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.

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Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

MIDI and Audio routing (iPad + Macbook + controllers)

WizardQuestionWizardQuestion
in General App Discussion

Good evening, music makers!

I'm having trouble setting up my imaginary home studio.
I got really lost in this forest of tangled hardware cables.

Here's what I have:

  • Macbook Pro 2015 (Early / Mojave)
  • iPad Pro 2017 (iOS 12)
  • Roli Seaboard Block
  • Keyboard MIDI controller (imaginary edition)
  • Knobs/pads/switchs MIDI controller (imaginary edition)

And here's what I want:

  • MIDI in/out between iPad and Macbook
  • Roli Block MIDI out to iPad
  • Imaginary controllers MIDI out to both iPad and Macbook

{BONUS}

  • Audio in/out between iPad and Macbook

{BONUS 2}

  • Apogee Jam 96k hooked on iPad or Macbook

Can some art spirit help me (di) out?

What are my options?

I thought about hooking up the iPad on the Macbook via IDAM, hooking the 3 controllers on the Macbook (via some interface) and then send all the MIDI to the iPad via IDAM.
But I'm not sure if this simplistic view works in real life, and if it does, what are the caveats?

Also, can someone recommend interfaces for this setup?
(Priority: Sound quality. Budget: ~$300)

May the harmony epiphany strikes you with a baseball bat every saturday

Thanks for you time

Comments

  • WizardQuestionWizardQuestion
    edited October 2019

    This is my first hardware setup, so I'm MIDI virgin. Sorry if it's too much trivial!

  • espiegel123espiegel123

    @WizardQuestion said:
    Good evening, music makers!

    I'm having trouble setting up my imaginary home studio.
    I got really lost in this forest of tangled hardware cables.

    Here's what I have:

    • Macbook Pro 2015 (Early / Mojave)
    • iPad Pro 2017 (iOS 12)
    • Roli Seaboard Block
    • Keyboard MIDI controller (imaginary edition)
    • Knobs/pads/switchs MIDI controller (imaginary edition)

    And here's what I want:

    • MIDI in/out between iPad and Macbook
    • Roli Block MIDI out to iPad
    • Imaginary controllers MIDI out to both iPad and Macbook

    {BONUS}

    • Audio in/out between iPad and Macbook

    {BONUS 2}

    • Apogee Jam 96k hooked on iPad or Macbook

    Can some art spirit help me (di) out?

    What are my options?

    I thought about hooking up the iPad on the Macbook via IDAM, hooking the 3 controllers on the Macbook (via some interface) and then send all the MIDI to the iPad via IDAM.
    But I'm not sure if this simplistic view works in real life, and if it does, what are the caveats?

    Also, can someone recommend interfaces for this setup?
    (Priority: Sound quality. Budget: ~$300)

    May the harmony epiphany strikes you with a baseball bat every saturday

    Thanks for you time

    iDam works pretty well.

  • WizardQuestionWizardQuestion

    @espiegel123 said:

    iDam works pretty well.

    Can I hook 3 USB-MIDI controllers in a USB hub, plug the hub in a Mac and then send their MIDI messages to the iPad via IDAM?

    That would solve almost all of my imaginary problems.

  • wellingtonCreswellingtonCres

    idam + usb hub will do most of what you want, but since idam gives you only one shared midi port you have to do some midi routing on the mac side.

  • hellquisthellquist

    @wellingtonCres said:
    idam + usb hub will do most of what you want, but since idam gives you only one shared midi port you have to do some midi routing on the mac side.

    Oh, right. That would explain my experience when experimenting last week. No matter what I set Fugue Machine to, all channels in Logic would play it. Is there an info page on this, or a way around that?

  • OnfraySinOnfraySin

    Idam/studiomux + Ableton for midi/audio routing

  • JumpercollinsJumpercollins
    edited October 2019

    @hellquist said:

    @wellingtonCres said:
    idam + usb hub will do most of what you want, but since idam gives you only one shared midi port you have to do some midi routing on the mac side.

