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Guitar->iPad->MacBook
I switched over to Logic on a MacBook Pro for recording, (yes, yes, I know....) But I have so much great software on the iPad. I can’t think of way to play my guitar, into the iPad through Bias FX, back out to the Macbook and into Logic. I’m pretty sure I can’t do that, unless there’s some kind of Lightning interface that goes in and out. I guess I might be able to go out the headphone jack? I dunno how that would sound, I’d have to figure out what cable to run from the headphone to the iRig Duo on the MacBook.
I mean, I guess I could play from the iPad, through the iLoud, and Mic it. 🤣
Comments
It certainly can be done and there are two options I would suggest exploring.
The easiest way is probably to use an iConnectivity interface...for better or for worse, I find it to be the most practical/reliable solution that enables routing audio to/from macOS and iOS simultaneously. I have had most success with an iConnectAUDIO4+.
You can also use the app Studiomux to link your iOS device to your computer via USB though it's currently pretty unreliable in my experiments, but YMMV depending on the devices you employ. It works fine on my old iMac but kills the CPU on my MacBook Pro. The developer says the app is currently being worked on so it may become more stable...maybe.
+1 for iConnect. Amazing device.
You will make life much easier for yourself if you just send the iPad output to your Mac as plain old analogue audio.
Depending on what your current audio interface is (to get Hi-Z into the iPad) the Output quality should be more than sufficient especially in the context of a mix.
If you’ve got something like an old Jam with no output, the headphone output (assuming you have one) is good enough for most tones IMHO.
That’s what I used to do with my first gen Apogee Jam with my iPad. These days I just record straight into my Mac. I like the built in amp stuff in Logic enough not to worry. I’m not much of a guitarist so they’re more than up to the job I need them to do. :-)
I've been having great success with Studiomux over the last few days. @Vaultnaemsae I've been reading a lot of your old posts on the subject and I've learnt a lot from your experience. I appreciate the pain it has frequently caused you, but so far so good for me.
I've been so enthused I was intending to post some screenshots of my successful setup, sending audio from my iMac to record into Samplr, sEGments and FRMS and then playing and recording the instrument audio back the other way (anyone interested?).
In the context of this OP, a simple guitar FX loop should be very doable with Studiomux. I started with a simple send and return to Tonestack on my iPad and that worked fine, with Tonestack as an IAA effect in Studiomux (so effectively the same as Bias FX). The setup I have above involves Audiobus and AUM, but that wouldn't be necessary in this case (until you go down the "what if I plug this into that?" tunnel of eternal danger).
To be clear, Studiomux is a £10 app that connects to your Mac or PC by the lightning cable. After installing a server app on your desktop, you then route it in your DAW using a VST/AU plugin (it's also apparently possible to use it like an audio interface, but I haven't tried that). It seems it's very device dependent. I'm successfully using it on an iPad Pro 10.5 and also a veteran iPad mini 2 (for Samplr and sEGments, it can't manage FRMS). iPhone 6 & 7 very bad for the job by all reports.
Having said all that, whilst I love many iOS apps and some of them have no (affordable) desktop equivalent, is Bias FX really worth it vs the guitar amps and FX built in to Logic?
Excellent. Thanks guys, I will investigate.
Well, that's the thing. I've had some success with the Logic stuff, but I was mucking with it last night trying to get a decent steel guitar sound, and was getting nowhere. Bias has a lot bigger range of effects, and I think better sounds. How much better is of course a good question, but that's pretty subjective. I was hoping for something simple and inexpensive to put together, and the iconnect devices are more than I wan to spend on this. Studiomux, I'm not sure where they're at now; I went to check the connectivity guide that they talked about in the app store listing, and studiomux.net is up for sale.
Indeed, I was more than a bit wary, I really didn't want to lose a load of time trying to set something up that was never going to work, but the devs Zerodebug have said, on the current Touchable Pro thread, that an update was in the works (easy to say I know...). I was thinking I'd go the iconnect route, but that too comes with caveats and I'm still waiting for one to come up on eBay.
Studiomux is working well for me so far, in Live and Bitwig (not tried in Logic) and the connection has stayed stable over several hours. With just the one guitar app I reckon you could find it a workable solution. Doesn't work on OSX Catalina, but I'm hopefully a couple of years off needing to think about going there.
This is Zerodebug's page for studiomux in case you've not seen it:
https://zerodebug.com/#/studiomux
Ah well, I’m already on Catalina. Well, i’ve ordered a few connectivity bits from Amazon, to see if I can go straight from the headphone jack on the iPad to the Mac. We’ll see how that goes.
I came across a post that claims there is a way to get Studiomux to work with Catalina. I'm not inclined to try it myself, but here's the link ...
https://community.zerodebug.com/t/macos-catalina-compatibility/1173/9
I recommend a hardware amp-sim pedal. I use the Ethos Clean, but the Joyo American Sound is cheap and very good (for Fender-style amp sounds). And probably cheaper than getting a second audio interface, if you follow @klownshed’s method.
If you have Smux installed on a previous OS version and upgrade to Catalina it will continue to work.
or
It will work via the method outlined on the ZD forum by IvanX -- but most people I know don't like digging into the macOS file system that much.