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.
IconnectAudio4
Anyone have one? Is it useful? Does it work as advertised? It's exciting to me that my iPad and apps could be used as a hardware vast within my DAW on my !acbook. How's it work?
Comments
More than useful. I use it with 2 ipads, 5 dedicated external midi controllers, and 2 more IOS devices in the wired USB midi chain. No other product out there could handle all the audio and midi while keeping my main iPads constantly powered. Definitely a swiss army knife.
Keep in mind there had been some reports of noise with them initially, though these issues either had workarounds or have been fixed with firmware updates. No major issues from my standpoint - though be aware there is currently an issue when connecting between an iOS 9 device and el Capitan:
http://www.iconnectivity.com/blog/iconnectivity-os-compatibility-report-os-x-1111-el-capitan-and-ios-902
Just got one. Had my head messed up for a day, then worked it out and not looked back. That was the audio. MIDI still a bit complex for me but i managed to get everything working eventually. Unbelievably useful and powerful. Pretty much everything you need in a little box. No regrets. iPad with laptop at the moment until I can get an extra lighting/usb cable. Also powers the iPad, which is not to be underestimated.
Best soundcard for IOS devices OMHO...
Love mine, use it daily. Always plugin my iPad and MBP when I sit at my Music work area. Just so easy to do things with it once I figured it out.
I had heard that iOS 9.1/El Capitan broke much of the functionality with audio. something about the restructuring apple did with AUs. I'm already running these os's but want iCA4+. anyone have informed advice?
@dderks - the bottom line is you can have one of your connected devices running either El C or iOS 9 but not both.
I.e. you can not have El C + El C or El C + iOS 9 or iOS9 + iOS 9
The problem is that each one wants (needs since Apple "broke" it
) to be the audio clock master. The iC devices are unique in exercising this aspect of the connectivity (no other device out there does that).
From what I understand, I believe this is because Apple is not necessarily adhering to the USB spec as it ought in El C / iOS 9. The problem lies with Apple not iC. Hoping this will change...
If you have El C + ios 7/8. No problem. Also if you have iOS 9 + Yosemite or before. Again, NP. Likewise iOS 7/8 + iOS 9 etc. etc.
Oh, that's awful! I bought one recently and haven't gotten around to try it out really. But my computers are on 10.11 and my iOS devices are running iOS 9.1. So none of the devices could be connected through the ica4? Apple need to fix this ASAP!
It's a great device but you have to adjust some settings. After I upgraded to El Capitan their tech support told me to change the clock source from the iConnect to my Mac.
I'm digging mine. It's a bit of a bear to set up but once it's set up, it's bordering on magic. The iOS config app works pretty well. Two bugaboos for me are: can't save/recall settings from within the app and the few-second lag when switching screens (seems to be loading all info from the device each time; it's a deeeeep device so lots of info to load!).
And really, the only complaint I have about day to day life with it is the absurdly long port names and using apps that don't display them all. Instead of knowing what's what, some apps like Elastic Drums just show you "iConnectAudio4 USB host..." 8 times! There's apparently a fix for this but you have to wipe all of the settings from your device.
One thing I was very happy to find was that it retains its routings within the unit. I can use it without an iOS device connected and all my DIN and USB hardware is still pointing at the right things.
hi syrupcore, here again...
so did they answer?
think you know more, cause the name in the display sucks....yes.
but its good to read that they will fix it, sometimes....
Seems like its not possible to save presets NOW from the iconfig
I had from time to time a digital/noise crack, but cant find a logic behind...and have to plug off and in @the first time i connect the second device....then....
rocknroll, its a wild horse & you have to know how you ride it,...
but if you know it....wow....smell my dust...
It's a great device, I love it. Recently upgraded to ios 9 and had some popping issues (just with 2 ipads connected) but changing clock source seems to have fixed it I think...I'm running ios 9 and ios 8.3
The long port name thing is annoying from within iOS but not too much of a problem, haven't seen that fix though, am interested
....
I think it's essential if you are using an iPad in audio/music production.
I also have an iconnectmidi 2 which I connected to my ica4 and that works well too in the setup. But yes the configuration is complicated at first and I still haven't quite got to grips with the deepest part of it yet like using the port remappings etc.
@Carnbot
what(how) did you do to change the clock thats running smooth for you know....?
In iconfigaudio, on the audio info page, clock select, I changed it to use port 1 which has my iPad mini 2 on iOS 8.3...seems to have stopped audio pops so far which was happening before on my Air 2 iOS 9.1 when connected.
Btw I'm not sure what the significance of the clock source is in a setup, whether it makes a difference to anything, guess I should ask iconnectivity about that...
