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.
Comments
How about LogicBand or GarageLogic 🤨
Mainstage maybe a better choice as Apple cherish their digital hub concept. It’ll use the iPad as a powerful expander.
If it ever hit the the street they certainly wait for WWDC certainly not April conf, but who knows!
The new Macbook Air is a low end Mac and runs Logic much better than high end Intel Mac’s. I am currently on a Logic project with around 100 tracks, mostly Logic plugins, 10% third party plugins. Over a 100 plugins used. Also mastering the project the same time. Not supposed to but i am. The Air is using 10% of the CPU. Logic IS designed NOW to run on lower end machines. Ipad pro is more than capable. I got tired waiting for a better DAW on ios. The Air is soooo wonderful.
Also: getting the best of both worlds this way. Starting many projects on ipad and seamlessly opening in Logic and finishing up. It’s the accessibility that is the strength of the ipad now for me.
Apple used Logic to demo the possibilities of the new Mac Pro on announcement:
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/logic-pro-x-update-taps-the-tremendous-power-of-the-new-mac-pro/
"Logic Pro X 10.4.5 will now support up to 56 processing threads"
"now supporting up to 1,000 audio tracks and 1,000 software instrument tracks, providing four times the number of available tracks for the most complex productions. Additionally, Logic Pro X now supports 1,000 auxiliary channel strips, 1,000 external MIDI tracks and 12 sends per channel strip. Users can also expect improved responsiveness of the Mixer and Event List when working with large sessions, and projects with numerous Flex Time edits and tempo changes perform more efficiently than ever."
You can't do that on a MacBook Air. I have an M1 Mini. It is an incredible machine. Even though each core on the thing is faster than the cores on the Mac Pro, it isn't close to the Pro.
Give Apple another year and they'll release their 32 or 64 core ASi processor and they'll put out another video showing how much faster that new Logic is on the new Mac Pro.
It is absolutely true that the new iPad Pro would be able to run Logic better than my 2011 MacBook Pro that I ran Logic on. It's not that it can't run Logic, it's that it won't run Logic and provide the user experience that Apple wants to present with one of their flagship applications.
I'll be very happy to be proved wrong, as long as Apple adapts the UI well. But, I just don't see it aligning with the way Apple plans their user experience on any of their devices.
Somebody said Logic is not designed to run on lower end Macs. I am just saying Logic is VERY VERY capable on low end Macs.
Under this argument, Apple should never permit Logic to run on anything less than a Mac Pro, since by definition only the Pro can provide that level of user experience. Clearly that’s not the case.
I do my acoustic music multi-tracking on a 27” iMac. Drums, bass, guitars, vocals etc. It’s lush and I can’t imagine myself working on a small touch screen. It’s like a treat to me and I want it big and chunky.
The same goes for video editing. I know my pro 11 2020 is a powerful machine and I know I can do it on my 13” MacBook Pro but when I fire up the Big Mac (no pun) it’s like butter. So why suffer? I don’t commute so I understand the draw for those who do.
Also another drawback of extended tablet work that isn’t often talked about is the position of the neck while on it. My desktop sits on top of my rack interface and is right at the height of my eyes.
Every time I sit with a tablet my eyes look 45’ down which puts strain on the neck. This, whether you’re young or old is equally important because those things tend to catch up with you later on in life.
I’m not even going to go into the subject of an iPhone. Working on music there is like keyhole surgery.
Yeah, that was me. And, I'm not disagreeing with you. Logic is good on the new Air. (It wasn't good at all on the old Air.)
The point I'm trying to make is that Logic is targeted at a top end end machine preferably running multiple 32" displays. It runs fine on a 27" iMac Pro. It runs fine on a 16" MacBook Pro. It now runs well on a MacBook Air (better than the 16" MacBook Pro in fact). It could run on an iPad Pro. Given that the current gen iPad Mini is faster than my old Logic running MacBook Pro, it could run there too (I won't say well because it never ran well on my MacBook Pro).
What I am saying is that each of those steps involves further compromises. The question is how far is Apple likely to go down that path? I don't think they'll put it out on the iPad Pro because that basically means it has to run on an iPad Mini. Is Apple going to put out Logic on an iPad Mini?
I’ll just leave this here:
You have to do some initial system setting, as is clearly described in the video, to optimise it for music production. But look at what it can do. And look at the ports it has:
1 x USB-C
1 x USB-A.
3.5 mm headphone jack.
1 x Surface Connect port.
Surface Type Cover port⁴
MicroSDXC card reader.
Skip to the end of the vid if you only want his verdict, but it’s worth the whole watch. I’m seriously considering this as my next touch music platform.
It’d be worth it to escape Apple’s arrogance toward their users.
The Surface is crap. My wife has one for work. She gave up running her Surface to do her video meetings with MS products because it won't run there. She now uses her second gen iPad Mini. Where the MS product actually works. Her surface hasn't been touched in months. Everything she works on for her job is MS based. It all runs much better on her iPad and her old MacBook. Seriously.
