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.
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About that SoundBlaster audio interface:
As it has a standard USB-2 connection, I plugged it into my Dock and also connected the iPad to the Dock.
And then?!?
I have no idea what to do now :-D
I opened Cubasis 3 to check wether I find something to configure, but could not find nothing - and of course, I cannot change the sample rate from 48k.
So, I tried the same with the Camera Connection Kit and plugged the interface into that.
But there was no apparent change.
Any idea how to make use of such an interface within a DAW?
In AUM, I could add the interface as hardware input, but it constantly switches between USB (the interface) and MIC, most probably, because nothing it connected to the interface.
And of course, I cannot change the sample rate.
I also could add the interface in AudioBus, but still cannot change the sample rate.
Either I am doing things wrong (the most likely explanation), or this simply does not work :-D
Can you get it to change the sample rate using the USB class compliant drivers on you computer?
It‘s advertized for Mac/PC and it‘s suggested to download drivers and control panel.
(according to the website not required to run the thing, but highly recommended, referring to version 3)
Most likely it‘s not fully class-compliant.
Now, that gave interesting results:
Clearly, we have have lots of aliases that did go well beyond 22.05k...
So, Auria can indeed run projects with higher sample rate - without any interface attached!
This is quite unique between iOS DAWs.
That's interesting to see.
I tried MultiTrack DAW too with generating a saw tooth at 20.48k and it gave exactly the same results:
I only need it for the iPads, will not install any drivers / software on PC or Mac.
Then this was my second - failed - attempt for this.
But maybe, @richardyot who recommended this interface, has an idea?
What am I doing wrong?
That aliasing is a bit unexpected. I'll try a few things in a bit with Auria to see if I can figure out where it is occurring in the chain.
I was wondering if you could change the sample rate using your Mac without installing their drivers and just using Audio MIDI Setup. That way you could know if the iPad even has a chance of doing it.
Will try tomorrow - Mac is down already 😅
But with which software, or where in the settings? Just "Audio MIDI" in the macOS settings?
Sorry, never made anything sound-related on the Mac - and Audacity allows to freely set the sample rate anyways.
I do have export problems with Aparillo from NS2 regardless of 44/48. The resulting export sometimes sounds all messed up like the parameters got randomly jumbled. If I play the project file after export it is messed up in the same way. Reloading fixes it. So I have been having to use BM3 to realtime record flakey NS2 tracks. I am just doing my mass exodus from iOS bouncing out all my stems.
It's under /Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup.app
The Audio Devices window will probably come up by default, but if it doesn't you can get to it in the Window menu.
You can then select your devices in the left column and configure them. This is also where you can set your devices for default input/output and where the system alerts get sent to. I send my system alerts to the builtin audio on my Macs and then turn the builtin audio to zero so I never have to hear a stray system beep. You can build aggregate devices here to and that can be really useful in DAW's.
The MIDI Studio window is where you configure your MIDI setup and Network Device Browser is where you would configure AVB devices. Basically, this is the configuration app for everything CoreAudio and CoreMIDI.
@tja on Multitrack DAW’s file screen you can change the sample rate.
Gear icon, options - then create a new project and it will start with that sample rate and tries to switch the interface to this setting.
@tja I never use the higher sample rates so I haven’t tested any of my interfaces with 88200 or 96000 hz until just now.
On my devices all my interfaces can only set 44.1 or 48hz, including the Scarlett Solo. Not sure why, this happens on my 2017 iPad Pro and my iPhone 12.
Sound Blaster Play: 44.1 or 48
Dragonfly Red: 44.1 or 48
Scarlett Solo: 44.1 or 48
The weird thing is that on the dragonfly the LED changes colour according to the sample rate set, and it does actually change to the relevant colour for the higher sample rates, but I get an error message in AUM.
And the Scarlett is class compliant AFAIK so it should let you set to the higher sample rates, but no joy in my testing so far.
I have some other interfaces I can test tomorrow to see if the results are any different.
Did you mentioned that in the nanostudio forum or by support email?
Mass exodus?
Are you leaving i*OS?!? 😳 😳 😳
Yes, I know and used that above already.
Both Auria Pro and MultiTrack DAW allow to do this!
They seem to be the only DAWs that allow 96k, even without interface.
I should have asked if it really allows 96k or 192k instead of hopefully believing 😅
I thought to have mentioned those rates prominently enough and interpreted your reply as first-hand experience.
I will still try what @NeonSilicon suggested, but will then send it back...
