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.
Using iPad as a display for Mac mini?
I'll be in need of a new Macbook Pro soonish. What I'd want is around $2500+
But, I was looking at that new Mac Mini. The only apps that I use that I need decent performance for are the Affinity apps, FCP, and Logic. It looks like they're all optimized for the new M1 chip and early reports say they should all preform rather well even with the 16GB ram cap.
I only need a laptop for very rare instances where I want to work mobile. Like maybe some remote work in Mexico. I'd always have access to power, so it doesn't necessarily need to be battery powered.
Got to wondering if you could use an iPad as a primary display on a Mac mini via sidecar. Or, do you have to have a display in order to activate sidecar each time? I've seen some posts that imply that it's possible. Anyone tried?
I'd rather spend $1000 on a new Mac Mini than $2500 on a MBP if I can make it work for remote stuff.
Comments
If you have wifi, you can use a VNC app like Screens. I use this with my desktop PC all time with my iPad.
Or there's a more dedicated option like Luna Display.
Duet no longer works for me.
Two ipads, two computers (one Windows 8, one 10), all nada now. Used to work great. Thanks for the Luna tip!
What killed it ?
I‘ve used Duet with Air-2 (IOS9) as a MacMini (Yosemite iirc) display with boot capability (as it‘s only screen device via Lightning cable).
Now the Air-2 is on 13.x and the Mini on High Sierra...
I've read about the Luna option. But there's a reddit video of a guy who used an iPad as a monitor for an Mac Airbook (that had a busted screen) with sidecar somehow. The post said he somehow used a bluetooth keyboard to get the sidecar function to work without a primary display. But that doesn't make any sense and he doesn't elaborate much.
I've already got AirDisplay3 that I don't really use anymore. Maybe I can make that work.
I think it has to do with the whole Apple killing Windows iTunes / Bonjour drivers thing. Ehh, I just use some free remote desktop thing now. Good enough for desktop Massive VST preset switching.
So, I currently use my 2012 Mini and my 2017 iPad Pro together with Luna Display. You need automatic login on to make it work consistently. I don’t use automatic login. If I keep it turned on, sometimes I can get it to work where it broadcasts the login screen, but keep in mind Luna Display does have a hardware piece. Sometimes, I can get it to show the login screen even when rebooting. Sometimes, I still end up having to plug in a monitor when it isn’t working. Recovery modes and boot options pretty much do not work with the Luna Display.
I have one of the new Minis on the way late Nov or early Dec, and whenever that comes, I can check sidecar to see how reliable it is at boot with Sidecar. I plan on using Sidecar with it for sure, especially as I try to use iOS apps with it.
I use duet on an iPad mini 2 with a 2011 Mac mini as the main monitor with no issue, automatic login is important as was stated. That’s running high Sierra, so I don’t know if newer Mac OS is creating an issue. I use duet on my mbp with Mojave and also don’t have an issue, that’s usually with an iPad 3 running whatever iOS was the latest that it can run.
I’ve never used Duet on my Windows, but have on my Mac for a while before getting a Luna Display.
I just installed Duet on Windows 10 with iPad Air 2 and it is just working straight away.
Also, you still get Bonjour, drivers, etc if you install iTunes from Apple.com/iTunes and not from the Microsoft store. Looks like Microsoft store version comes with Bonjour but less drivers.
Hhhmmm, Apple.com/iTunes forces me to the Microsoft store.
Oh damn. Their website has changed. It’s got to be there somewhere. I would try again later. Their links are broken https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201352#windows
Either way. My surface go tablet that I tried it on never had the 64 bit version of iTunes from Apple. Only the Microsoft store version and Duet works on it.
Oh cool. Please to let me know. I'm not buying one immediately... I want to see how well it performs with FCP first. thx
Oh weird! Now Apple has it and I cannot find any trace of it on microsoft store. Flippin and a floppinin!
After a full purge and reinstall of iTunes and the Duet server, still no luck.
That's the thing, the new macbook pro seems much less appealing now if you can't also add a dedicated GPU and much more ram.. All your paying extra for now is a bit better cooling performance and a bigger display/keyboard if the cpu is the same. Unless I'm missing something.
I'm also interested in the mini but will probably wait for the M2 when it's more stable and compatible with apps
I would use it with external monitors or a portable monitor rather than an iPad though.