Logic 10.6 still runs really well on my 2012
MacBook Pro. I am using my uad plugins as much as I can (the Apollo x8 has 6 sharp chips so I can run a decent amount) but still use softube console 1 on every channel and some other native things. I don’t do a ton of virtual instrument work, and if virtual instruments are involved I usually render them to audio when I mix, but still, I’m not updating until this machine absolutely stops. Then i think the Mac mini will be my next machine, or a MacBook Pro if I have to have a laptop. However, I am now finding I work better when I’m in my mixing space, so id only really need a laptop for live tracking.
Anyway, I can’t imagine using an iPad as the center of my music hub anymore, especially for the ergonomic reasons @supadom mentioned above. I have an x-touch and console 1, as well as a good ergonomic trackball so that I have less pain when I work, and I still have plenty. I am proof of the neck problems coming back to haunt you right now...
However, I had a song idea that I sketched out on my iPhone 12 mini that I just got last week (back to a size my hands can actually hold!) and I loaded it in logic tonight to work on it more, including a Klevgrand slammer track because I got it for Mac. GB on iOS as an idea starter wherever I am then finishing in logic is a workflow I really like. I’m not an apple fanboy but I do love that workflow.
@NeonSilicon : I’m not gainsaying someone who has experience of the gadget, when I don’t. And it is clear from this guy’s vids that if you want to run music software on it you have to do a lot of behind the scenes setup first.
But I’m inclined to think his results speak for themselves.
And that Pro 7 is clearly doing a lot more that is immediately musically useful than any current IPad can manage. With useful ports, and a headphone out, and no dongles.
I don't think we will see Logic for iOS in the next 5 years due to many obstacles. But even if they commit to bringing Logic to iPads, it will take a lot of time to rewrite it. But I'm sure they will be backporting some new features from Logic to GarageBand - those new samplers, for example, look very touch-friendly
As for MS Surface, it looks like Apple is moving in that direction too. I believe soon (but not very soon) they will have a similar device - a laptop-tablet hybrid. That would be dope - using it as we use ipads now, but when back in the home studio connecting it to 2 6K screens, keyboard, mouse and different music hardware
Nah, it will have doors.. But, Apple being Apple, one day those doors will stop working after a software update automatically installed in the background
Here also successfully running Logic on iMac 2013 (intel quad 3,5) with 20-30 tracks of Abbey Road One orchestra library. All nice and smooth.
Later iPad Pros are at least as powerful as my iMac. The next one might put my iMac to shame.
Im hoping for Apple to finally get external screen support right on iPad. It’s rather ridiculous as it is until now. Then I could imagine replacing my Mac with iPad. With a good enough version of Logic of course.
This. Strange that it took so long for this factor to pop up in the conversation. Everyone (else) must have bionic-level neck and back muscles in this community
Don't do it. I had a surface pro and it was rubbish. My 2012 macbook pro ran ableton better. I had such high hopes but it felt so clunky.
The ipad was a far better touch screen experience with better apps. My laptop was a better experience and it's almost 8 yes older. I bought it to replace my tablet and laptop, it failed at both and I sold it
What we could see is 'Logic Touch' or 'Touch Logic' with all the legacy stuff removed.
(There's a load of old 'plug-ins' that can be accessed using alt/option while clicking in the plug-in selectors).
The new QuickSampler and 'Big Sampler' and the new drum synths already look like 'designed for touch' and Retro Synth is not far off either.
I admit I do like GarageBand quite a bit but I do NOT like the lack of a proper mixer, severe lack of midi-automation (sustain pedal can be edited but pitch & mod wheels or touch instrument automation is a no-go, can't even edit the 'Track FX' once it's recorded). Also missing a 'note fold' option in the Midi-Editor (It's not even present in Logic Pro so I'm not surprised).
Full support for Midi AUv3's and Multi In/Out AUv3's would be nice but then the track-count would need to be increased past 32.
LogicPro also needs plenty of 'bug fixes', I mean it doesn't even release the controllers when quitting the app. (Ie. for example the LaunchPad Pro is left in Session mode and I need to launch Live to 'release it').
But I would not want to be the one to squeeze all these functions to iPhone form-factor it would be a total nightmare...
😄
The entire discussion is based on the basis that iPads will be receiving a M1 derived processor that are very powerful and will allow iPad to run a software like Logic and run many more audio units.
iOS does not equal MacOS. It doesn’t matter what chip you put in an iPad at this point, iOS is nowhere near as capable of an operating system. IMO, All of the limitations of iOS for running AU’s do not exist in MacOS. There are just so many differences in the operating systems and what is exposed to an application like a DAW, in the current iOS incarnation you just can’t GET logic to run on it. It would suffer from the same things that plague all the DAW’s that have been created so far... because iOS is built differently than macOS. They just don’t work the same way.
This is partially why I'm interested in seeing which direction iPadOS15/iOS15 goes...
...the sad reality is that it's highly likely that my trusty old iPad Air 2 will not qualify to run iPadOS15
No matter what Apple releases on the 20th of April I'll wait until WWDC'21 before I decide what to do...
...if there's no new 'Pro Apps' I'll just keep using my iPad Air 2 as a sound module for my MacMini like I do today
I thought getting Logic Pro was a foregone conclusion, not a debate.
That’s what they said last year