Any hint about an interface that allows 96k or better 192k much appreciated 🤗
But did the Soundblaster run with Auria or MTD ?
(you only mentioned Cubasis, AUM and Audiobus iirc)
Both already work at 96k, without an interface.
Maybe it is just urban legend that audio interfaces allow to use higher sample rates on iDevices?!?
Did anybody ever do that?
Personally?
Not just from hearing / reading?
As it just entered my mind...
the lock has a significant influence on CPU load, heat and battery... while running above 48khz is pointless for:
most ear bud addicts (permanent loss of hearing already established)
95% of casual users („I don‘t hear a difference“),
let alone shitty productions, streaming compression loss etc bla bla
scnr
I've been running the tests I was doing using a Behringer UMC204HD. It works perfectly with the sample rate set by the DAW in every app I have that allows for setting the sample rate. The UMC404HD also works. My MOTU M4 works perfectly too.
One thing I will note is that all of these devices are capable of doing 192kHz but none of the DAW's offer that setting. Maybe that's an iOS limit. I'll check on that and see what I can find.
Apple's docs state that setting the sample rate with setPreferredSampleRate on the shared session instance is device dependent with values typically from 8kHz to 48kHz.
So, I tried it with my little test host that I've written for debugging my AU's using both the UMC204HD and the builtin audio on my iPad. The iPad tests all set the sample rate to 48kHz no matter what value I ask for. On the 204HD, I tested with 8kHz, 48kHz, 96kHz, and 192kHz. All of them worked fine except for the 8kHz request which set the interface to 44.1kHz instead. That's consistent with the specs of the 204HD.
I does seem that iOS itself will support whatever the device that is attached supports. It seems to me that those iPads that are restricted to 48kHz are most likely set to 48kHz by the on board CODEC.
Many many thanks, @NeonSilicon !
It is indeed so that some DAWs allow to set 96k with a capable interface attached, but not without.
But as some DAWs allow the same without an attached interface, this is DAW-depended.
From what I learned in this topic and my own tests, I see no real reason for buying an interface anymore.
I would be interested to run a DAW at 192k too, just for experiments and tests with audio, but we currently have no such DAW anyways... and if we had one (XAW, @SevenSystems ) it would most probably not even need an attached interface to do so.
I am still a bit confused by what you wrote about iOS without interface - you could not manage to set a higher sample rate in this case? How do MultiTrack DAW and Auria Pro achive this?
Both have very special audio engines, designed by very capable developers...
(I don‘t like Auria‘s ergonomic approach but the mix engine is top notch)
The sample rate I'm referring to is the sample rate of the audio session for the whole iOS device. This is the sample rate of the singleton instance of the AVAudioSession. This instance controls the audio for the live output on the device.
There are a couple of ways that you could run a host or other sort of app using a different sample rate from that being run by the AVAudioSession. One way would be to use the enableManualRenderingMode method on the AVAudioEngine. I'd think that this would be useful for rendering mixes to files at whatever sample rate the user wanted. Another would be to set up a more complicated audio graph that included nodes that could handle the sample rate conversion from the running audio on the graph to the output nodes that go to the audio output.
The audio subsystem on iOS is pretty flexible and can do all sorts of stuff that you don't normally see. I was only looking at the ability to set the format of the live session output.
Thanks for the explanation, @NeonSilicon
About the interface at the Mac:
I connected the interface to my Dock and the devices show up!
The output device could be set to 24-bit at 96k at maximum, so not 192k or 32 bit.
The input device could only be set to 24-bit at 48k!
I've done a few more tests this morning:
In Loopy Pro I can set any sample rate from 44.1k --> 48k --> 96k no matter which device is connected.
In AUM I can only set 48k with no interface connected, and with an interface connected I can set 44.1k and 48k but not 96k. This seems to apply to all my interfaces, even the class-compliant ones that should support 96k.
In Auria Pro I can set any sample rate from 44.1k --> 48k --> 96k no matter which device is connected.
The Dragonfly Red (and the Black as well) have an LED that changes colour depending on the sample rate.
In Loopy Pro the colour of that LED correctly reflects the selected sample rate.
In Auria Pro this only applies to 44.1k and 48k, when the project is set to 96k the LED glows green to indicate the output from Auria is at 44.1k
In AUM it's really weird: if I set the sample rate to 96k there is an error message to say the sample rate is not supported, but the LED on the Dragonfly glows magenta to indicate that the sample rate is set to 96k. I have no idea what's going on to be honest.
Interesting. Sounds like the device has separate ADC and DAC.