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.

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Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

How to get iOS to recognise/turn on Yamaha md-bt01?

I've got a Yamaha md-bt01which I use to connect my hardware synths to my iPad.
I sequence/play the hardware using KB-1, Aphelian, Fugue Machine, PolyPhase etc. All of these work great with hardware once the bluetooth connection between the iPad and the hardware is established.

But establishing that connection isn't as quick and easy as it ought to be - when I plug in the Yamaha to the hardware it automatically turns itself on but it never ever appears as a Bluetooth device in the iPads settings. If I turn off bluetooth on the iPad then turn it back on again, then even after refreshing the list of my devices/other devices its still not visible. Also no software sees it as being present.
In order to turn on the connection I rely on Volt - in Volt's Midi menu there is a bluetooth midi section and that sees the device and I can turn it on there. Once turned on I can use any other software that transmits midi.

My question is how can I enable the Yamaha md-bt01 device connection without having to use Volt? Surely it must be possible using iOS/the iOS settings app, but if I can't see it in Settings how to do that? If Volt can see it, why doesn't the settings app see it?

(Current iOS version is 13.1.2)

Comments

  • edited December 2019

    @mungbeans said:
    I've got a Yamaha md-bt01which I use to connect my hardware synths to my iPad.
    I sequence/play the hardware using KB-1, Aphelian, Fugue Machine, PolyPhase etc. All of these work great with hardware once the bluetooth connection between the iPad and the hardware is established.

    But establishing that connection isn't as quick and easy as it ought to be - when I plug in the Yamaha to the hardware it automatically turns itself on but it never ever appears as a Bluetooth device in the iPads settings. If I turn off bluetooth on the iPad then turn it back on again, then even after refreshing the list of my devices/other devices its still not visible. Also no software sees it as being present.
    In order to turn on the connection I rely on Volt - in Volt's Midi menu there is a bluetooth midi section and that sees the device and I can turn it on there. Once turned on I can use any other software that transmits midi.

    My question is how can I enable the Yamaha md-bt01 device connection without having to use Volt? Surely it must be possible using iOS/the iOS settings app, but if I can't see it in Settings how to do that? If Volt can see it, why doesn't the settings app see it?

    (Current iOS version is 13.1.2)

    Quickest way is just 2 taps. 1 to open app, 2nd to select device. (I’m away from home atm which is why the devices in pic are offline.)

    Get the Korg BLE-MIDI App

    https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/bluetooth-midi-connect/id1108321791

  • Hmm, never used IOS itself, always connected through a host app, AUM, Audiobus etc. Also I leave the MD-BT01 connected up to the hardware (in my case a Korg Monologue), don't know if the order things get switched on makes a difference but it's often the case.

  • @SpartanClownTide said:
    Hmm, never used IOS itself, always connected through a host app, AUM, Audiobus etc. Also I leave the MD-BT01 connected up to the hardware (in my case a Korg Monologue), don't know if the order things get switched on makes a difference but it's often the case.

    In my case AUM doesn’t see it until it’s been enabled via Volt or Ble-midi

  • @mungbeans said:

    @SpartanClownTide said:
    Hmm, never used IOS itself, always connected through a host app, AUM, Audiobus etc. Also I leave the MD-BT01 connected up to the hardware (in my case a Korg Monologue), don't know if the order things get switched on makes a difference but it's often the case.

    In my case AUM doesn’t see it until it’s been enabled via Volt or Ble-midi

    The free midimittr app is handy for the initial handshake as many apps have slightly flaky performance establishing bt connections.

  • wimwim
    edited December 2019

    @mungbeans
    Bluetooth midi devices have to be connected manually by some app before they’re available. It doesn’t matter if you connect it through the BLE MIDI app, Volt, or some other synth, that manual handshake has to happen.

    AUM has a built-in Bluetooth MIDI connect dialog in the settings. You can connect there as well as you can from Volt or any other app. But you do have to have the connection established before it shows up in AUM’s routing matrix.

    It’s just an unfortunate design decision of iOS.

  • @espiegel123 said:

    @mungbeans said:

    @SpartanClownTide said:
    Hmm, never used IOS itself, always connected through a host app, AUM, Audiobus etc. Also I leave the MD-BT01 connected up to the hardware (in my case a Korg Monologue), don't know if the order things get switched on makes a difference but it's often the case.

    In my case AUM doesn’t see it until it’s been enabled via Volt or Ble-midi

    The free midimittr app is handy for the initial handshake as many apps have slightly flaky performance establishing bt connections.

    +1 for midimittr

  • @wim said:
    @mungbeans
    Bluetooth midi devices have to be connected manually by some app before they’re available. It doesn’t matter if you connect it through the BLE MIDI app, Volt, or some other synth, that manual handshake has to happen.

    AUM has a built-in Bluetooth MIDI connect dialog in the settings. You can connect there as well as you can from Volt or any other app. But you do have to have the connection established before it shows up in AUM’s routing matrix.

    It’s just an unfortunate design decision of iOS.

    Exactly this. I use the BLE MIDI app as it’s the quickest way to get that connection and is super stable keeping the connection live in the background. Especially if I decide to change hosts within sessions.

  • +1 for midimittr for me as well. Great for routing all your midi gear...

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