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
CPU performance tests are useful. But they need baselines.
How about some graphics tests?
Looking at other recent discussions/arguments comparing the Air 1 vs Air 2, one thing that was not discussed was graphics sluggishness at high loads. Both models have similar performance when using single-threaded audio apps, but the Air 2's graphics performance is significantly better. Turning knobs and moving faders is possible on the Air 2, but not on the Air 1 when both models are at high load with the same test running.
Very first test with the 10.5" 2nd Gen Pro: getting harsh distortion with 9x instances @ 48kHz / 512 latency and ProMotion on (showing 130% CPU). Running 8x instances, AUM shows around 95% CPU load and plays fine. However, when scrolling the screen I get crackles.
Switching to 44.1kHz doesn't affect running 9x, they both crackle hard. 8x at 44.1kHz does register lower (around 88%), but I still get crackles scrolling the screen.
Switching ProMotion off (limit the display to 60Hz) I still get hard crackles with 9x at 48kHz. With ProMotion off and 44.1kHz, I'm getting an unacceptable level of crackles with 9x, but it's almost OK (98 - 102% CPU) and nowhere as bad as the other cases.
So not seeing performance as good as @AudioGus ("9 instances nearly crackle free at 94-100+% CPU", although I'm not positive he was at 48kHz and not sure about ProMotion setting). That level of performance is exactly what I was seeing with the 3rd Gen Pro. Still 8x playing fine vs 9x playing "nearly crackle free" is very close (and 2x instances better than the 9.7" 1st gen Pro). Also, I just got the 10.5" and just restored it, so it's possible there are still some background processes happening that are bogging it down. I'll do additional tests and try to be more granular and post the results (although I'm going to be rather busy the next few days...)
I was considering getting an Air 3 to round out the test, but:
1- I don't have time to test 3x iPads in the next few days before I have to decide on the 3rd Gen
2- I got a refurb 10.5" for $100 less than the Air 3. Considering I really would miss the quad speakers, 4GB RAM and the ability to use iTunes 12.6.5 (which still has the AppStore and can save .ipas) I just can't see picking the Air 3 over the 10.5" Pro unless it had significantly better performance, but considering the 3rd Gen Pro's performance, I don't see that being the case.
When you say "That level of performance is exactly what I was seeing with the 3rd Gen Pro," do you mean the 3rd Gen Pro matched the 2nd Gen Pros performance in that test, or the better performance that AudioGus experienced with his 2nd Gen Pro? I think he mentioned that he turns ProMotion off when working with audio?
Thanks for testing. Looking forward to the new testing after the '24 hour post-restore disk-settle-down period'. I know you're busy. Take your time.
Cheers!
White-Spots on the Pro 10.5" display after ~1 year of use: Did Apple change anything for the new Air 3? They never acknowledged the issue publicly but it definitely affected more than a handful of customers. My brother, his colleagues, several friends, display models at stores, etc. - I've seen it in around half of the Pro 10.5s I've used. Some owners don't notice it so I usually avoid bringing it up.
Gorilla Glass density: The Pro 11's glass is significantly harder than any previous generation iPad with a laminated display. There's no 'rainbow refraction patterns' when pressing hard on the display. It's as hard as the Air 1, but with no 'gap'. But, smaller bezels means the front camera is now situated behind the display, which could be an issue later on.
Graphics performance of the iPad Pros: Significantly higher than other iPads. This should mean less sluggish UIs with high CPU loads, which should mean real-world usage (not stress-testing) should be more enjoyable. I've only tested this on the Mini 2, Air 1, and Air 2, but there are many other tests online.
Price: The 3rd Gen Pros are currently at least $50 off at Amazon and other retailers in the US. The biggest discount I've seen so far was $100 off the 64GB Wi-Fi only model, and $150 off the higher-spec'ed models. That was last week.
https://prices.appleinsider.com/ipad (Currently, the 2018 base iPad 128GB is $100 off at Amazon ($329), 32GB is $80 off ($250). Apple probably won't be releasing a 2019 base iPad. 2018 iPad Pro is currently at least $50 off, etc.)
