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Questions for fellow Apple silicon mac users.
Yesterday was my first experience with Apple silicon, having just received my M1 Pro MBP. So far, so great! — obviously blown away by the performance, along with everything else about this fabulous machine.
I was surprised to see so many of my previous iPad purchases were available, including numerous music apps I’d like to start using within a desktop DAW environment.
Do I need to use an application like Loopback or Blackhole to route the audio from the iPad emulation layer, into Bitwig or Ableton? Also do external midi controllers work with these apps? (I won’t be near my midi hardware to test it for a few days)
I wonder if it’d be possible for someone to make an AU of VST3 plugin container to host iOS apps, or if Apple’s sandboxing eliminates that option.
Comments
For routing the audio from your iPad to your desktop, you don't need Blackhole or Loopback.
You can use the Apple included IDAM driver, which is extremely limited. Because you only will have a dedicated network midi bus and one stereo audio channel that can only be set at a 44.1 hHz samplerate. Also, you can only route audio in one direction, from your iPad to your Mac.
The second option is a paid one, Studiomux, at only 10 euros in the app store. It's like IDAM, but on steroids. You have up to 8 separated stereo outputs. You can use any samplerate that you want, so you're not limited to 44.1 kHz. You can route audio in both directions, including from your computer to your iPad. And all the IAC midi buses that you create with your Mac will be visible in your iPad. So you can have an unlimited number of extra midi buses, to sequence an infinite number of iOS instruments and effects from your preferred desktop DAW.
Blackhole and Loopback are useful if you want to route audio between Mac apps.
They're similar, but Loopback includes a dedicated audio driver which is extremely powerful. It will force you to disable the security boot in your M1 Mac, be aware. Because it's considered a third party kernel.
Only with Loopback you will be able to route IAA audio apps installed on your Mac, like FieldScaper. But if you only want to route audio between various Mac DAWS, you're fine with Blackhole.
There isn't really an iOS emulation layer to run iPad applications on the M1 Macs. The libraries to run them were ported to macOS and that's really all that's needed because the underlying OS and executable format is really the same on both macOS and iOS. macOS supports the same type of sandboxing too.
The problem with Live and Bitwig is that they don't support the AUv3 format plugins which is the new standard plugin format on the Mac. I've heard somewhere that AUv3 support is supposed to be coming to Live (maybe it's already out?).
DAW's that do support the AUv3 format include Logic, GarageBand, MainStage, and Reaper. There are some smaller utility hosts that do as well.
IAA isn't supported on the Mac at all, not even for MacCatalyst apps.
If you have an interface with either software or hardware loopback, you could use that on the Mac to route a standalone iOS app's audio to your DAW too. The MOTU M4 does this for example with a loopback in the driver.
It should be possible to build a container AU that hosts AUv3 apps and make them available to non-AUv3 capable hosts. I don't know of any that do that though. Hosting AU is a small AUv3 host that works fine with sandboxed AUv3 plugins. They suggest on their website that you can use Soundflower to route the audio from Hosting AU to other DAW's. I haven't tried this myself, so I have no idea if it works.
Apparently Loopback and their Audio Capture Engine both work on M1 macs (at least w/ Big Sur)
(edit) Sorry, i was confused at first about the IAA Audio comments — So the application has to support IAA for Loopback to work? I might have been under the mistaken impression that it works with most any application or system process that produced audio on mac.
Thanks for that idea! My Motu Ultralite Mk4 might actually be able to do that — haven’t been able to try yet. Ultralite Mk5 definitely supports loopback, so it’s a good possibility. That’ll save a $100 gamble on the Loopback app if it works,
I often use IDAM for streaming iPad audio to my mac. I was referring to running iOS apps directly on mac, as M1/M1 Max/M1 Pro macs allow you to do. (so long as the developer allows it)
ok, thanks! I think that might answer it — Ok, if I’m understanding correctly, Audio Capture Engine from the same developer of Loopback is the application that requires kernal modification, but will allow routing audio from nearly anything, even apps that don’t explicitly support IAA?
I probably wouldn’t have any security concerns using it, since it’s a dedicated music production computer, with nothing sensitive on it. I just hope it wouldn’t create any system instability …seems like it’d be worth it if it works well, especially as much as I love to sample
appreciate your help and feedback!
All the applications from Rogue Amoeba include the same audio driver that requires to disable the secure boot. All of them are very similar, but for music production, I recommend Loopback.
It's a bit tricky to configure InterApp audio between apps, specially if you want the possibility of sending an audio signal for using it as an effect, and sending the processed audio at the same time as an output.
In my configuration, with Loopback, I have created 4 virtual channels (for a total of 2 stereo signals). I have disconnected all the cables from the routing, to not have audio feedback.
Then, in the sound configuration of my Mac, I have selected this Loopback virtual device as the default input, instead of the microphone. iOS apps in Mac will always use the default input.
Now open the universal iOS app that you want to use. Loopback will give you the option to add this device in the input sections. Route its audio signal to the channels 3 and 4, because 1 and 2 will be used as inputs. And be sure of disconnect the Pass-Thru cables. In this way the app will not sound in your speakers, because you want to use your DAW for this purpose.
With the Midi Audio setup application included in the Mac, I have created an aggregated device, including my speakers, my microphone, but also this virtual Loopback device.
And I use this new aggregated device as the main input device and the main output device in Bitwig.
Creating two input channels, that coincide with the first channels of the Loopback virtual device.
In this way, all the audio that I send inside Bitwig to these channels, will be interpreted as a microphone in the iPad.
Using the two other channels for sending the resulting audio to my speakers through Bitwig. In a way in which I can apply extra effects or record the audio.
Yes, you can use Blackhole to route audio between macOS apps. I’d try that first before spending money or disabling security features, it’s likely that everything will work just fine.
There are indeed apps which are using a wrapper to make themselves available in non-AUv3 DAWs, for example Moog‘s Model 15 and Animoog Z, and miRack.
You can route audio between Mac apps using Blackhole, only if they let you to select the output interface. For Mac apps designed for music production, this is not a problem. For example, you can route the audio from Bespoke Synth to any DAW. Because Bespoke Synth lets you to choose the Blackhole driver as its output.
The problem is when you're trying to route the audio of an app without this option to your DAW. For example, Spotify, to do a measurement comparison of its audio levels with your track. Or for example, most of the iOS apps that are compatible with M1 Macs.
An option with Blackhole is to select the main audio output of your Mac to Blackhole, and then choose your studio monitors or speakers as the output in the DAW. But in my experience, with this, the resulting audio signal is incredibly degraded in its volume level.
And to do a double routing to an iOS app like FieldScaper is impossible. If you choose Blackhole as the main input in you Mac, it will take the 2 first channels. When you select Blackhole as the main output, it will also take the two first channels.
I had installed Blackhole, and only this week I purchased Loopback, for this concrete use. I needed to do a double routing, sending a signal of audio to FieldScaper for using its live loop mode, and then sending the resulting audio signal to Bitwig. It was impossible.
But unless you need to use an advanced configuration like this, such as using some old iOS app that used InterApp Audio in the effect slot, Blackhole is a great option. I have used it for months.
People say that AudioBus is less useful now that AUM and suchlike also exist, but…
…imagine if there were a future version of actual AudioBus (on iOS and on macOS) which also did what IDAM did but far far better, and in ways useful for iPad iPhone and M-series Mac owners of synthy stuff