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.
Live Rig - Guitar
I’m considering taking the plunge into playing live. Mostly acoustic guitar probably, maybe some electric. I have an iRig Pro, and an iRig Pro Duo. I have Bias FX and Amplitube. I have an iRig Blueboard, that I’ll use for some pedal work, though that’s not big on the agenda at this point in time, unless I get into Loopy some. But... what I don’t know, is how do I get from the iPad out to direct in for the PA or an amp? I’m plugged into the lightning port. Out the headphone jack? Out the direct out on the Duo? Are there converters that I can then a guitar cable into?
Looking at Bias and Amplitube because I have them. I could also just AUM with some effects, of which I have a few, though I’m not sure if I could control that with the Blueboard, which sends midi commands. Any thoughts from folks who are doing this would be appreciated.
And of course there is the entire power thing; I’m not planning on doing long gigs to start, but are there solutions where I can plug my iRig Duo into a unit that goes into the Lightning port, that will also charge?
Comments
Need a powered usb hub. Vantec makes ones with 2k mA usb slots that can power the ipad thru a cck3. I dont know about the latency of using Amplitude or Bias. But thru regular pedals you can run the guitar direct monitor thru the iRig Duo and then just give the PA a TRS out from the Duo with both signals.
Does ik still make the power adapter for their irig interfaces? I haven't checked in a while. But that would work too
I don’t think it does anything but power the interface, unfortunately.
If you want to play live, a good transformer DI is mandatory.
I use Flux:FX inside of BM3 for looping and triggering scenes/clips.
I still use a real guitar amp though, the iPad is just kind of like a kaos pad, MPC and stuff in one.
IK’s Power Bridge charges the iPad/iPhone and a stompbox power supply will charge the Duo Pro. I used the headphone out on the Duo to stereo splitter cable plugged into two inputs on the PA. I used this setup for about a year until I got sick of all the little cables and fragility of the whole thing. I was using Bias FX, AmpliTube, and ToneStack. It sounded great, but I’m much happier and have more peace of mind with an amp and pedals for my electrics. I plug my acoustic directly into the PA.
Here’s a link to IK’s power bridge. It’s clean and quiet.
https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/irigpowerbridge/
Thanks, I’m starting to get this impression myself, that I’m overly complicating things, and I don’t want to. Some other folks I know who do this tell me that most of the folks running open mic’s don’t have a clue about sound anyway, and it doesn’t matter what you do, still sounds like shit. Which is a depressing thought.
Do you play guitar or bass? If you're a bassist, get a Sansamp or vt bass and go direct, you won't be sorry. I have a pedalboard for gigs because for weddings and cover gigs I often have to have certain effects (like an envelope filter for can't stop the feeling or synth bass for a lot of newer songs) but I found that switching amp models really didn't make a big difference on gigs and for the overall sound it was better to have a basic solid tone that maybe gets an effect or two once in a while. But that's on bass, for guitar it's a little different.
How do connect to the guitar amp? What kind of cable? Thanks
I am using a Radial JDI to connect to my interface and then a regular instrument cable from output 1 of the interface to the LO input of a Roland Jazz Chorus. Output 2 is routed to FOH or a monitor.
I have it set up so I am using FLUX:FX with my amp, while output 2 is all clip playback/beats and vocals.
I have to say that my iOS rig always worked, but it was, as you say, complicated. I really like the iRig interfaces for recording, but I was always worried that one little cable, plastic interface, or my iPad would come out of my bag broken. I’m sure there are road worthy options for iOS,, but it only takes five minutes to set up an amp and pedal board.
Good luck, and please let us know what you decide to do.
Be a while off yet. I haven’t even decided what I’d play yet, and I don’t have a lot of stuff canned and ready to go.