Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Apollo MIDI over Bluetooth is not on the bus!
So, it's not on the bus -- but it's not really something that should to be on the bus. I'm posting, as it's probably of interest to the folks around here. If you've got multiple iOS devices, or iOS devices and a Mac, you can now run MIDI over Bluetooth (low latency). No wires, no hassle. The iOS version is available now, and we're waiting on Apple to release the Mac version.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apollo-midi-over-bluetooth/id720942905?mt=8
Comments
Very interesting....
What about Windows?
So a no go for the iPad 2?
@mgmg4871 -- No go on iPad 1 and 2 (and iPhone 4 and earlier). Bluetooth LE is a hardware update, very different from traditional Bluetooth (sort of the way there are different WiFi standards). Apple made Bluetooth LE available starting with the iPad3 and iPhone4S. It really is a hardware limitation; not something I can fix.
It's really unfortunate that there's no Bluetooth LE in the iPad2 -- that's a nice level of hardware for a lot of people, and it seems to still be selling quite well.
@marlow77 -- I think a Windows version is possible; I can't promise anything, but it's something that I'll be looking into over the next few months (there are a lot of Windows users out there, who would probably love a simple MIDI connection to an iOS device).
My plan is to keep the "desktop" end of a connection free, and only charge for the iOS side of things (the desktop end is only useful if you've bought the iOS version, and I don't want to charge anyone twice for the same functionality).
This sounds great as in iOS you frequently end up squeezing resources and being able to use a quick wireless midi is a great solution. I've got a 2009 iMac, any suggestions for a Bluetooth LE USB adapter that you mentioned in the video?
Any chance of creating an app that uses a Bluetooth Stylus such as the Adonit Jot Touch 4 that uses Bluetooth LE too?
@Paulinko -- I've tried a few USB Bluetooth adapters -- the IOGear GBU521 seems very solid to me (and only about $12). It is not officially supported by OSX, but it's worked for me on both Mountain Lion and Mavericks.
I know that there's an Adonit Jot SDK -- a music app that uses it is certainly possible, but I've got too many projects on my plate already!
You can already do that, if you have an iOS device that can do tethering (iPhone or 3G iPad) you can connect your Mac and iPad via BT, and you can use your iPad as a controller.
Can I use my iphone connected to midi keyboard via CCK to control my ipad via this Bluetooth midi ?
I'm sure you can
Try this: Share your Mac's ethernet/wifi connection via Bluetooth (Settings / Sharing / Internet).
Connect the iPad to that network. This is better than using a wifi router, because it's a direct network to the Mac, with no latency.
Got the app and it works a treat, iPhone 5 hooked up to keyboard controlling ipad air via Bluetooth with no noticeable latency
Thanks have been looking for an app like this for ages.
Well done on the simplicity, it just works.
Just tried this @DaveMagoo and was quite impressed. Qunexus connected to iPhone 5s controlling Animoog on iPad mini. No noticeable latency at all! Now I can have my iPad connected to a sound system and control it from anywhere in the room.
Ha never thought of the extra portability factor, thanks @funjunkie27
Me neither. It's got me wondering how this might work with the c24 keyboard...whenever that comes out.
I bought this one on the spot. Fantastic app once again from SBD!
Hey SBD - what are the limitations with this ap...ie how many apps/devices can be used at the same time?
@funjunkie27 -- There's no real limitation on the number of apps (other than what your devices can handle). The app effectively acts as a MIDI cable, sending data that comes in on one side, out to the destinations you specify on the other.
Connections are point-to-point in the current release. In the not-too-distant-future, you'll be able to have one device act as a "hub," with multiple devices connecting into it.
I'm also planning on adding some lightweight routing and filtering features (for example, send midi channel 1 to App X, channel 2 to App Y, and so on). It won't be anything as comprehensive as what MidiBridge does, though.
And, just because this is a 1.0 version, there's gotta be a bug somewhere. It looks like I broke my CoreMIDI code (just CoreMIDI, not Virtual MIDI). I had to do some hackery for the OSX compatibility, and I just found a brain failure that causes trouble on iOS (both apps use a lot of the same code base). And where did the bug get noticed? MIDImorphosis, which also uses some of the same code base. I'll be drinking a lot of coffee over the next few days, and will try to get fixes out quickly.
