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Audio losses with iM1 as IAA since upgrade to iPAd Pro and iOS 15
I've recently moved to an iPad Pro from an iPad (5th gen) and that meant going to iOS 15. My performing setup relies heavily on an iM1 and previously seemed to work fine, at least up to iOS 14.4. But now I'm experiencing issues where periodically the audio from the iM1 stops coming through unless I bring the app to the front. Once brought to the front I can then go back to AUM or other apps (essentially the only other music related app is Bandhelper which is variably sending PC, CC or raw MIDI hex data messages when songs are selected) and it all seems to work again until it, seemingly randomly, does not. AFAIK MIDI is still making it through as when this happens (and note it more often does not glitch this way) the iM1 is on the appropriate patch most recently sent though guess I can't rule out some sort of MIDI block to the iM1 as the issue.
Anyone know if this is a more global iOS 15 specific issue, a more specific effect of the IAA deprecation and iOS 15 or something specific to AUM (seems unlikely as it's so awesome) or to the iM1?
Also though I've not used Audiobus I gather from some of the discussion here that it's in some ways better and more future proof wrt IAA only apps like the iM1 so is using it a possible solution? If so then would one essentially just need to pipe the audio from AB back to an AUM channel so I can leave AB in the background for only that purpose as I've got way too much invested in AUM and love its workflow and going forward don't plan on using any other non-AUv3 plugins.
FWIW I haven't used the new iPad Pro setup in a live situation yet so I don't know if the problem would actually occur then when I hadn't been doing a bunch of plugin, side-chain, preset changes. In case it's relevant with everything else loaded in AUM my DSP is generally less than 30% and I use a Scarlett 4i4 interface.
Thanks!
P@
Comments
Is background audio enabled in iM1? (It's usually not enabled by default after installing an app so that might be worth a check?).
Hopefully KORG wakes up at some point and gives their apps some badly needed maintenance updates...
More future proof than what? AB uses IAA under the hood. Piping it through AB back to AUM would just give more work to do for your iPad (and yourself), unless you need the AB side panel.
Any IAA app should stay running in the background while connected to a host app, if they don't it means they have a bug that needs fixing. Some apps have got IAA support "for free" by implementing the AB SDK, and sometimes they're not working correctly when hosted by other IAA hosts. Again this is something that needs fixing in the IAA app.
Audiobus offers its own SDK which does offer a more reliable communication interface than IAA. This is what apps are referring to when they say they support Audiobus. iM1 does mention Audiobus support, so that might be an option. However, it hasn't been updated in 2 years, so it may not be up to date with Audiobus.
If you ask see IAA is a real pita to troubleshoot...
Most of the time I launch an IAA app and makes sure background audio is enabled before making any connections from other apps. Letting a host launch an IAA app without bringing the UI to front risks the app becoming a 'zombie' and to get rid if it a reboot is needed...
Even though IAA is 'deprecated' as long as it somehow 'works' there's no real pressure for developers to add AUv3 support...
@paddy : for most people IAA works as well in iOS 15 as in iOS 14 or 13. It may be that you had slightly different settings on your old machine.
@uncledave : while true that AB has an SDK, it still uses IAA. The SDK adds some additional features not provided in IAA (like state-saving for apps that make use of that part of the SDK or using AB’s floating palette to control the app). I wouldn’t expect AB to make a difference in basic operational behavior like this,
Yes, I've made sure Background Audio is on and I always open iM1 (and Bandhelper which is also iAA but non-problematic) at the start of a session before opening AUM. I actually went ahead and bought Audiobus and tried what I suggested above but just now the same problem occurred so that's not the solution. Sounds like it must be an iM1/Korg issue, perhaps in combo with iOS 15?
I don't have Gadget but
if so is that possibly an approach as I believe you can load iM1 into Gadget?
A) does it's purported AUv3 support mean it can be loaded as an AUv3 in AUM like Module now and
A) Yes, it would work like Module
Gadget doesn’t support AUv3. A few Korg instruments (like Module and Electribe Wave) that have Gadgets also have AUv3. But gadget and its instruments as a whole don’t support AUv3
Try doing a hard reset before your session to see if that improves things. Perhaps there is some app in the background or zombie causing problems.
Also launch iM-1 on its own before loading into AUM to reduce likelihood of Zombiehood.
Arrrgh! It has gotten even flakier. Hard reset didn't make any difference. The problem seems to be between AUM and the iM1. Now I can't get both to work together at all. With iM1 launched first (always), it sounds with appropriate MIDI input but when AUM is then launched the iM1 channel shows disconnected and when it's reloaded is appears normal but now no sound comes through. Strangely the meter in AUM on that channel shows signal coming through but nothing is audible. If I close and relaunch iM1 the sound comes back but it shows disconnected from AUM again and of course its fader and side chains do nothing.
