing.
Since ipads have no option for apps to natively play midis, I have figured out a workaround. This is long and involved to set up, but it works really well. I was fairly new to the ipad and the apple ecosystem when I discovered MS at the time that Mike had just released the ipad version.
I tried 5 or 6 different midi apps I found in the App Store. Each one had it's pros and cons. I settled on Sweet Midi Player. The reasons I chose it: It handles both .mid and .kar, showing the lyrics if there are any. It has a mixer to adjust volume (& solo/mute) of each track independently, and can change key and tempo. It also allows to use different dls/sf2 files as long as you place them in Sweet Midi's root folder in Files. Sweet Midihas its own file manager, which means I needed to move the midis into it's folder. (I need to make sure to have back-ups and remember to move the files to another folder if I want to remove the app. I assume everything would disappear if I were to uninstall it.)
In Files, I created folders inside the Sweet Midi folder, for each letter of the alphabet, so: A folder, B folder, etc, to make it easier to find a song more quickly. when in Sweet Midi. Then I *moved* (not copied or shared) all my midi files into these folders. If you copy or "share to" another app, the files will be on your ipad twice.
After that, they all show up in the SWP app in its file tab (at the bottom). I can tap on the letter folder and scroll to find a song.
*Make sure in the Sweet Midi app settings, to uncheck "Allow sleep" so that the music will continue to play when that app is in the background. And there's also a setting called "split-screen mode" you can turn on, if you want to see the list of files at the bottom and the mixer at the top. (Go to the playlist tab, then back to the file tab and you'll see both.)
Now to make the magic happen with MS, I had to set several things up.
In the ipad settings, go Accessibility, Touch, and turn on Assistive Touch. (This creates a small circle you can move anywhere on the screen. I have it set to about 30% opacity. ) You can choose to trigger three things through tap, double-tap and longpress of that button. I've been using the longpress to take screenshots for a long time, but I wasn't using tap or double-tap.
(One other thing about the button: if you add the accessibility icon in the control center, you can turn it on and off without having to dig through all the menus in Settings.)
Next, I created two shortcuts. (I can't remember if the Shortcuts App is already on the ipad or if I had to get it in the app store.) I've always been an android person, phone-wise and only got an ipad when I needed it for music, so lots of googling and frustration in the beginning. If you're new to the ipad, like I was, look up ipad shortcuts on reddit. There's ton of automation that can be done. (I have created a lot of shortcuts I use to edit text for my chordpro files, but that's for another post.)
I went to Shortcuts and created 2 new ones. Play SWP, which just opens the Sweet Midi Player app. And Play/Pause, which will start or stop any music file that is currently most recently loaded into any music playing app.
Go to Control Center and add the "Now Playing icon" if it's not already there. (I think ios 18 puts it there automatically.)
Make sure the shortcuts work. Start a song in SWP, go to shortcuts and run play/pause to see if it starts and stops. And run "Play SWP" to see if it opens the app.
Ater that I went back to Accessibility Toch and set the tap to run the Play/Pause shortcut and the double-tap to open SWP. You can set any shortcut you have. They will be at the bottom of the list of options, scroll all the way down.
Now when I'm in MS, and I'm on a song, I double-tap the little transulent button hanging out always on the right side of my screen, and Sweet Midi Player opens. I choose the file. I don't have to push play yet. Once I tap on the song, it will show up at the top of the screen, so I know it's been loaded.
You can see the tiny words at the upper left corner, saying MobileSheets with a little arrow. Since you were in that app before you ran the shortcut, click there and you'll be right back where you were in MS. Now I can tap once on my liilte button when I'm ready and the music starts. And tap again to pause. To adjust, say to play from the beginning, pull-down on the upper right corner to show the control center and the "now playing" icon has a bar you can drag left and right for place in song.
I also keep MS and SWP icons in both the dock, and the control center for ease of switching back and forth.
Hopefully, this will be useful so some!