    Oh, right. That would explain my experience when experimenting last week. No matter what I set Fugue Machine to, all channels in Logic would play it. Is there an info page on this, or a way around that?

    Same here after I tried midi out of ipad into Logic Pro via IDAM.

    Is Studiomux the only way to assign midi channels or is there a way of doing it natively with Apple software?

  • wellingtonCreswellingtonCres

    @hellquist said:

    @wellingtonCres said:
    idam + usb hub will do most of what you want, but since idam gives you only one shared midi port you have to do some midi routing on the mac side.

    Oh, right. That would explain my experience when experimenting last week. No matter what I set Fugue Machine to, all channels in Logic would play it. Is there an info page on this, or a way around that?

    you need to get stuck in to the environment editor
    https://support.apple.com/kb/PH13245?locale=en_US

  • hellquisthellquist

    @wellingtonCres said:

    @hellquist said:

    @wellingtonCres said:
    idam + usb hub will do most of what you want, but since idam gives you only one shared midi port you have to do some midi routing on the mac side.

    Oh, right. That would explain my experience when experimenting last week. No matter what I set Fugue Machine to, all channels in Logic would play it. Is there an info page on this, or a way around that?

    you need to get stuck in to the environment editor
    https://support.apple.com/kb/PH13245?locale=en_US

    Excellent, thanking you muchly. I shall have a read.

    Today I (re-)installed both StudioMux and MusicIO too. Somehow in StudioMux I had the same, i.e all of Fugue Machine comes in to Logic in one channel. I noticed when right-clicking the recorded midi that there was an option saying something like "Split midi to separate channels" so I did. All of a sudden it was like I had hoped/expected it to be recorded in the first place.

    Have to investigate some more.

    Otherwise I have to say I find MusicIO simpler and more straightforward than StudioMux. With MusicIO I could easily record both midi and audio at the same time from my iPad. In StudioMux, so far, I have to pick one or the other, but not both at the same time.

    Perhaps this environment thing will help me get a little bit wiser. :)

  • WizardQuestionWizardQuestion
    edited October 2019

    @wellingtonCres said:

    @hellquist said:

    @wellingtonCres said:
    idam + usb hub will do most of what you want, but since idam gives you only one shared midi port you have to do some midi routing on the mac side.

    Oh, right. That would explain my experience when experimenting last week. No matter what I set Fugue Machine to, all channels in Logic would play it. Is there an info page on this, or a way around that?

    you need to get stuck in to the environment editor
    https://support.apple.com/kb/PH13245?locale=en_US

    DUDE!
    Thank you so much!

    This actually solve all of my problems, but one: audio from Macbook to iPad.

    I'm looking at Audreio (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/audreio/id950038525) and reading some other threads, I think it may work pretty well.

    Edit:

    @hellquist said:
    Excellent, thanking you muchly. I shall have a read.

    Today I (re-)installed both StudioMux and MusicIO too. Somehow in StudioMux I had the same, i.e all of Fugue Machine comes in to Logic in one channel. I noticed when right-clicking the recorded midi that there was an option saying something like "Split midi to separate channels" so I did. All of a sudden it was like I had hoped/expected it to be recorded in the first place.

    Have to investigate some more.

    Otherwise I have to say I find MusicIO simpler and more straightforward than StudioMux. With MusicIO I could easily record both midi and audio at the same time from my iPad. In StudioMux, so far, I have to pick one or the other, but not both at the same time.

    Perhaps this environment thing will help me get a little bit wiser. :)

    I thought that StudioMux can't send audio to iPad, only MIDI.
    Does StudioMux or MusicIO degrades the audio in any way when transferring from iPad to Mac?

  • wellingtonCreswellingtonCres

    studiomux supports 8 audio channels in both directions, uncompressed, and some few people report success but the balance of opinion is that it simply does not work reliably.

  • MayoMayo

    I use IDAM, plus a 7 port USB Hub - which also has another iPad connected via camera connection.
    I also have a Motu Microlite connected to the mac with 4 in/out din midi for my hardware synths.
    I could not get reliabilty from Studiomux.

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