The only change made since my initial post where the problem was somewhat infrequent and random was a switch from a Scarlett 4i4 to an 18i20 and the addition of some hardware audio channels through AUM so microphone access turned on where I hadn't needed it before. So frustrating as we have our first gig since the pandemic in a week or so and so many of my patches use the iM1. It's largely unusable as is.
What's your backup plan?
How about using your iPad 5th Gen solely for iM1 standalone?
In the meantime, on your newer iPad, see if AUM hosting Gadget IAA hosting Darwin is reliable. And contact Korg Support USA, UK.
Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best. Good luck.
Maybe you could send the output of M1 directly to the Scarlett. Then create a loopback to another pair of audio in channels that you will use to get the M1 sound into AUM?
Another option would be to run iM1 on a seperate iPad and connect the midi through bluetooth. This could also help because the iM1 has "promiscuous" midi, listening to all the midi interfaces it can find...
If you get silence but the level meters in AUM show activity, it means you have a plugin that's producing invalid signal values (NaN's, Inf's, etc) which make AUM silence the audio to avoid sending them to the audio interface. To confirm this is the case, bypassing that channel should bring audio back for all other channels.
If it's not an issue with invalid signal values, it must be the audio interface or compatibility issues between audio interface and iOS. I've had weird results with my Scarlett 6i6 when trying higher sample rates. Also try different buffer sizes. 48kHz / 512 buffer is a safe bet that all plugins should handle well.
Sorry if I was unclear but it's only the M1's audio that is lost, even when I go to the M1 instance itself and use it's on screen keyboard. Nothing else is affected. Everything else through AUM works as usual.
This is so bizarre... Based on the suggestions above (thank you all) I decided to go back to the Scarlett 4i4 after a hard reset (which I'd been doing repeatedly throughout this) and things seemed to be working for a while and then I lost the M1 audio again, like when I originally posted this. So I went to the M1 instance's settings just to check background audio hadn't been mysteriously turned off, which it hadn't, but the audio came back and the M1 channel in AUM remained intact. So it seemed the day was at least partially saved in that all I need to do is bring M1 to the front to get things back to normal.
So, thinking it was something to do with the 18i20 (which is a gen 1 but Focusrite claims it should work fine for what I'm intending) I decided to go back and see if the problem was reproducible and, if so, I'd have to find a different approach wrt the extra hardware output channels I needed from the 18i20. So iPad powered off, interface switched back to the 18i20, iPad powered back on again and now Ive gone through my setlist a couple of times without losing the M1 audio at all.
I don't know where these gremlins are coming from or if they'll come back (most likely in the middle of a gig) so @ocelot, yes, time to solidify the backup plan. ? see if I can get my original hardware M1R working maybe... probably not. From what I understand the limitations on the Gadget Darwin M1 might be prohibitive for my uses and yes I submitted a bug report to Korg yesterday. @Alfred I'm intrigued by your direct routing of the M1s audio out and back, taking IAA out of the mix. @j_liljedahl do you think that would provide valuable troubleshooting info?
Thanks again everyone for your thoughts.
P@
I don't think there's much I can do about it from my side unfortunately. Something is making M1 (which I understand is running as a separate app connected to AUM via IAA?) go silent, maybe related to the audio interface.
However, you said that the level meters in AUM showed activity for the M1 channel, even when it made no sound? That means either the audio interface itself was silenced, or M1 are producing invalid signal values. If bypassing the M1 node brings back audio of the other channels in your AUM session, it proves it's invalid signal values. Or are you saying that other channels already do sound, but the M1 channel does not even though the channel meter says there is audio? If so it must be producing inaudible frequencies that are registered by the meter but not by ear.
Let me know what you find in this mystery
@j_liljedahl said: "Or are you saying that other channels already do sound, but the M1 channel does not even though the channel meter says there is audio?". Yes, that is the situation. And it's been happening both with the 4i4 for quite a while and now the 18i20, and with increasing frequency though (fingers crossed) it seems mysteriously less problematic now.
FWIW, I experience no such issues with iM1 and AUM under iOS 15.
Could you re-do the thread title to be more clear that this is specific to iM1 and IAA in general...and might be specific to your configuration?
@espiegel123 said: ":FWIW, I experience no such issues with iM1 and AUM under iOS 15.
Could you re-do the thread title to be more clear that this is specific to iM1 and IAA in general...and might be specific to your configuration?"
@espiegel123 can I ask what your iPad config is and how many other apps are you able to run through AUM? Thanks.
