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.
The perils of USB-C / Thunderbolt
Hello friends. As the amount of kit on my desk grows, so does my confusion about actually connecting it all. Here's the state of my desk...
The little stand thing just above the iPad is a stand / dock with USB-C power in, two USB-A ports and one USB-C PD out. The aluminium box at top right is an Anker Thunderbolt hub that I bought because apparently it's impossible to buy a USB-C hub with multiple USB-C ports on it (easy to buy one with reader slots for card formats that they stopped making 30 years ago, or even a sodding VGA port though).
So here I've hooked up...
Arturia controller -> USB-A -> stand hub thing
Intech controller -> USB-C -> USB-A -> stand hub thing
Stand hub thing -> USB-C PD -> iPad
Thunderbolt hub -> USB-C (/ thunderbolt?) -> Stand hub thing
Thunderbolt hub -> USB-C (/ thunderbolt?) -> Audient ID4
However, the iPad no longer sees the ID4 so no sound is sent to it - if I plug the ID4 directly into the iPad it works, but obviously then it's draining my iPad battery and I can't use any of the other equipment. That Thunderbolt cost me over £200 and I thought it might solve all this. Is there anyone here able to understand all this and point me at what I'm doing wrong?
Comments
I've just realised I've probably posted this in the wrong section. Mods, feel free to move, sorry.
If you’re willing to strategically drill holes in your desk you could alleviate a lot of that desktop clutter (and turn it into under-the-table clutter).
I'm not willing to do that until I know that hooking it all up works.
If I get an M1 I am going into it with the mindset of headphone dongle and nothing else. When the battery is low, I will take a break and charge it. If I want sounds in it then record elsewhere and dropbox in and out. Have heard one too many thunderfuck horror stories.
PS. Still screw you Apple.
Does the Anker TB hub have USB-C power delivery port? That should be the thing that goes to your iPad. By that I mean that I think the main hub should be the Anker, and the off-brand “byeasy” stand should be your secondary USB hub.
OK, taking a closer look at your wires you definitely have things out of order. let me see if I can scribble on your photo in a helpful way…
@Hmtx It has several, that's a good shout, I'll give it a go.
In my experience audio devices only work when plugged into the main hub. A secondary hub, plugged into the main hub can connect more midi devices.
@Hmtx Partial success! Audio goes into the ID4 now, but the Arturia and Intech are no longer recognised.
Here ya go:
Basically, go from front of Anker to your iPad. That is your “host” port on the Anker hub and I think it does have power delivery.
It looks like the only other cable you need to move is the USB peripheral to the right, whatever it is. It’s currently plugged into the front of the Anker and needs to be moved to the back.
OK, so next question… which port is the “host” port on your Byeasy stand? That needs to go into the back of your Anker hub.
That also means my scribbled red line needs to be unplugged from Anker and plugged into Byeasy.
Also, the trick is to get your iPad to properly recognize the correct audio interface, which is the ID4 instead of the Byeasy (with headphone jack). You’ll need to experiment with order of plugging things in… and then stick with the process that works.
That's roughly what I now have. The port on the front of the Anker is an 85w Thunderbolt port, so I was using that for my Mac. Plugging the iPad into that one gives me audio over the ID4, but now none of the USB-A things are working. I have the feeling that the stand hub thing might be power-in only on the back USB-C port.
The peripheral just out of shot is a Reloop Buddy - but it's not connected at the moment as I don't need that hooked up at the same time as most of the rest of this.
Ooooooh, good shout! I think I need yet another hub, that will just take USB-C in, and provide a bunch of USB-A outs - no headphone jack.
Big thanks for the pointers!
By the way, nice setup! Looks like some good fun once you get it working. I’ve found iOS to be odd and picky about how things are connected. But once you find a solution that works it is consistent and reliable.
Ahhhh, the "host" port thing did it. Plugged the thing that would normally go into my iPad into the hub and now everything is connected all at once. Thanks @Hmtx, time to start drilling holes!
