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.
Black Friday thoughts: Hardware mixer/usb interface for iPad?
Hi all,
I’m gradually extending my electro acoustic experimentation in my IPad only, DAWless setup. (I definitely do not want anything involving a PC or laptop - I tried those, and found them total creativity killers). My current setup is IOS app heavy, and based around AUM and Cubasis. which means my current little Behringer Xenyx 502 mini mixer and Zoom U44 mixer/interface now no longer offer enough channels for an increasing number of hardware sound sources, and no more than 2 mix down at a time for recording anyway.
What I think I’m looking for, as a recording newbie, is a physical mixer/usb interface which allows hands on manipulation of at least 8 channels of audio simultaneously and ideally allows me to record those eight channels simultaneously into AUM or Cubasis. I only ever record solo, never gig, and inputs are synths and various noisemaker gadgets. I don’t need fancy monitor mixes, anything to do with guitars, a massive amount of phantom powering, or the ability to simultaneously mike a 12 piece drum kit, a horn section, and a Welsh Male voice choir.
In contention at the moment are the Behringer X18 which I like for its iPad focus, the Zoom Livetrak 12, which has the advantage of physical knobs and faders, and onboard recording, and, because it’s cheap and I already have a Zoom R8 multitracker I can use for ‘safety’ stereo mix recording, the Behringer 1222USB. Whatever I go for has to a) handle recording (and ideally physically tweaking) multiple channels simultaneously (the Zoom R8 is 8 channel, but only 2 at a time) and b) be class compliant with and happy to use an iPad as the ‘multitrack recorder’ part of the set up.
My budget is small - max £400 - but I’ve already made the mistake before of buying gear that was too cheap which I outgrew too fast, so I am keen not to make the mistake again.
Any suggestions, or points I should consider?
Comments
I don't have one (I like to run at 96khz and i believe it runs at 48khz) but i heard 'soundcraft signature 12 mtk' is cool from friends. The Mtk has 14 ins and 12 out via usb , you need both the Apple CCK and a USB Powered Hub to run it with ipad and you'll need to buy a new version/revision as the older models did not work with ipad.
I have the Livetrak L-12 and it works great, although admittedly I haven't used it very heavily. I grabbed it because it made a great handy audio interface, but also has local recording for more spontaneous "scratch recording" if I don't have it hooked up to something.
Hi @[Deleted User], I’ll check out the Soundcraft, thanks. @Liquidmantis: have you run the L12 with an iPad? If so, how do the parallel inputs show up in AUM/Cubasis/whatever?
Yeah, I've used it with iPhone, iPad, and Macbook. They just show up as extra inputs like any audio interface. It's been a little while but I'm almost certain they're pre-fader. Definitely post input level though.
I use a Behringer 1820 for my iPad. 8 audio inputs. You can set the levels on the interface and Cubasis sees all inputs including and additional spiff/adat. It even has a built in midi interface. A solid unit.