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.
Alternatives to iConnectivity iConnect audio interfaces
Hello,
I was able to buy a used iConnectAUDIO4+ — iConnectivity audio interface and I'm amazed with the routing possibilities that such interface can offer to incorporate the iPad on a DAW music production setup.
Since these devices are discontinued I was wondering if anyone knows of the existence of similar alternatives on the market or at least, if someone can share other setups that can so seamlessly give this possibilities.
Thanks in advance.
Cheers!
Comments
StudioMux PC/Mac or IDAM for Mac
I'm also (re)working on a single bidirectional stereo stream via network (ethernet) , cross platform ,using ModMuPlat app (IAA) and puredata programming
None that I know of... the iCA4+ is a one of it‘s kind.
Unfortunately it‘s built around a certain USB Codec and not a general concept. I don‘t know any details but if this chip becomes unavailable (or goes through major changes) the costs for iConnectivity may spoil the balance.
It‘s way easier to handle than any other protocol. In fact the only inconvenience is a (visually) not so great control panel. Imh experience it worked amazingly smooth for years, considering the complexity of the setup.
I recently purchased an Adat expansion for Pro Tools, so I can build a network of 8 channel Adat busses between 2 DSP systems and the iPad (connected via an Audient ID22).
The basic concept is simple, but the configuration is hell... to make a long story short:
it needs a dedicated wordclock unit to force digital clock sync into a realiable state, or you have to power up in a certain sequence and/or set clock manually on the way.
I‘ve run the exact same setup (just restricted to stereo busses) with the iCA4+ analog in/outs in no time at all.
I have a MOTU Micro 5x5, and I’m pretty happy with it.
The topic isn‘t about interfaces, but about low latency audio data exchange between 2 or more systems
Ah misread it and thought it was the MIDI version as that has come up quite a few times here.
If you want to keep the signal digital, I only see the adat route with the usbstreamer from miniDSP. However you lose the versatile midi port management with only one virtual midi port available for Idevices if using rtpmidi.
And we are all waiting for the studiomux update which is the obvious choice here. Pascal has been doing great lately, I hope we can land a usable and non crashing version someday.
Are you referring to the XMOS processor? They are really cool processors, I've been a fan of the tech going back to when it was used in the Transputer systems. I've got a few of the XMOS dev boards. They have some neat advantages, but they don't provide anything that can't be done on another processor. I don't think it is the underlying processor that has anything to do with iConnectivity's path change. I'd guess it has more to do with market forces. I don't think XMOS are going anywhere either. They are pretty dominant in the audio connection world.
I did a little bit of research into developing a board to do this stuff. I don't think it would be particularly hard using some commercially available embedded hobbyist platforms, but I've decided that, for me at least, the better path forward is audio over ethernet. So, I'm waiting for the new iPad release and hoping that they put a Thunderbolt connector on the thing.
Sonobus can be useful but has some latency one needs to compensate for:
https://wiki.audiob.us/doku.php?id=sonobus
Thank you all for the comments so far.
I was looking for hardware alternatives rather then software. Something with the possibility like iCA4+ gives to route audio from DAW to the iPad, back into the DAW, MIDI also at the same time, etc.
I understand the generalization to "low latency audio data exchange between 2 or more systems" but I was hoping to know which currently available audio interfaces have that feature in-the-box. I'm reaching the conclusion that none exists...
Cheers!
That‘s correct - such thing simply doesn‘t exist...
Unless you include (expensive) network based pro audio systems like Dante into the game.
https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/production-expert-1/2019/7/29/will-lightning-to-ethernet-adaptors-make-dante-support-for-ios-a-reality
No, I meant the USB Codec chip which also handles the analog io of the system with 4 input, 6 output channels.
But thanks for mentioning, as this part may play an important role in managing the 2 hosts the interface provides to the outside world.
Oh, I didn't know they used anything special in that regard. I thought they just used a standard USB Phys IC since the XMOS has the other side handled on the tiles.
The main thing is though that they could move to using pretty standard available components if they lost access to what they had been using. My impression is that on the audio side of things, the mulit-host interface didn't have a big enough market. There always seemed to be lots of confusion from users about how to set it up too. The software could have been a bit better, but I didn't think it was that hard to configure. Still, I think it did hurt them.
Whatever the reason was for them dropping the interfaces, I don't expect any other company to step in and try anything similar.
It's too bad those 4s are discontinued. They were a nice price point. It looks PlayAudio12 continues the functionality but ouch what a price tag.
I have an iConnect MIDI^2. While it doesn’t have the audio inputs, it can route up to 4 channels of audio to and from my iPad and my mini. My question is, if I were to buy another MID^2 and combine them in an aggregate device on my mini, would I have the audio through capabilities of both devices available to my iPad?
If you manage to connect both devices to your iPad...
(only the last one plugged in is kept active)
For anyone interested, Studiomux 4 (the App Store version, not the current SMUX 5 beta) is still partially working on iOS 14 (14.3 in my case).
I'm using it to pipe the combined audio from my AUM session to desktop (iMac) Ableton. All the midi in/outs from my desktop are available in AUM. If I don't ask Studiomux to do anything more than that then it's working trouble free (avoiding trying to host AUv3s and receive audio back from desktop). The only thing I do in it is host 1 AUM instance and set the buffer size (which is passed on to AUM). Then just route AUMs audio output to Studiomux (with the server running on desktop).