I'm not in a huge hurry. And I don't want to be one of Apple's new tech "pay to be a beta tester" either. So, I'd be inclined to wait for the M2 as well. But, if that's going to be another year... might not be able to wait quite that long.
Make sure you are actually removing it all and everything related. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204275 If you actually use iTunes, don’t worry about it. This won’t delete your music library from your user account. https://www.duetdisplay.com/help-center/im-using-a-windows-pc-and-im-stuck-on-connect-to-mac-pc
Not sure why it stopped working for you, but to be fair I do not do much with this windows computer. I play some old games on it and keep it around if I need something that can’t be done on iPad or Mac. My guess is something got messed up along the way in your computer. Make a new user account on your computer and check if works there. Then you know it’s not an issue with your computer, cable, iPad, etc.
In the end I will probably bail and just use two ipads, one with a sequencer and one with a Remote Desktop Team Viewer sort of thing. All the remote desktop things are kind of annoying though because it seems Apple doesn't let you minimize them for long before logging you out. The other problem with Duet as well is the non-sub version I have requires a direct lightning connection so I dont think I can hook up a midi device anyway, so two devices are needed. May as well just use AnyDesk which is free and only has a tad more latency, not a problem for my simple preset switching needs.
Yeah, clicking on a preset is no big deal for latency. Can you just use wireless MIDI or something to switch presets? Even if it’s super latency MIDI over wifi. Luna Display is working on Windows at the moment. You can pre-order, but it’s going to be a while. https://shop.astropad.com/collections/luna-display-mac-and-pc/products/preorder-luna-display-for-windows?_ga=2.55589867.15521568.1605383081-1857431720.1605073254
VNC Viewer is free, cross-platform, time tested, and works OK for my purposes without having signed up for any commercial version or even an account. Tight VNC might be easier to avoid any commercial temptations, but I've not tried it on anything for several years.
@wim have you ever tried to make xrdp work on MacOS?
Edit: https://ryancreecy.com/2019/10/29/xrdp-on-mac.html
(Reason: VNC over the network always looked awfully slow to me and there are great free RDP clients for the iPad)
No, I never saw the need for it. VNC has been fine for my needs on MacOS, Linux, ancient Solaris versions, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and even Raspberry Pi.
Even on Windows servers, I sometimes run it as a fallback in case RDP fails, as it does in certain low memory or disk space situations or when there are no more sessions available because some dope continually forgets to close out sessions.
Bit of a security risk. And I would never expose it outside of a firewall. But OK for my needs.
Upgraded the Windows 8 machine to 10, can now install the Microsoft iTunes and Duet works fine now.
Looks like on my work machine I will have to bug them for a microsoft Store login blah blah but it should work eventually.
Reeealy wish there was a way to run Duet and a midi interface, sigh.
You might try Bluetooth or a networked midi connection...
I found a free solution for PCs only. It works nice and thought I'd share it
Download the server app
https://spacedesk.net/
iOS app
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spacedesk-datronicsoft/id1069217220
runs for Android too , but haven't tested it.
I would second @wim 's comment about using VNC. It's a standard protocol with a ton of free clients and servers, it's configurable, stable, and I've been using it for years for my various headless Mac Minis. It can be fast enough for everyday work if you're on a Gigabit Ethernet connection (but that's obviously not the case if you're going to use an iPad over Wifi)...
macOS includes a VNC server, so all you need to do is enable its "Screen Sharing" feature and then get a VNC client on your iPad (I use the innovatively named free "VNC Viewer"
).
Might be too slow for everyday use, but it's worth a try!
It'd be so useful if there was a VNC server for iOS so you could go the other way. I assume das ist verboten by Apple though. Too bad.
Actually 'Screen Sharing' in macOS uses the standard VNC protocol.
I know. What I was saying is I wish there was the equivalent "Screen Sharing" in the other direction (display iOS device in VNC Viewer on the desktop). To my knowledge, there are a few apps that enable taking screen shots from an iOS device, but nothing for full remote control.
True, only thing I know there is hook up the USB->Lightning Cable and create a new Video Recording using QuickTIme and select the iPad as Video & Sound Source. (It's at least a little less 'laggy' than AirPlay).