Nothing currently on sale at Best Buy:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/promo/ipad-pro-savings
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/promo/select-ipad-savings
I realize most people on this forum aren't in the US, but maybe someone can score a deal.
I did have ‘Limit Frame Rate’ active and was at 44khz with headphones.
Just loaded up my previous AUM session to double check though and found that of the nine instances of Zeeon that one was set to mono and not unison. Flipping it to unison, yup, crackle fest. Bad scientist.
BAD SCIENTIST!
Thank you for re-checking! I'm seeing the same performance in super-quick testing this morning, so I think that's the baseline for the 2nd Gen.
Will investigate further, later.
In practical/subjective terms my NS2 projects cap out at about 60%CPU then I just end up over producing them until they sound like total garbage.
Ok, now results makes lot more sense - i was wondering why there is so small difference ..
basically, if we compare it:
(i'm reffering to this final test https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/comment/626096/#Comment_626096 )
Then I would just say ‘10.5 2nd gen pro - 8 instances in AUM’ and ‘Mini 5 - 9 instances in AUM’ as most people don't want crackles.
Seems like they fixed the hardware flow that caused the "white spot / touch unresponsiveness" issue:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/bright-spot-issue-air-3-and-pro-10-5-comparison.2176337/
But only time will tell if iPad Air 10.5 is ok (screen wise).
I deny having ever said that.
Interesting though.
Sorry, it was @ocelot I think. I missed who quoted what. It was a long one
Rather last minute business trip to London on Monday is going to make a busy weekend even busier! I might have to return the 11" and re-purchase it end of next week to do this testing. Feel a bit guilty about taking advantage of the return policy like that - then I look at all the Apple products I've bought dating back to the PowerMac G3 minitower and the ongoing revenue they get from my iCloud, Apple Music, and other subscriptions and the guilt fades away!
If I end up with the 10.5" Pro, I'll have to take that chance! It does make me nervous though....
I don't have a force meter, but anecdotally I'm not seeing a real difference. With the 10.5" the diffraction patterns are larger, but more diffuse, with the 11" the effect is more localized, but more intense - this actually makes them more apparent to me, especially when I don't have the screen at full brightness. This varies over the screen, some areas are worse than others.
Regardless, this isn't an issue for me. Both are better than the 9.7" Pro that I've been using for the past 3 years and even with that I never press hard enough for it to be an issue.
No doubt graphics performance will be much better.
Ideally, I would do 3x tests:
1- AU test with more granularity that Zeeons-in-unison as its metric
2- IAA test. Not sure if it will make a difference, but as fully separate apps maybe the multicore performance will help?
3- actual performance interaction with a hybrid AU / IAA setup. This is what I use my iPads for: "playing" pieces, rather than offline composition so this is critical to me. To note, even with my 1st Gen 9.7" Pro, I would hit audio rendering limits (crackles) before the UI would get sluggish, so I'm not sure if better GPU performance would really make a difference here.
Well the refurb 10.5" Pro with 256GB is $559, so that's pretty hard to beat!
12 days after purchasing the 2018 Pro 11, at least 1 bright blue pixel appeared last night near the camera. Very noticeable on dark backgrounds. Infuriating. Returned it, all the USB-C dongleberries, case...
@YannisHatzi Thanks for the Mac Rumors link. Good that Apple fixed it for the Air 3, but curious if they fixed it in the refurbs that they still sell.
@AudioGus and @dendy Thanks.
@aplourde Good questions about graphics performance. Would like to see one of the big media outlets take iPad music production seriously, and do a comprehensive test. Not likely.
I brought up the 48kHz issue with the top Apple Genius, he'd never heard of it and shrugged it off. Lots of customers there, the new Air 3 and Mini 5 on display, and oh, they removed Reason Compact and Synth One from all display models, even the ones I looked at last week. Interesting.
