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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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Importing Audio and MIDI Into iPad DAW?

Ok, two weekends and, with the great help of @wim, I have installed a piano vst on both a PC and a
MacBookPro.

So, now I have a more entertaining question. How to get vst audio and midi from theMac into Cubasis? I assume I will need an AI. Let me propose the connection to get audio in using a Steinberg UR12...

1.Kawai usb out to usb in on the Mac to use it as a controller. (What I have done so far)
2.Mac headphone jack into line in on an AI
3.USB from the AI into the cck for iPad importing into Cubasis.
Will this work? Will there be a latency issue?

Now, how about getting both audio and midi from the Mac into Cubasis? I see a possible solution using a Steinberg UR22 mkii...

1.The same setup as above
2.Use the second port on the Mac to plug into the five pin midi in on the UR22 ( assume there is such a cable, but will check).
3.Then the UR22 Will send both midi and audio over it’s USB output to the iPad.

Will this work?? If not, what would? Do I need some kind of hub? IDAM? Thanks, M

Comments

  • edited September 2020

    @LinearLineman I think your best solution would be to use an iconnectaudio2+. Your use case is exactly what they were made for.
    I don’t have one but maybe some one could chime in who does.
    https://www.iconnectivity.com/products/audio/iconnectaudio2plus
    Edit : or a iconnectaudio4+ that they don’t make any more.

  • I have two Roland Duo Captures, which are very similar to the UR22. One on the iPad and one on the Laptop.

    But since you are a Mac dude I would think iDAM (which I never used) should cover most if not all of this....?

  • @LinearLineman IDAM only works from an iOS device to a Mac not the other way around.
    You could do this with two audio/midi interfaces but that would be kludgy at best. I still think something from iConnectivity would be your best bet.
    Do you need it to be real time? If not, you can probably export the audio and midi to your iPad via the files app and airdrop(?).

  • wimwim
    edited September 2020

    @hypnopad said:
    @LinearLineman IDAM only works from an iOS device to a Mac not the other way around.
    You could do this with two audio/midi interfaces but that would be kludgy at best. I still think something from iConnectivity would be your best bet.
    Do you need it to be real time? If not, you can probably export the audio and midi to your iPad via the files app and airdrop(?).

    Humm ... I wouldn't call two interfaces kludgy myself. Seems quite logical. Each device has an IO device. Neither cares what it's talking to, it's just doing it's job. They can be de-coupled with no reconfiguration. And there's no complicated routing software to deal with (I've seen the threads here with people trying to get to grips with the iConnectivity software).

    Plus, he's already got one, and knows how to use it, so there could be a smaller learning curve.

  • Thanks, @hypnopad @wim and @AudioGus. I will probably try the UR22 and report my results.

  • @wim I guess I meant kludgy compared to a single cable. In a perfect world IDAM would be a two way street. I agree trying to figure out new connection software is no walk in the park. I tend to change up a lot of stuff in my studio and try to find the route with the least moving parts. I don’t always succeed.😀
    @LinearLineman Happy routing.

  • Indeed. If IDAM went both ways for audio it would be fabulous.

    On the subject of IDAM, I found that even though midi can go bi-directionally, I don't think there's a native way to route a controller attached to a device over to the other. For instance a keyboard connected to the Mac playing a synth on the iPad. It can probably be set up with DAW routing, but there's nothing native on the OS.

    I did find a freeware utility that does that though: MidiPipe. With it and a small amount of setup, I can send midi from a keyboard attached to the Mac over to the iPad while sending audio from the iPad to the Mac.

    I hesitate to mention it here since I don't think it's applicable or helpful for @LinearLineman 's use case, but I thought I'd do so anyway in case anyone else is trying to do something like that.

  • What app is hosting the VST on your Mac? Can you record audio & MIDI there and export it to the iPad?

  • wimwim
    edited September 2020

    I think the idea is to take advantage of the higher quality of the VI Labs pianos while keeping his existing Cubasis 3 workflow on the iPad. No DAW, just the VI Labs player on the Mac.

    (Sorry Mike if I got this wrong.)

  • @wim said:

    @hypnopad said:
    @LinearLineman IDAM only works from an iOS device to a Mac not the other way around.
    You could do this with two audio/midi interfaces but that would be kludgy at best. I still think something from iConnectivity would be your best bet.
    Do you need it to be real time? If not, you can probably export the audio and midi to your iPad via the files app and airdrop(?).

    Humm ... I wouldn't call two interfaces kludgy myself. Seems quite logical. Each device has an IO device. Neither cares what it's talking to, it's just doing it's job.

    Agreed, including the general idea of "one device, one IO device"—as if they were each built in to each main device. Digital audio is great and all but we've been successfully plugging devices into devices with analog audio cables for an awfully long time.

    Indeed, I wouldn't call it any more of kludge than the iConfig app! :wink:

  • And the great thing is he can plug it into his brand new Windows PC for cutting edge modern sounds, or into the 2012 MacBook for that vintage vibe. A renaissance solution for a renaissance man. ;)

  • @hypnopad said:
    @wim I guess I meant kludgy compared to a single cable. In a perfect world IDAM would be a two way street. I agree trying to figure out new connection software is no walk in the park. I tend to change up a lot of stuff in my studio and try to find the route with the least moving parts. I don’t always succeed.😀
    @LinearLineman Happy routing.

    I'd just like to mention that sampling the analog output from a digital signal inherently adds noise, basically because the samplers are not synchronized. If the original digital signal is the "perfect" representation of the signal, the D/A output is a good analog approximation, and the new A/D samples are a fair approximation. We learned this with the 56K modems of long ago, which couldn't do their magic with an A/D in the chain. Now, it is a way of getting things done, but it would be preferable if the digital stream could be transferred direct. That may not be possible, given the constraints of the systems involved.

  • wimwim
    edited September 2020

    That is a very good point. There will be loss. And latency.

    Playing output from Cubasis via IDAM for monitoring purposes while recording directly on the Mac, then exporting back to the iPad was my original recommendation. GarageBand on the Mac wouldn't be a bad choice for this if the VI Labs host app doesn't have an audio recorder. With Airdrop it's pretty easy to ship files over to the iPad. No DA/AD AD/DA conversion needed either.

    But for conceptual simplicity, two interfaces talking to each other, or a single interface that can route things might be easier to get one's head around.

  • We are embarking on a great adventure... an exploration of the possible armed only with our wits and this "note" passing system.

    SAMPLE NOTE:
    Psst... how do I route the Piano audio to the Left channel on the UR22 and my recorded track to the Right Channel using a {TO BE DETERMINED DAW]?

  • Thanks, guys, for the input. It got me thinking maybe I should just use a DAW like Cubase AI which comes bundled with the Steinberg AIs... then, as you are suggesting, I could Airdrop or Dropbox the project directly into Cubasis. Will that work? @wim suggests I might avoid latency issues as well.

  • edited September 2020

    @LinearLineman At the very least you can export/ import the audio files. Not sure about the midi info or the actual project files. I would go to their website and see about compatibility issues. You would think they thought of that but you can’t assume anything.

  • @hypnopad, I wrote Lars and asked.

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