The advantage of this over IDAM is being able to route individual midi controllers in AUM (even without a DAW running). With IDAM you only get 1 combined 'IDAM' midi port. AUM reconnects to controllers as if they were connected direct to the iPad.
"Pipe" by way of thunderbolt?
How many simultaneous channels? 2? Stereo?
"Pipe" by usb cable, either USB-C or lightning depending on the iOS device. At the moment I'm just sending 2 channel stereo. With iOS 13 I was using Studiomux (4) over 8 bi-directional audio channels, but that's not currently how I want to use it anyway, 2 is fine for me at the moment (sending AUM audio to Endlesss Studio plugin).
The Studiomux 5 beta (for iOS 14) is slowly improving. I've had that working with 2 single channel audio sends to desktop, along with 2 audio send/returns. That's with AUv3s hosted in Studiomux, but I can't currently pass that audio on to AUM or Audiobus which is what I'd really like to do (to send my desktop connected mic and guitar to iOS apps and back again). In the short term, I've found the iPAD mic continues to work when Studiomux is connected to my Mac, so I can at least use that for some vocal/acoustic sampling.
This would get complicated. I think that you could use the aggregate device to route audio to the iConnectMIDI with software on the Mac side to loop the aggregate device ins/outs. But, this would be very clunky. The audio patchbay on the iPad would only directly see the one iConnect device it was plugged into.
Some points against getting another iConnect device for audio:
They don't support them anymore.
The software on the iPad/iPhone doesn't work.
The software that does work to setup the audio routing on the Mac is un-supported.
They don't sell them anymore.
The PlayAUDIO12 doesn't do the internal device-to-device audio routing that the older iConnectAudio and MIDI devices did as fas as I know. They are meant to be an auto failover device to hookup two computers and keep them synced for live performance. Kind of a weird use case in my opinion since you still have a single point-of-failure (the audio interface) and it is still an unreliable computing device. It would make more sense to me to have two complete setups (computers, MIDI, audio I/O) and then keep them synced and connected to the mixing board in parallel.
That's too bad. Did not realize that. I guess their market are "pros" that need redundant systems built to persist through gear failure. Must not have been enough dough in selling the older models.
I figured the downfall to my idea was the iPad only seeing the audio ports from its own connection. The boxes already seem like some kind of wizardry going on so I thought maybe...
The setup software DOES work on my M1 Mini.
Musician’s Friend website shows the unit I have “In Stock & Ready To Ship.” USD 99. I assume not having support is correct, but I’m glad I snagged mine and the power adapter to keep the the iPad charged.
That's a good price for what it does. It's all class compliant USB, so that part should keep working for a long time. The configuration side is the part I'm worried about. I've got one very old laptop that I keep on High Sierra just so I can use it to configure older hardware like this. As long as I can keep that running I'll feel pretty safe.
Wow they discontinued the greatest digital audio interface of all time!
iCA4+ was not a perfect device by any means but it was an exceptional innovation that allowed some amazing possibilities to happen very reliably. I’ll be using mine for many years yet.
I’m still so surprised by the whole iDam thing. If macs and iPads can both use usb with interfaces to pipe multiple channels of audio and midi in and out, it seems like this ought to be easy enough to use a usb cable between a Mac and an iPad/iPhone to pipe multiple channels of audio and midi between the two. Certainly the bandwidth supports it. That apple has failed to provide such a feature seems like a totally missed opportunity. I think it would get them new customers if they did this. Weird to me that iDam feels like such a reduced subset of the obvious possibility.
@stown : +1 to that. If it were technically possible to do multichannel IDAM (and it seems it should be) then why the hell wouldn’t they do it? Coz Apple, obviously.
The same Apple that took the headphone socket away, and the ability to do local backups. The same Apple that nukes old apps when the dev can no longer stump up their annual protection money, the fact that you bought it be damned, and invalidates half your investment in software (and sometimes hardware too) every time they launch an update. I view updates with fear and loathing now.
Because Apple hates anyone trying to make music with their devices.
I am trapped in an abusive relationship with the best/worst music gadget ever!
My next touchable device will almost certainly be this:
Does feel a bit that way doesn't it! Like there’s so many problems but it’s somehow compelling enough you keep coming back
Im just worried for the day ill want to upgrade my ipad and have to deal with Apple’s no-ports bullshit. Unless there’s some kind of miracle and Apple announces an ipad pro with two usb ports next week
P.s. occurred to me the reason to come back is as much the people as the hardware - the amazing crop of music app devs and the abf community
@mangecoeur : yes, the people, the devs, and yes, the unique bang for buck of the iOS apps, and the AUM environment, versus the desktop price point and flow.
But I see you can pick up as-new refurbed i7 Surface Pros rocking 256gb or 512gb SSDs for £1100 now, and as the vid demonstrates, these are capable of straight up running full versions of Ableton with a shed load of VSTs on board, Bitwig, Cubase, Reason, the Arturia stuff, Kontakt... with touch, direct plug in of audio interfaces, etc, all in a form factor that offers all the IPad couch-production advantages, and no intervening dongles. Oh, and these:
1 x USB-C
1 x USB-A.
3.5 mm headphone jack.
1 x Surface Connect port.
Surface Type Cover port⁴
MicroSDXC card reader.
That’s beginning to look mighty tempting.