Well now it's a bit clearer what is or isn't going on I guess that make sense, so done. FWIW the original title could have been better worded to say is Audiobus "a" solution rather than "the" solution. Certainly didn't in any way mean to impune AUM or suggest Audiobus would be overall a better option than AUM in anyway and in any case Audiobus wasn't any sort of solution in this situation.
As you suggest it turns out my troubleshooting has elucidated at least some some problems specific to my config as well as falling into the trap of assuming there was a single issue. I've now identified a few.
Based on the way things were working ( or not working) I began to suspect there was a MIDI component when while monitoring with StreamByter I saw a bunch of random CC data coming from a Studiologic Mixface I use to control AUM faders, mutes,etc. Ultimately that lead to a discovery of some unwanted CC 7 to zero messages that I think were locking the iM1's volume at zero between patch changes . (The iM1 seems to use both CC7 and CC11 to adjust master level and they compete. I've always only used CC11 so I hadn't had CC7 high on my radar initially.) So that explained some but not all of the problems and raised a few questions of MIDI routing in AUM which I'm unclear on, still being new to it's (AUM's) more extensive use.
For example when running an IAA app in an AUM channel/column there is both the virtual iM1 MIDI port and the iM1 Inst @Awhatever destination in the AUM midi grid. Which is best to use and might that choice be more likely to lead to any of these issues? FWIW my experimenting seems to be less buggy when I ignore the iM1 Inst @A destination and use the iM1's virtual one.
The remaining problematic behaviours are:
1) the iM1 (and only iM1) audio still gets periodically lost and requires the iM1 app to be brought to focus to get it back but the crashing and losing the link in AUM seems to have stopped.
2) now I'm noting what seems like a loss of polyphony (like down to 3 or 4 notes) in more heavily layered iM1 patches so that notes are getting clipped out. This never happened beforethe switch to iOS 15/iPad Pro and the switch to mostly AUv3's for the other apps in AUM. Admittedly I'm using more apps in AUM than before and running some hardware audio through where I wasn't before but it doesn't seem to affect anything else and I thought the extra power of a 2021 iPad pro (8G ram model not a 16G model) would be up for it vs my 5th gen iPad plus I'm using a more advanced interface so it's all somewhat disappointing. FWIW the the DSP in AUM is usually in the mid 30's and CPU useage as reported by System Status Pro seems to hover around 20%.
Does that spark any other ideas?
Thanks
Be aware that iM1 always listens to connected hardware. If you have it listening in Omni mode or set to the same channel as your connected midi device and you route that device to iM1 from AUM also, iM1 will receive duplicate events which might impact polyphony.
I use a lot of IAA apps and I haven't run into anything where IAA is performing worse for me in iOS 15. I suspect the other changes in your configuration are more likely to be the issue rather than iOS/IAA compatibility.
@j_liljedahl: re; your comment "Also try different buffer sizes. 48kHz / 512 buffer is a safe bet that all plugins should handle well." SR/buffer set as suggested and SR in the Scarlet 18i20 (3rd gen) set to 48kHz as well, so far no improvement noted.
@espiegel123 thanks so much. Not making any MIDI connections to the M1 (virtual or IAA) in AUM has solved the polyphony issue. I believe I only started making those connections when I started to switch my setup to AUv3 where possible and,as you pointed out, before that the M1 always got it's MIDI and I had no polyphony issues then. I didn't realise making the connection through AUM would duplicate those MIDI signals. It'll be intersting to see how many of the other problems go away with that change, Thanks again.
Cool! Fingers crossed for you.
One more tip. A workaround for when you need to route mode from keyboard through AUM, you can tell iM1 to listen to a different midi channel than the keyboard is set to.
Having iM1 and AUM issue this morning and revisiting this thread. It’s a shame that iM1 behaves so badly in this environment, it has so many useful sounds and in my opinion a really easy navigation to get to those sounds.
But the hassle is having a look elsewhere for other apps that play nice in AUM.
I've been remiss in posting a follow up on this thread... pretty well all of my problems were eventually solved after contacting Apple and they advised (no surprise) totally re-installing iOS and then individually re-installing all the apps. Fortunately the files saved to a backup prior made restoring most of my setup successful. The issues seemed to have been caused by setting up the new iPad pro from a backup of the 2017 iPad so in spite of Apple saying you can do that I wouldn't again. TBH iM1 hasn't misbehaved much since. It very occasionally seems to need to be brought to the forefront after loosing audio out and I think that is only happening when I use another IAA app for audio or any audio app like spotify. Otherwise it seems to play well with everything else I use which is AUv3 on AUM. Which is a relief cause as you say it's a great app when it works.