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.
Does using Midiflow fix midi sync problems??
I'm looking for a solution to the internal midi sync problem that iOS has, as I'm tired of having lots of apps that won't sync properly with Cubasis
After lots of research, it seems the app offering the best solution is Midiflow
Can anyone confirm whether it actually solves the problem??
As an example, I'm looking to do something like the following: using Cubasis as the controlling sequencer I would like to have the DM1 playing with a couple of synths such as iMini or iProphet. I want to have them all playing back in sync and also be able to record some automation for filter/effects etc.
Nothing too complex, but this is one of the things that's been really foxing me with iOS music making!!
Any advice gratefully received!
Comments
Hey Simon
There isn't much solid info on this that I've been able to find, but my meager understanding is that it is an Apple issue. Firstly the hardware does not have a realtime clock. What clock there is generated by the OS, i.e. via software. It also seems that iOS manages the priority of the clock thread, and should a graphics or audio thread need more gas the clock gets neglected. It also seems it's largely left to the devs as to how to make up for this inconsistency.
Again, just my shabby under qualified deductions from following this issue, and I know I may be completely wrong (and would appreciate being corrected!)
But, in my own experience I've spent a couple of cubasis sessions just trying to work with midi offset settings, and I found if I got it working on one track adding another would make it fall out again. Lowly iPad 3 here, but I could definitely observe that the harder the iPad was working the more the clock would shift.
I know I'm not offering any help to your question, but I think the problem runs deeper than any one app can fix. In all fairness I'm sure Apple couldn't foresee where some brilliant devs would take the iPad into serious music making. Even now I doubt that we iOS musicians are a high enough percentage of iOS users to justify the resources they would need to fix it. (Does anyone know what percentage we are?) but, I do hope they will, maybe they will catch wind of this dedicated community!
I have found using an external sequencer plugged into an ipad air and cubasis using a Roland UM One provides great results for me. i just posted about it here. https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/9570/live-performance-jamming-setups#latest
In this case it was a hardware tenori-on but I have also tried plugging my ipad mini into my ipad air using a combination of a 'roland duo-capture ex' and 'roland um one' and sequencing cubasis running many apps on the ipad air with genome running on the ipad mini. This worked great and I assume would also work with just two 'roland um one's connected together which would be much cheaper.
anyway, On the ipad mini I like to sketch out a track in gadget, export it as midi and put it in genome and then connect it to the ipad air running cubasis to then re-realise the gadget track but now with animoog, fm7, dm1, thor, synth master, magellan, etc etc playing the tracks instead; all running at once rerecording the midi in cubasis and all the inter app audio at the same time and in sync! I still cant believe this works but it does! Once recorded i find just doing selective overdubs with individual midi tracks that were recorded into cubasis (or using the Tenori On or just freehand) is the way to go.
But yah, I find offloading midi to another device and cabeling the connection is the best use of my time and the most stable and reproducible. trying to maintain lots of virtual midi ports from just within cubasis can be quite frustrating in my experience so i keep them to a minimum on overdubs.
Just to clarify: I'm talking about doing everything inside one ipad - I don't want to have to connect any other hardware!
That's an interesting concept @AudioGus but it's not really what I'm looking for!!
Yah i know what you are hoping to find. I invested a lot of time into what you are talking about and doubt there is a solution within this current generation of hardware/OS/apps. I tried a couple midi router apps a while ago who's names escape me now but think adding more apps to jump through just makes the problem worse. My point was i had to bite the bullet and incorporate an external solution.
if you do find anything helps within a single ipad scenario do let us know as I would love it and gladly ditch my midi cables. 8)
I have no problem syncing the tempo of DM1 to Cubasis using IAA. Even start and stop works.
It would be interesting if someone could recommend a MIDI utility app like Midiflow that can actually sync apps like DM1 to Cubasis when using AudioBus.
I dont have a problem syncing the tempo of DM1 in cubasis either when using the DM1 sequencer. However I find sending midi notes to DM1 from cubasis has issues for me if I try sending to even a couple other apps at the same time. It just seems to bottleneck so quickly regardless of cpu usage.
It's not EVERYTHING in the iPad, but what I wonder about using an iphone as the clock and using MIDI over bluetooth?
If you carry a phone around anyway, it's not like you have to carry anything extra.
P.S. I chased this problem for a year before I resorted to a lot more one-track-at-a-time recording into a few different multi-track DAWs, notably auria, and my current favorite, Cubasis. (sometime the auria input source interface kills me.)
MIDIFlow isn't a magic bullet but it does have a very solid clock. So in situations where that's the only problem, MIDIFlow will solve it. Sadly, that's not the only problem!
i tried apollo midi and genome on one device communicating to cubasis and iaa instruments running on the other. It worked well enough for me to get excited initialy but then lots of bugs and problems came up which killed the workflow. Simply cabling the two devices nailed it. i know I am harping on this but The OS just supports this hardware well at a core level. Virtual midi port stuff is just made of (very well meaning) coded pipecleaners and scotch tape in the end. Code based sollutions are so so susceptible to app and os updates too as we all know. What works one day is as dead as summer dog shit the next day. i wish i knew a hardware tech wizard who could just frankenstein two roland um ones together with a couple lightning cables for me into one nice little convenient snake.
i am sure in a few years all this will be mute with more advanced bluetoothy support in general allowing coders to run amok in awesome town but yah, be damn nice to just do it now.
Oh man, i played with auria for a few days and was in heaven with the editing but so many project corruptions... Wipes tear... Would have been sweet...