Since ipads have no option for apps to natively play midis, I have figured out a workaround. This is long and involved to set up, but it works really well. I was fairly new to the ipad and the apple ecosystem when I discovered MS at the time that Mike had just released the ipad version.
I tried 5 or 6 different midi apps I found in the App Store. Each one had it's pros and cons. I settled on Sweet Midi Player. The reasons I chose it: It handles both .mid and .kar, showing the lyrics if there are any. It has a mixer to adjust volume (& solo/mute) of each track independently, and can change key and tempo. It also allows to use different dls/sf2 files as long as you place them in Sweet Midi's root folder in Files. Sweet Midihas its own file manager, which means I needed to move the midis into it's folder. (I need to make sure to have back-ups and remember to move the files to another folder if I want to remove the app. I assume everything would disappear if I were to uninstall it.)
In Files, I created folders inside the Sweet Midi folder, for each letter of the alphabet, so: A folder, B folder, etc, to make it easier to find a song more quickly. when in Sweet Midi. Then I *moved* (not copied or shared) all my midi files into these folders. If you copy or "share to" another app, the files will be on your ipad twice.
After that, they all show up in the SWP app in its file tab (at the bottom). I can tap on the letter folder and scroll to find a song.
*Make sure in the Sweet Midi app settings, to uncheck "Allow sleep" so that the music will continue to play when that app is in the background. And there's also a setting called "split-screen mode" you can turn on, if you want to see the list of files at the bottom and the mixer at the top. (Go to the playlist tab, then back to the file tab and you'll see both.)
Now to make the magic happen with MS, I had to set several things up.
In the ipad settings, go Accessibility, Touch, and turn on Assistive Touch. (This creates a small circle you can move anywhere on the screen. I have it set to about 30% opacity. ) You can choose to trigger three things through tap, double-tap and longpress of that button. I've been using the longpress to take screenshots for a long time, but I wasn't using tap or double-tap.
(One other thing about the button: if you add the accessibility icon in the control center, you can turn it on and off without having to dig through all the menus in Settings.)
Next, I created two shortcuts. (I can't remember if the Shortcuts App is already on the ipad or if I had to get it in the app store.) I've always been an android person, phone-wise and only got an ipad when I needed it for music, so lots of googling and frustration in the beginning. If you're new to the ipad, like I was, look up ipad shortcuts on reddit. There's ton of automation that can be done. (I have created a lot of shortcuts I use to edit text for my chordpro files, but that's for another post.)
I went to Shortcuts and created 2 new ones. Play SWP, which just opens the Sweet Midi Player app. And Play/Pause, which will start or stop any music file that is currently most recently loaded into any music playing app.
Go to Control Center and add the "Now Playing icon" if it's not already there. (I think ios 18 puts it there automatically.)
Make sure the shortcuts work. Start a song in SWP, go to shortcuts and run play/pause to see if it starts and stops. And run "Play SWP" to see if it opens the app.
Ater that I went back to Accessibility Toch and set the tap to run the Play/Pause shortcut and the double-tap to open SWP. You can set any shortcut you have. They will be at the bottom of the list of options, scroll all the way down.
Now when I'm in MS, and I'm on a song, I double-tap the little transulent button hanging out always on the right side of my screen, and Sweet Midi Player opens. I choose the file. I don't have to push play yet. Once I tap on the song, it will show up at the top of the screen, so I know it's been loaded.
You can see the tiny words at the upper left corner, saying MobileSheets with a little arrow. Since you were in that app before you ran the shortcut, click there and you'll be right back where you were in MS. Now I can tap once on my liilte button when I'm ready and the music starts. And tap again to pause. To adjust, say to play from the beginning, pull-down on the upper right corner to show the control center and the "now playing" icon has a bar you can drag left and right for place in song.
I also keep MS and SWP icons in both the dock, and the control center for ease of switching back and forth.
Hopefully, this will be useful so some!