For me, MidiBus is the foundation of my entire MIDI network, incuding external physical devices. Faced with close to a dozen external devices, some sporting up to 5 ports, plus all the internal Apps' ports, the choice of having to burrow into each App to view its MIDI connections (single ended) vs seeing all the routing in one place, was easy.
What for me would be ideal is that every local port be (selectively by check box) replicated at the remote Apollo device, Ins and Outs. Basic filtering by Apollo would be a good idea here, to block high bandwidth stuff like Clock, and also Active Sense, with Start/Stop/Continue/SPP optional too.
Then I would see, in the MB connections page, every device / port as if it were local; differentiated by naming the remotes something like :. Plus one Apollo pair for each device for things like scene and patch selection (like MidiBridge Device itself).
In one fell swoop normalizing the sytem without special regard to how many devices and ports are involved.
Now if Nic could implement zoom and a small icon mode ...
Can this tech do the same with Audio including the low latency ?
Thanks SBD. Looking forward to where you'll be taking this!
@DaveMagoo -- getting audio to work under Bluetooth with "musician grade low latency" will be incredibly difficult. If anyone can actually pull it off correctly, I think it would be Michael and Sebastian -- I'm happy to help them with what I know, but it seems really difficult.
Bluetooth is designed for relatively small amounts of data (MIDI messages are tiny). Audio would require vast quantities of data to be streamed. It's just not a natural fit. Bluetooth audio works by having some latency (to compensate for data loss), and compression.
Ok thanks @SecretBaseDesign let's hope they already have it built for the next update !
Fingers crossed tightly
Just wondering if this could solve the fact Auria has no midi sequencer.
By using BM2 say on iPhone to sequence IAA apps opened within Auria......hmmmm......
@alexbuga I have a 2009 iMac so it doesn't have the Bluetooth le and won't pair without getting error messages on OSX 10.6, but your suggestion does work on pre-iPad 3 devices-- thanks.
Just gonna copy/paste from discchords site my very first impressions with this one...
Ok so just bought it after watching that video, thinking it's never that easy, but yea it was lol. Really really great app. I opened Apollo on the IPad and iPhone, pressed the two AB buttons on each device, and just closed them. Opened iSEM on the iPad, closed it, closed the iPad and put it away. Went to the iPhone, opened Soundprism and immediately started playing the iSEM over on the iPad, no lag or anything. Went on and tried it with Arpeggionome (iPhone), and also a really cool midi controller called Sound Wand Midi (or something along those lines) . All these three midi controllers can easily put a lot of stress/pressure on everything, especially wireless connections, Wand Midi and arpeggionome also sends out various CCs besides the notes data. But I didn't get any drops or latency issues whatsoever with Apollo. Anyway, great stuff, thanks!
http://www.code-interactive.com/state/ART/borat.jpg
Version 1.1 of Apollo is updating now. We had a glitch with 1.0 that could make CoreMIDI connections not work in some cases. iOS 6 devices also had trouble connecting to Macs, and that's been fixed.
The OSX version of Apollo is still waiting at Apple (I had called it ApolloOSX, and they didn't like my use of OSX); should be available in the Mac App Store soon, but in the mean time, it's also available on our web page.
Give me a shout if you run into trouble (and if you like it, an iTunes review would be very much appreciated!)
Awesome app for sure. Has anyone tried to get loopy to sync on two ios devices with apollo? I'm still trying to find a solid method to sync the clock of loopy with two devices.
So far I can't seem to find the mac app. Neither on your page nor on the mac app store.
Will you give a shout when it's available?
@Munibeast:
Here's a direct link to the OSX app
http://www.secretbasedesign.com/apps/ApolloOSX.app.zip
It's on this page:
http://secretbasedesign.com/apps/apollo
@otem_rellik -- If the Loopy clock can be directed towards Apollo, it should transfer across, and go out the other side to the other apps. There will be a little bit of latency (hard to measure exactly, but it looks to be in the 10-15ms range). I'm planning on adding an internal clock to Apollo, so that the endpoints can sync up exactly. There's a bunch of stuff on my plate at the moment, and I'm trying to get through it as quickly as I can...