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.
Best cheap small audio interface below £100
Recommendations everyone?
Comments
Don't forget you can use things like a Zoom H1 for that, too.
Really depends on what you you want to plug into....
Assuming you just want stereo line in/out then the behringer UCA202 is pretty good and only about £30.
Focusrite, Steinberg, Roland and Presonus all have quality interfaces around that price.
If midi in/out is not needed I'd take a look at the Audient ID4.
I had considered the behringer but wondered about alternatives with perhaps slightly better build quality. I had never considered something like the Zoom H1 but I see is can be used as an audio interface as well as its other functionality so that does seem tempting
Thanks - the Audient ID4 and that ilk is more than I want to pay - I suppose the main factor alongside price is as compact as possible to use in mobile settings
https://www.gak.co.uk/en/line-6-sonic-port-ios-interface/82576?gclid=CNedsbei0NACFYu4GwodpWUFzg
No problem. I realise it's slightly over your budget but I thought it was worth mentioning as it's light years above anything else in that price bracket.
Care to share a little more detail? Do you need midi? How many ins and outs?
The Korg plugKey is a decent solution if you just need stereo outs. It will also allow you to charge your iDevice while in use.
Great review of a great audio interface:
http://musicappblog.com/ur22-mkii-review/
Midi would be nice but by no means essential. Again with Ins and Outs its always going to be a size trade off so would manage with just one set of IO. The Korg Plugkey looked interesting but it doesn't appear to have audio ins. Essentially I want to be able to record line in audio from a variety of sources including radios other ipads iphones and other electronic knick knacks
Zoom u24.audio and midi in a small battery powered package. Preamps sound very decent.
Behringer uca 202/222 is cheap and cheerful but picks up interference, you'll need a mixer before it.
Akai EIE red seems to be a quite popular option here. Built like a tank, weighs a tome but gives you 4 decent preamps and 4 outs etc. Only 16bit though.
Seconding zoom u24. I used it for a while and just recently upgraded to the u44. Great gear and amazing build quality
I find these questions really difficult to help with.
I find that for questions like these, 99 out of 100 tend to lead to lots of time and follow up questions to identify the intended purpose for the requested equipment, and only after many hours and sometimes days, the OP's expectations and questions generally turn out to be incompatible, leading to an entirely new line of questioning, often a whole new thread, and the OP's frustration that their hoped-for process can only ever lead to serious unpleasantness. With which I sympathise, but cannot change.
In my experience, questions about connecting an identified-vocal/instrument/sound-source to record an identified-purpose-audio tends to get the OP much more useful responses.
@SheffieldBleep , can you please be more specific?
I use primarily synths and guitars, so I have the UCA202 for the former and the Apogee Jam for the latter. They've really worked about as well as I need.
There are a number of sub-$100 options from Focusrite, Steinberg, etc. in a desktop box format that I've heard work great. Most do not have MIDI.
Someone pointed me towards this one for $80, but I have not tried it. It certainly has loaded features, though, for an iOS setup:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QHURLCW/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=117D2V4KRBGLD&coliid=I1GWF4REGWFHL1
Cheers all. Obv I'm able to google such things but this thread has brought up a few ideas that I hadn't considered. decibelle I gave a bit more info in one of my follow up comments but it's fine. This has helped
Ps if I had the cash it would be an apogee one
@SheffieldBleep , I did read your follow up comments before I posted last time, and if any info at all was there about what you wanted to record, or plug into the interface, or anything like that, I was unable to find it.
This info is very likely to save you from costly mistakes. But it's fine, good luck.
I have an alesis io4 that works really well, has 4 mic preamps and midi, I think they no longer make it (but the io2 express is definitely made), but if you can find one it was under $100. My novation xio is a phenomenal ios interface as well, you can find them used for around 150 and it is a synth, an interface, and a controller all in one. And the synth can recird direct through the usb should you want to do so.
I have PreSonus Audio iTwo (109£) and it’s great
Two audio inputs
Monitoring wet/dry knob on front
Din MIDI in and out
Class complaint (can work with Mac/PC too)
And unadvertised (but working) features:
USB.charging (using powered camera connection kit + powered USB hub)
USB MIDI (by plugging into said USB hub)
I recently upgraded to an iConnect Audio 4+, which is killer for the PC + iPad combo, but I still use the iTwo with an iPhone and I'm very happy with it.
Thanks again - so many options!
Essentially I want to be able to record line in audio from a variety of sources including radios other ipads iphones and other electronic knick knacks
If MIDI is not important this little fellow might be an option:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AG03
Oh my goodness,, if you do it in mono it's so easy, no interface needed at all, just one of those adapters splitting headphone input & mono 3.5 or 6.5mm jack socket. Those are cheap & easy to find everywhere, the 3.5mm one looks like a regular headphone splitter (but isn't).
In stereo, that's more complex, but at line level like you want, you can totally save your money, awesome!
I've got an old Tascam US-100 http://tascam.com/product/us-100/
Internally it uses the same A/D/A as the Behringer (any Behringer I expect, including their range USB connected mixers no doubt, almost all would use the same chip at a guess). It also uses the same chip as the Allen & Heath Zed 10. The Burr/Brown TI PCM2902 (in different variants of it).
I'm not really sure what you mean but I'm interested!
@raindro , As far as I am aware, audio interfaces for the most part serve two primary functions:
... 1) Connect 2 or more sound sources and their funny-shaped plugs with computing device to record/fx/mashup/etc
... 2) Raise the connected sound source(s)'s volume levels enough for computing device to hear them easily/clearly
Item 2) is the most costly part of any good audio interface. Cutting corners here is likely to lead to unwanted noise & hissy results.
@SheffieldBleep 's line level sound sources have already been loudified (that's what "line level" is), so the expensive element is unnecessary, only the plug--formed-compatibility cheap part is needed.
I hope that helped.
Thanks!
that sounds exactly what I would want to hear but do you mean something like this: http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/ik-multimedia-irig-amplitube-interface-adapter-n26jk?cmpid=ppc&gclid=CN-CycGe1tACFQUW0wodJ9INLw
Or is there something more generic that would do the same?
By the way, that device is surprisingly simple inside (and for the money Maplins want to extract from you, you could pretty much get a Behringer UCA222 or 202).
Hmm, I've just tried my Tascam US-100 on the iPad Pro for the first time. Through a lightning USB2 interface, it lights up yet doesn't seem to be recognised as an input or output by anything. With the lightning USB3 interface and power applied to that, it is recognised as USB in and out. Surprised it lights up at all with the more basic interface.
@SheffieldBleep , Definitely not like that!
This is an example with a 3.5mm sized mono socket:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004SP0WAQ
I've heard a number of tales of woe about that iRig, it seems to be the bottom of the barrel cheapest of all the cheap and nasty interfaces.
I sure hope my information is wrong about that one.
Anyway, save your money, that cable adapter should be all you need.
Fabulous. Perfect. For the money it's a no brainier to give it whirl. Thanks for all your help