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.
Comments
Yes, that is exactly the setup I had in mind, let’s hope the THRU provides the power it needs. Did anyone try?
What hardware?
There's no general yes or no answer, the MIDI port has to be able to provide 20 mA to the BT01 which won't happen if the MIDI out/thru circuit cannot provide at least about 3.8V.
I wanted to try a few different machines, Vermona Perfourmer being one of them...
Well, I ordered one anyway, we’ll see...
If all fails, you can build a simple circuit (a MIDI jack, a resistor and an old USB cable) to build a little power supply that runs off a USB port or a power bank for many hours.
Kenton thru-5, powers the BT01 and you get 4 MIDI outputs. Only one way in this arrangement but ideal for some cases.
Interesting. So for gear that can’t power the BT01, you hook up your midi controller into the input of Kenton, and then just one dongle of the BT01 into one of the outs, which then advertises and sends on the midi over BT?
Have I got that right?
Yep. The Kenton MIDI thru is a brilliant bit of kit. My biggest reservation on the setup is timing over Bluetooth. There's a glitch changing across apps say going from AUM to AB3 or Patterning 2. Drives me nuts, then trying to sync external sequencers to sequencers running in iPad, I tend to go one or the other. Stay in one app. I'm tempted to get a USB hub and go wired. Might just be the nature of MIDI clock on iPad though.
App switching while trying to stay in sync might be the biggest possible challenge indeed.
Other than that, uncorrected audio buffer lengths usually introduce much more latency than the MIDI signal delayed by the Bluetooth transmission. Since not every app has it, my dirty hack is to route the audio of the clock sender through a stereo digital delay.
Yep, I have both the Kenton and MDBT01s, and they each get a ton of use.
I've not had any gear incompatible with the MDBT01s yet, but this is a good workaround to be aware of.
Cheers.
Haha solved that little problem. Ooh so convoluted, tried every possible combo of Link, MIDI, IAA, delay this, delay that, this app, that app, aargh. And my solution was.. Screw it. 1 Drambo, 1 Gate sequencer, Out to a separate bus on the (hardware) mixer to the aux out (sacrifice had to be made). Aux to sync. Job done. I've know idea how but to me the timing seems bang on. The external stuff (Korg, I'm not rich) comes through AUM and plays in sync with Drambo. MIDI to hardware is indispensable for some duties but for me anything to do with clock is a no go.
I think the deal with the MD-BT01 is don't try and throw too much through it at once. Otherwise it's a very elegant solution. I'm sure I heard they don't do well with MPE, not surprising.
Good point, the MIDI data rate of purely MIDI-powered Bluetooth dongles is rather limited.
Roland have released a couple of Wireless Midi devices WM-1 and WM-1D looks like they’d work with non powered midi ports and the work from device to device as well.
Looks like they’ve upset CME just a little bit...
https://www.cme-pro.com/tag/Bluetooth-midi/
I like the CME WIDI master because you can split the two parts if you don’t need to send midi back to your device. The battery in the Roland is good for devices that don’t send power over midi (like the Melo audio mp-100 foot controller), but I wish I could just buy one half and not have the other one dangling around.
Also, before anyone gets too excited, the WM-1D is a usb dongle for PC, sadly not a potential Usb replacement for the discontinued Yamaha UD-BT01. CME have a USB midi one in the pipeline.
The Roland 5pin device looks big and clunky even more so than the Yamaha BT because of the battery.
Yeah, the Roland devices are huge and more expensive than Yamahas. But glad to see more of these devices around. Super handy, dig my CME and Yamahas.
Hi Everyone, I’m new to the forum and interested in this subject.
I hope you don’t mind me bringing this tread back to life again. I am trying to connect two keyboards using 2 Yamaha MD-BT01. I’m using a Yamaha modx8 and a Ketron audya and using an app called forescore on an iPad to control patches on both boards. The Yamaha connected perfectly first time but the Ketron Audya won’t even power on theMD-BT0. I checked the power on the Din on the audya and it has the 5v. Can’t see why it won’t work. I also tried it in an older Ketron XD9 and of course it works perfectly. Any help explaining to me why it won’t work even when it has the 5 v present on the MIDI out din and tru ports.
Also tried the MD-BT01 on a Nord grand and Nord electro 6D and all works ok.
Cheers Paul
My idea is to check the CME WIDI compatibility matrix, linked on this page
https://www.cme-pro.com/widi-which-device-will-you-connect/
It lists some Ketron that work with WIDI Master, however Audya is not listed explicitly.