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IDAM MIDI Routing
Help! I have a 2021 iPad Pro hooked up to an older (2013 model) Macbook Pro and have IDAM audio working, but also have a Launchpad X controller hooked up to the MBP which I would like to use to control apps on the iPad. Can anyone help guide me on how to get this working? I see the IDAM MIDI Host option in AUM but nothing happens when I select it. I've tried various things in the Audio MIDI Setup/MIDI Studio with no luck although both the iPad and LPX show up. Any suggestions on what I'm missing? Thanks!
Comments
I think you need a routing app running on your Mac like MIDI Pipe (or a DAW) to direct the Launchpad's MIDI to your iPad. Note that if Launchpad is not directly connected to the iPad, apps that have special Launchpad features probably won't recognize that there is a Launchpad and will see it as a generic midi controller.
Yes, you need to use Something like MIDI Pipe. I wrote a wiki article about it.
https://wiki.audiob.us/doku.php?id=mac_midi_controller_to_ios_via_idam
You could also connect them all to a USB hub to get the routing working correctly, and use AUM to route the MIDI.
I would recommend using Studiomux rather than IDAM, it makes all your individual desktop midi sources available to the iPad. You need the server software running on your laptop.
Alternatively you should be able to route the Launchpad midi in to the IDAM midi out in your DAW, that should then pass through to your iPad - or is that what you say is not working?
Adding to what @espiegel123 wrote, there is a workaround to enable ‘session mode’ for the LP when connected to your laptop and then to the iPad. For me it works to start Ableton Live, which activates the session mode, then deselect the controller in Live’s midi settings. Live releases the controller, but session mode remains active and can be hi-jacked by any receptive iOS app (LK for example). Without using the DAW first the session mode activation message does not get to the Launchpad.
IDAM doesn’t work via a hub at the iPad end. You can’t have a computer and controller connected in that way.
If the MacBook is the master and the iPad a slave then it should work correctly if the MIDI controller is routed via IDAM (I think I have done it this way before so that I can record the audio to my MacBook - I’ll check tomorrow).
That's very doubtful. When the iPad is connected to a hub, it must be the USB master. But in the IDAM connection, the computer is the master and the directly-connected iPad flips and becomes a slave (USB OTG protocol).
Thank you all so much! I guess I misunderstood how IDAM MIDI would work. I am not using a DAW for routing either.
In any case, MIDI Pipe worked like a champ! Thanks again @espiegel123 for the suggestion and @wim for that excellent and most helpful write-up in the Wiki!
You’re right - as I was checking it out I remembered that I was constantly replugging everything to get each connection working the way I wanted, and kept swapping MacBook and iPad as the master.
At the risk of muddying the already murky waters…. but in an attempt to clarify for anyone else that comes this way - you can have both controller and iPad going into the same usb hub, where desktop/laptop is the host/master, but the controller midi needs routing in desktop software to get back to the iPad via IDAM.
Wiki? There's a wiki?
No, but I think there might be a Wookie or two.