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.
How would you use a Thunderbolt iPad Pro?
I wonder what use the rumored thunderbolt port might be on the iPad Pro? For music, doesn’t USB-C get most things done?
Proper external monitor support might be nice. Imagine AUM on a big 32-inch display, with the iPad’s screen used to play the currently-active AU.
I originally posted this question in another thread, but thought it would be better to separate it.
Comments
As you just written - the only advantage for me also is the external monitor support with real resolutions without black borders (if this will be enabled in iPadOS 15.0)...
I don’t know really when USB-C on my iPad Pro 12.9” 2020-edition all of a sudden enabled me to use external harware WITHOUT external power supply?
I can use my 4GB external USB3 harddrive (2.5”) without external power, the same when I connected my never used Launchpad Pro (doesn’t work without external power earlier)...
That was when USB-C was added, I think. USB-C can supply more power than the USB connection provided by Lightning.
USB-C is capable of delivering display signals up to 4k. Thunderbolt would allow 5k. I think external monitor resolution is rather the question of available display memory on the iPad.
I think another advantage would be to allow Thunderbolt hubs with several outgoing Thunderbolt ports where each of them maintains a high bandwidth. So, like using an external 4k monitor and an SSD. Quite an edgy case for an iPad, I guess.
Also better than usb-c for file transfer speed for external drives, for video editing or doing any kind of file transfer. Thunderbolt could include possibility of supporting VR/AR headset in the future.
@krassmann I don't know if its an edge case. External dive reliability is poor in my use. I bet a lot of photographers and videographers would like to edit direct from external drives.
As I remember, my former iPad Pro 12.9” 2018 with USB-C didn’t have this option (enough power out to support external rotation harddrives) - sold that one so I can’t test...
Poor is the right word for it. Honestly, it's a 50/50 gamble if the iPad will recognize my external SSD. Really sucks because I have my Pure Synth Plantiunum IAPs on there
It would let me connect my caldigit ts3+ thunderbolt hub, so my iPad Pro could access my external drives and the main the studio again.
Do you have the original adapter from Apple (USB-C/USB-A)?
I have an iPad with Lightning, but yes original Apple adapter. Looks more like a software bug to me to be honest, but if Apple can handle Thunderbolt better then Lightning, I'm game.
For me, the real step to use external hardware together with ipad, came with the 2020-edition of iPad Pro...
But, they are pretty expensive - a matter of facts you get an new Macbook Pro M1 cheaper than an iPad Pro 12.9" 2020...
So, using external hardware thru Lightning have always been 50/50 as you said...
I would think that Thunderbolt would eliminate the need for ios apps to rely on onboard storage.
sample streaming, video editing, all would work seamlessly on external SSD, right?
I mean to be honest IF my iPad recognizes the SSD I don't see much difference in loading times in Pure Synth Platinum compared to the internal memory. Maybe a little bit, but not in a way that it's annoying. So if they remove the 50% total failure rate, this should work.
That’s the one I have, and it works just fine with hard drives etc. Well, power-wise it works. It doesn’t always see them…
Yes, you are right. I saw that from the perspective of a musician.
Guys, show me any app that can work with the data of external drives directly. All apps I know require to import the files first, which effectively means copy them over to the internal storage. I guess that is due to limitations of iPadOS.
Pure Synth Platinum is the only one that I know of that does that. For that it works really good if the SSD is recognized.
I think that 2020-edition of iPad Pro has a better architecture than the 2018-edition concering amount of power it delivers on USB-C port...
I have 2018 Pro 12.9 and really haven’t fully tested how well it manages peripherals over USB-C.
My main thought is that Thunderbolt 4 on an iOS device should eliminate any hardware limitation for streaming from external SSD, whether for video, audio, or any real-time file access.
But then it all depends on software, the iOS file system allowing apps to access external storage properly.
I didn’t realize PureSynth Platinum was the only music app currently implementing this. Maybe its currently more difficult than it seems.
I know LumaFusion (video editing app) were considering how this could be done, not sure if they ever implemented it.
Neo Soul Keys 2, another MIDIculous/Gospel Musician app, also streams from SSD drives.
I think you are not understanding that unlike in the past, "Thunderbolt" here is essentially the same as "USB-C". As in the physical connection looks the same as USB-C, but the available bandwidth is greater than a 'normal' USB-C. When the reports are coming out that the next gen iPads will have Thunderbolt, it doesn't mean that they are once again changing the physical connectors to be like the old Firewire/Displayport adapters, it means that they will have a USB-C connection that is able push more bandwidth [and maybe more volts? not sure about that].