Not sure if the following helps, but that's the advice from another DAW developer that I try to follow and it apparently works. Of course, the app needs to support IAA, but I think many do.
"Do not use MIDI Clock to sync the app with MultitrackStudio. The IAA protocol provides means for syncing in a far more reliable way. If an IAA app needs MIDI Clock please ask the developer to support syncing via IAA."
I love IAA instruments. Egoist is solid in that regard. Actually using the midi send from Egoists bass instrument while running it in cubasis has been great for releaving midi congestion.
Am considering this thread relevant. Still exploring. What a relief...
In regards to Cubasis, its my understanding that if you want to sync the tempo of Cubasis with any other virtual app, you can only do it one way; by making it the Master MIDI Clock.
It appears that Cubasis cannot slave itself to external sync. I might be wrong because I only tried it a few times by turning off "Send MIDI Clock" in Setup. Cubasis does not have an option to "Sync to External Sync". I hope Cubasis will be upgraded in the future to add this feature; and also be able to choose which app they are to slave to.
@bsantoro Not sure if Cubasis is like this, but using MTS, and for example first opening Audiobus and putting Egoist as the Input and MTS as the Output, automatically Egoist syncs its clock to the one in MTS. I understand this is the "IAA sync" because I'm not setting up MIDI clock anywhere. On the other hand, if I do the exact same steps using Samplr, Samplr will not automatically sync, probably because IAA clock sync isn't supported.
My understanding, subject to correction from the more knowledgeable members, is that the quality of the clock sync with Egoist would be better than the Samplr one. The former is IAA clock sync, and the latter would require a master MIDI clock to sync to, which is far less reliable regardless of the master (according to the MTS dev).
Now we see that it's really very simple, we just need to convince the Samplr dev to implement IAA clock sync...
Basically, DM1 has internal midi problems with other apps! MTS has IAA midi track editors for you to play both at same time! I am not sure how many synths can be plugged on at the same time with IAA! But MTS midi instrument can plug 4 midi tracks at the same time! Also MTS has mid clock sync out feature in Studio - Device section, you can multiple tick what apps you are sending to! I am new to MTS but I have Auria, Cubasis and MTS in my chest! So it is good even you close and restart MTS, MTS automatical plugs IAA synths to itself last time you haven't closed, then you can reopen the synths! So, Hope this help a bit!
Thanks > @Kaikoo
I am suddenly quite interested in MTS. 8)
The Knight of the Four Daws! Who's your sekrit Dame?
Really? I've found the complete opposite - that the sync with DM1 in Cubasis using IAA is APPALLING... in fact I think it's worse since the recent DM1 update
How would I do that John? I carry an iphone 5c with me...
I wonder if I could do this without spending too much cash... I have a spare ipad2 which could be connected. What interfaces and cables would I need for the cheapest solution?
I have a Roland Duo Capture MkII, but I don't think this will work in your scenario as it's audio only
I wonder if this means that in Cubasis I should turn off the "Send MIDI clock" option so that it's doing sync via IAA???
Simon, sorry I can't be more specific in terms of Cubasis but maybe other Cubasis users could help. In MTS it's easy to see when an app seems to have IAA clock sync. Insert the app as an IAA instrument in your DAW. If the app has IAA clock sync, its clock display will automatically match that of the DAW, no further settings required (MIDI Clock Out being definitely off). Some apps such as Egoist sync immediately; others take a few seconds.
I haven't had DM1 installed for quite some time, but redownloaded it to test. I see that it does seem to sync automatically to MTS when inserted as an IAA instrument - after some seconds, its BPM will match the BPM in MTS, and whenever I change the BPM in MTS, after some seconds the clock display in DM1 matches that again. In theory, you should insert it as an IAA instrument in Cubasis and turn off the Cubasis Send MIDI Clock. If you can do this, the clock sync should be more reliable (fingers crossed).
EDIT: I see that in one of your posts above, you've already tested DM1 sync thru IAA with Cubasis and it didn't work well, so maybe it's something that needs some fixing in DM1. To be honest, one of the reasons I uninstalled it was because of some instability a while ago.
One other thing I've seen is that apps that support IAA clock sync, sync very consistently when using IAA. However when linking apps thru Audiobus, the automatic clock sync is hit or miss.
Perhaps @Sebastian could shed some light on IAA clock sync when using AB?
Sebastian, using MTS and Egoist as examples, when loading both using AB, sometimes the Egoist clock automatically syncs to the one in MTS, and sometimes it ignores sync. On the other hand, when loading Egoist inside MTS using IAA, the clock always and consistently syncs thru IAA. Is there some reliable way for AB to always enforce IAA clock sync when the IAA instrument app supports it?
MIDI Sync is still a mess, I'm afraid. I cannot help you with this but I can tell you that some time this year these problems should be alleviated.
Thanks - so there is some hope. Until then, for me at least, when I need tight clock sync, IAA is what's been working best at the moment, for the IAA instrument apps that support IAA clock sync.
Thanks for the pointer - I was wondering if it was worth pursuing this now or if it was going to fixed by future iOS updates
At a guess, I'd say you're hinting at iOS 9
?
to here this from you @sebastian relaxed me,
very ;-)
Hmmm, i have not tried this particular setup but to hook up two ipads via cables I would think that you could get two lightning cable usb adapters and two 'roland um one's but then you would also need some sort of male female midi converters in between them. It would likely add up to a bit over hundred i am sure.