A couple more notes on the 2018 Pros:
Another con with the new resolutions is that many standalone/IAAs weren't updated to fit the screen. They are at 2048x1536 with thick black borders. This includes some of our favorite developers' apps. AU plugins are fine.
And that damn 48kHz issue while running low buffer latency for gigging.
Thanks guys. It's been a whirlwind.
Nope. There is single audio thread on iOS and it is shared by all running audio apps. No matter if it is host, AU, IAA or whatever..
Man I have the white spots issue on my 10.5 bought when they first came out
It has been bugging me for a while and wasn’t sure if I just couldn’t clean my screen right or something.
Now I know it’s “a thing”
Kind of pisses me off to be honest with the money I paid and all the crackle issues at first and now the screen. Kind of puts me off buying a new one “like what did they screw up this time”
@ruggedsmooth That stinks - it would drive me bonkers.
Apple will replace it for free if it's still under warranty. If not, they may fix it for free but it depends. If things go sour, don't forget that credit cards usually have 'consumer protection' built in - sometimes for years after initial purchase.
Yes, but an application is more than just the audio thread. I have no idea if there will be a benefit, but that's the point of testing!
IAA is especially important for me since I use a lot of IAA apps (Quantum, PolyPhase, Xynthesizr, Elastic Drums, Patterning, FieldScaper, Borderlands, Samplr, Shoom, Moebius Lab, Elastic FX, etc.)
And then there are music apps that aren't audio apps. For example, I wanted to use MIDI Designer Pro on a track once, but trying to add it to the setup pushed my iPad over the limit.
Or standalone music apps that have audio, but I don't use the audio and just run MIDI (e.g. Senode, sonogrid)
yes understand, but if we are talking about musicapps, dsp audio performance is 99 of all needed power.
Rest is totally not important - compared to DSP audio requirements.
You can run trillions of MIDI-only apps even on very old devices and you most probably never reach cpu limit (in worst case memory limit but that is very unlikely in real-world scenarios)
Also UI - if it is properly coded -is not much limitimg factor until you are not near 80-90% of DSP power usage - only if you are in high DSP liad are, UI optimalisation starts affecting more or less DSP performance .. But this effect is small,if it is big it indicates that UI is not coded properly, not optimalised.
DSP audio is major limitimg factor... Totally crucial.
Apparently the new ones bend
But it does seem to be the case that Apple frequently has some issue with the first of any new form factor. I made it a point of getting the "S" model iPhones (3GS, 5S, 6S).
Makes me nervous about both the refurb 10.5" Pro (probably refurbished because of a white spot issue
) and the 11"
If I wasn't constantly running into limits with the 9.7" Pro I'd probably wait for the 2019 / 2020 Pro.
Trillions? I must be doing something wrong
Again, my real-world example: a set that was working fine, tried to add MIDI Designer and my iPad went over the limit. I've also noticed MIDIFlow is more resource intensive than I would have assumed (but nowhere as heavy as MIDI Designer)
It means sloppy developer work ... really there is no reason why such app should need more than few percent of CPU power even on prehistoric iPad 2 ...
It allows you to build custom graphic user interfaces and handles a lot of backend processing. I don't think it's quite as simple as you think. But, no doubt, it could be optimized. Not sure I would characterize that as "sloppy" though.
Moreover, "real world"; until and unless someone makes a competing product it's what's available for iOS and so it's what needs to be tested.
Ok, thats true, got the point.
Maybe it was a bit harsh but i'm developer too and i'm hypersensitive to unoptimalised code - no matter of platform or language.
Man - i was playing Galaxy on Fire (space 3D shooter game) or Modern Combat 1,2 (3D fps game) on iPad 2 ... i really don't understand how is possible to make app which UI is many orders magnitude less demanding on resourses than 3D game which needs more CPU/GPU, or simply makes significant CPU/GPU load on same device... App UI is nothing compared to 3D game ..