I thought that the iOS9 device needed to be the clock master. That's what I had to do to fix.
thx @Carnbot will try that later, use a ipad mini2 ios 7.1.2 & AIR2 OS9
....
what i wanna try is, to route the MasterAudio from mini2 (USB1) to out 1/2 + have to find out how i patch the seperate output of the InstrumentSection of DrumJam over 3/4 usb1 out 3/4 direct into the AIR2 Loopy IN...think i need MiMix cause AudioBus cannot use seperate Audio outs....
@Sebastian or @Michael why?
will this be possible without 3rd party app?
@Kymátika cant wait for your sexy Mixer!!! YES!
Ok yeah, maybe that's what I did too, will have to check
Expanding on what Musicinclusive wrote - which is correct - it appears the issue is only at 44.1/88.2kHz; at 48/96kHz it should be fine.
That's a bummer. I'm a 44.1er. Guess it's iOS 8 forever (at least for one device) since Apple isn't going to change anything for one piece of third party hardware and iConnectivity is blaming Apple.
Here's Funkbox. There are another 4-6 similarly named ports off screen.
yeah syrup that sucks, ;-)
i am trying some different patches now, whats confusing too, is that the faders are so smoothed delayed his values(its like a long attack) + iConfig dont shows the adjustment of the knob on the front, the faders will not move...
dont try the Mixer on a PC, maybe this works there like in the tutorial Vids:
Whats your working setup now, i will use it with 2 ipads and NO Computer...
i had a strange issue if i use in2 to record something over AB into loopy, and made no adjustments and the signal is less then...."middle", after minutes there are something like a fade out to -50dB and the sound is crispy, after i send a higher signal around 20dB+ it pops and the sound is normal and present again....its like a digital Gate....?...
try different setups internal clocks / iOS9 Device ClockMaster / 44,1/16bit up to 96/24bit....
same same, gates out after minutes....?...
opened a ticket.....
I could swear that the port naming scheme inside of the ICA4 passed to some apps. I have 2 of them - and the first one I bought, I renamed the ports using PC iConfig, and they were definitely showing the renamed port names in MidiFlow. Unfortunately, that one is at my rehearsal hall right now, so I can't validate. The other one I have, I renamed the ports using IOS iConfig Audio and I'm not seeing those names show up in MidiFlow.
Will have to try to setup/save from iConfig on my PC to see if that actually sets them differently and allows them to show.
Yep. If you do it before you ever connect it to your iOS device, iOS will pick up the renamed ports. The other option is to wipe all of your settings (edit...), rename the ports via desktop, then connect it for the new 'first' time. At least that's how I understand it. It's from a user over on the ic4a forum.
I just want to check back about the OS 10.11 + iOS 9 problems. I set it up with El Cap and iPad on iOS 9 and put the sample rate to 48k on both ica and in Ableton live. I do get clicks and pops and haven't been able to get rid of them. I tried increasing and lowering the buffer but that didn't seem to help. So It looks like the only way out of this would be to reinstall Yosemite on my computers. Unless Apple finally get their act together and fix the numerous USB problems they introduced with El Cap.
Or can anyone else verify that they don't get these glitches with OS 10.11 and iOS 9?
Anyone know if the Audio4+ issues have been worked out yet? It looks appealing to me but not with the current issues...
Unfortunately not. I'm waiting for a fix too.
I just bought one Audio4 to use with 2 iPads. One of the iPads doesn't recognize it.It is an iPad 4 with iOS 6. The help section is still trying to find out what is happening whereas the Audio4 is supposed to work starting with IOS 5. Could it be that I started the connection to this ipad4 by using the Usb cable provided and suppossly for the pc and the Lightning adapter in the iPad? Did this change anything inside the iPad that when I try to use the lighting cable provided by Audio4 , it doesn't recognize it?Any suggestions please?
Hoping that the upcoming iOS 9.3 release will address the audio master clock problem that Apple introduced with iOS 9.
In my chain, which is basically an iPad (Pro), an ICM4+ (which suffers the same issue as ICA4+) and a MacBook Pro which has a Roland DuoCapture EX (external soundcard) connected to it , I can't set it all to 48/96. There is quite simply not an option for me unless I am missing something glaringly obvious.
I've been looking both at the configuration for each of the separate components as well as for the aggregated device I need to create in my MacBook t be able use all the ports (which obviously is what we're aiming for here).
This sucks,
I have two iOS9 devices.
Cant run both together....pops.
One is okay....but i want my second back!
The reason why i bought ica4.
Its a grab what apple do in the last monthsss
It's definitely a problem @obiwahnkentobi - agreed - and it's in Apple's court to fix it.
I also agree @hellquist - running at 48 or 96 may not be an option for other reasons - e.g. aggregation with other devices, compatibility with Audiobus, or, also, as in my case with the iCM4+, needing to maintain the right number of audio channels for the functionality I desire.
So, hopefully, Apple will get their act together and set things right again in the upcoming release.