I gave the Apple rep in the Apple Store an earful about why it was a dumb decision for them to remove the audio jack from the M1 iPad Pro for musicians and audio industry pros. If they continue to make products which are not really “Pro” they should change the product naming scheme. I know exactly zero pros who are happy about them eliminating the 1/8” audio jack.
Only one audio device can be active at a time. The last audio idevice plugged in always takes over.
If you’re recording anything live or doing anything that is dependent on accurate timing, then Bluetooth headphones ain’t gonna do it. Wired is the only way.
I never use bluetooth headphones, there's a headphone jack on the ID4 though.
USB-C is fine if you only want to connect one thing. As soon as you need more things connected it becomes a nightmare. The promise of daisy-chaining never materialised because absolutely nothing comes with USB-C pass-through, multi-port USB-C hubs never materialised because apparently Intel never delivered the necessary chip they promised several years ago, so now we have to spend a fortune on Thunderbolt stuff to make up for its shortcomings.
@drcongo the comment from @wim suggests you’ll be fine with your current setup as long as you plug in the ID4 after the stand/hub. The ID4 should take over as audio interface.
Last thought now that we have all the cables sorted, you have the issue of power. Any peripheral on the hub/stand is getting its power from one USB-C port on the Anker hub.
If you have any issues with your USB midi peripherals that are connected on the hub/stand then it is likely due to insufficient power.
I think the Anker should provide enough, there's 4 PD ports on the back delivering 15w each and the 85w one on the front. And its power brick is enormous.
See below
I’ve never had an issue with the absence of a 3.5mm headphone jack on my iPad Pros. Yeah, it was a surprise when they removed it from the iPhones, but the USB-C (And now Thunderbolt) ports on the IPPs are so much better.
I mean, if all you want to do is lay on the couch with your iPad and your earbuds, then yeah, you’ll have to use the tiny little 3.5mm to USB-C adapter, big deal. But if you’re at your desk, your hub and/or interface will have all the ports you need.
With my setup for example, I use a Hyperdrive Gen2 12 port hub that plugs directly into the USB-C port on my IPP.
This gives me 12 different ports to plug things into! With it, I’m able to plug in my Scarlett 4i4 3rd gen USB-C interface, a usb kB/M, my Launchpad Pro MK3, my Deepmind 12 synth, a microSD card, my wired Gigabit Ethernet right from my router, plus 2x HDMI and 1 DisplayPort for external display support (love using this with VS - Visual synth!), then of course it has one USB 100w PD port (pass through power delivery to charge iPad with everything plugged in.)
Oh, and the hub also has a 3.5mm audio port, but I prefer to use the one on the front of my Scarlett with its own level knob.
Does that Hyperdrive hub/adapter work with a keyboard case cover?
Is there a way to charge with it at the same time? Or some equally small USB C splitter?
I tried an Amazon USB-C splitter but it was ultra hot/didn’t work well with PD requirements. No easy way to do this, except with HDMI/USB Apple dongle and something like Audioquest DAC, but that’s a bulky and expensive solution. 30 mn of 30W PD charging gives a good amount of iPad juice.
Yup. This is the kind that has a cable. (I think it’s like 6” long)
Sigh, if the base model had a 256 gig version I wouldn’t even be considering the pro, heh. Headphone jack would win out even over CPU. Oh Apple.
They do have them, equally small yes.
I’ve never ran into needing this myself, as my iPad is usually charged 100% being plugged into the hub at my desk. If I grab it and head for the couch for the night, I can usually expect to fall asleep way before I have to worry about battery life.
I have fallen asleep with a jam running in AUM/Drambo before, and woke up the next morning to a dead iPad lol
@AudioGus I saw a post somewhere you were talking about just using headphones…. My solution was I bought the magic keyboard and I can charge and plug my cans in at the same time. I sit on couch due to health issues and its a wonderful set up. Yes it cost a lot of cash…. But I have blown more on hookers and coke back in the day…. So ya know. 😁
I do just need to consider the potential horror of one day returning to the commute where I have at times had to charge on the train while doing tunes.