I appreciate the perfectionism and really do wish more people would consider the importance of non-sexy work (optimizing, bug-fixing, etc.)!
Not familiar with those games, but I would guess that the actual UI is probably much simpler and more proscribed. As far as the game engine, yes, there are a tremendous amount of calculations going on there, but that's the kind of stuff modern OSs, CPUs and, especially GPUs, are designed for!
Re: MIDI Designer, no doubt, considering the constant development, the code base is probably extremely convoluted. If it wasn't built on a rock-solid foundation, it's probably not as optimized as it could be (and would be very complex to overhaul now). But, to be clear, I'm not saying it's a massive resource hog! I push my iPad hard - in this case it was the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back".
@aplourde Did you keep the '18 Pro 11? Just curious.
Sold some stuff and got the Mini 5. Massive boost from my Mini 2. Display is a lot clearer and vivid too.
BUT with headphones plugged in, I cannot set most apps to 44.1kHz! All the apeMatrix + Amazing Noises, AudioShare, BM3, etc. The only app I can set to 44.1kHz is Groove Rider.
Here's the message apeSoft apps show when attempting to change the sample rate from 48kHz to 44.1:
I force-closed apps, and flushed memory, deleted and reinstalled some apps, rebooted.
No luck. Any ideas?
@ocelot wtf, that is strange.. just tried apematrix and it works like expected.. it even automatically switches from 48 to 44 when i connect headphones
i assume your headohones are working, when you play some sound you hear it..
this looks to me like some HW issue ..
This guy had issue with headphones - it was different thing than you're experiencing but maybe same solution will help to you too ? I mean, maybe your ipad is just not fully detecting that headphpnes are connected, if this is the case it may help
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4534054
Thanks dendy. I'll try the hard reset with the headphones plugged in. (Hold down Power + Home until Apple logo appears.) If that still doesn't work, I wipe the iPad and set it up as a 'new iPad' since the restore I used was from the Mini 2 backup, which was from the Pro 11 backup.
Tried 3 sets of headphones: Didn't work. (Audio through headphones does work, it disables the iPad speakers as expected, but I cannot set apps to 44.1kHz. It seems locked at 48kHz for most apps, except Groove Rider.)
Hard Reset (Hold down Power + Home until Apple logo appears): Didn't work.
iOS Settings>General>Reset All Settings>Didn't work. (Poison-202 can now be set to 44.1kHz, but not others.)
iOS Settings>General>Erase All Content and Settings>Didn't work. (There goes the last 10 hours.) I just installed apeMatrix, nothing else, and it's stuck at 48kHz.
Unbelievable. That's 2 out of 4 iPads with issues for me over the past 2 weeks. Or maybe Apple changed something last-minute with the hardware? Unlikely.
I'm going to wipe it again, this time not deleting any of the stock Apple apps and leave the iOS settings at default.
sounds like pretty much nightmare.. you can still go back to shop, return it ask for refund and they buy new one... this sounds more and more like strange HW issue ...
don't think so, very very unlikely
I wiped it again (iOS Settings>General>Erase All Content and Settings) and just installed apeMatrix, Poison-202, and AudioShare.
With Poison-202, when I plug in headphones, it switches from 48kHz to 44.1kHz.
I leave Poison-202 up. Open AudioShare, when I plug in headphones, it stays at 48, I try to manually switch it to 44.1, it says 'Sorry, can't switch'. Go back to Poison-202, it has now changed to 48, try to manually change it, it says 'Can't switch'.
Close AudioShare, close Poison-202, open Poison-202, it is at 44.1. When I open another app, it switches to 48.
For you, or anyone else reading with a 2019 Mini 5 or Air 3: With AudioShare open, and headphones plugged in, can you set sample rate to 44.1kHz? Or is it locked at 48kHz?