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Solution for Midi busses between Mac and iPad. RTP-MIDI?
Recently I got deeper into integrating my iPad with my Mac running Bitwig. ATM moment I‘m using my iConnect Audio 2+ for audio and Midi busses. The iCA2+ offers two bidirectional Midi busses between the devices. But if you need to control a lot of plugins it might be not enough. Especially when modulating the iPad plugins with CCs.
User @Pynchon is using Studiomux for that: creating many IAC Midi busses on the Mac and then Studiomux makes them available to the iPad. This works well even if Studiomux is connected just with WiFi. But I do not really trust in Studiomux. I have random crashes of the app and its primary use case (making iOS audio plugins available to the desktop) is also not working well for me when under load.
Are there any good and stable alternatives for Midi busses?
Comments
Check out Apple's IDAM - "Inter Device Audio MIDI". It runs over the Lightning or USB-C port (IOS) to a USB port (Mac) cable.
One finger to point at and support for future releases.
Yeah, I know IDAM but I think it offers only one Midi bus not multiple.
You can use multiple MIDI channels to carry more data over on MIDI bus. Eventually there'll be a limit on data rate, of course. And it can be a pain sorting out the channel data.
@krassmann have you tried an ethernet adapter and RTP midi?
ymmv depending how your local network is already set up. Might need some isolation. The more isolated, the better.
@AlmostAnonymous if it is possible to create more than one Network Session between two devices it would be a solution. Good idea. I forgot about that. Rock solid OS functionality. I will try that this evening. I think it should also be possible with USB networking, shouldn’t it?
You won’t be able to have more than 1 port. The only solution is upgrading to iconnectmidi4+ ou audio4c. It allows for a lot more ports (i think 9 for each jack). The audio 4c can also send 9 stereo channels through usb. I think its the best option right now !
If you’re dealing with midi only, maybe midimux is worth a look.
Unless you need MPE , or more than 16 instruments , 1 port is enough (16 channels)
Midimux had been replaced by the new Studiomux - it’s gone from the AppStore. My iCA2+ also delivers 9 stereo or 18 mono audio channels, so I would have to do a pricey upgrade only for the Midi. That’s why I’m looking for another way. RTP-Midi sounds really promising. Are you sure it’s only one possible port? From reading the MacOS documentation I believe it can be more ports, so is this a limitation of iOS?
https://iconnectivity.supportbee.io/53-iconnectivity-knowledgebase/534-midi/10577-how-do-i-create-an-rtp-midi-network
Okay, let me sketch out my plan a bit more detailed:
I just don’t want to wait anymore until iOS DAWs catch up with desktop but I still want to use my iOS plugins. I‘m trying to control every plugin loaded in AUM from Bitwig on my Mac - for that I need a lot of independent channels. My plan is to create Bitwig remote control presets for my most important iOS plugins. I configured my iCA2+ so that I have the maximum numbers of audio channels from iPad to Mac, which is 18 mono channels.
So, if mono is enough I can have 18 channels in AUM each with a synth and some fx plugins. Let’s say I have in average three fx plugins per channel, that makes it 4x18 = 72 plugins to control by Bitwig. Honestly to have a clear separation I‘d like to have one Midi port or bus per AUM channel and then each plugin on that channel on a different Midi channel so I have no conflicting CCs no matter how I combine my plugins.
sidenote, for the audio part watch Sonobus app (free) , for streaming audio via ethernet . Currently it doesn't support saving a local setup ,meaning you have to reconfigure the connection everytime ,which is frustrating ,but you can have as many stereo audio channels as your ethernet connection can handle (bandwith)
RTP-Midi supports one port on iOS so you are still limited to 16 channels
a workaround would be BT midi for adding 16 channels for controlling the FX (which is not time critical)
But still you need more channels
StudioMux is buggy on Windows 10 (the new version) , worth trying and if it doesn't work get a refund (there is no support, only a ghost-town-forum)
But , are you sure you will use 72 plugins at the same time ?
I thing studiomux is quite stable for midi. Things are getting sketchy with audio.
You still have an alternative with MusicIO
https://apps.apple.com/fr/app-bundle/musicio-audio-upgrade/id1098348255
I know Sonobus. Yeah, looks promising. But I think for now the iCA+ is enough for my evaluation and it’s very stable and hasslefree.
Alright, then I can leave out trying that. Thanks.
It is also not stable on MacOS. Audio has glitches when under load.
LOL, I also don’t know if this is feasible but I wanna try. Probably I don’t need to control all plugins at the same time. Bitwig has got the concept of hybrid Midi and audio channels which is a more fine grained track freeze. Instead of playing everything live it’s probably better to make use of that.
Note that rtpMIDI is exactly the same thing that IAC MIDI. It's a Windows implementation of the Apple MIDI protocol.
Specially useful if for example, you want to create a Windows virtual machine using Crossover in your M1 Mac, using this for running old VST 32 bits plugins that are no longer compatible with MacOS. I experimented with this, creating a Windows bottle with Crossover, installing Bitwig in Windows, using Jack Audio in this bottle for low latency audio, and then routing the audio through Loopback. With rtPMIDI, it was feasible to make visible the IAC MIDI buses created in the Mac.
But back on topic, there is no sense in looking to rtpMIDI if you're in a Mac, because you already have the official Apple implementation.
Also, if you are using Bitwig only for sequencing, why do you need more than a stereo audio channel?
It's more simple, create a master bus in AUM. And then route the sound of this master bus to Bitwig.
Routing only the master bus audio signal to Bitwig, and using the IAC MIDI buses via a direct Thunderbolt connection between my Mac and my iPad, i never had a problem with studiomux.
I will remark the part of the direct connection: don't use a HUB in your Mac. Most of them will not pass enough power to the iPad, leading to disconnections.
@jazzmess thanks for mentioning MusicIO - I didn’t know it.
True, I’ve seen that the RTP-Midi machines can connect to a Mac. I just learned that iOS supports only one bus over the network. Can you confirm this?
I want to use the normal audio routing and mixing in Bitwig. Moreover I think about using Bitwig‘s hybrid tracks to „freeze“ the Midi to audio. But I think it is more convenient to have a dedicated channel for each instrument. I also want to use my DAW controller to control Bitwig‘s mixer.
@krassman I can confirm it's only 1 network port. You can connect to as many streams as yo7 want, but it's all merged as there's only 1 pipe in and out of iOS. As stated above, unless you're doing MPE, 16 channels should be enough. You can still do all the routing, filtering, etc on the iOS side.
@krassmann : In iOS, all the MIDI buses created via the IAC protocol are routed to a generic network MIDI bus in iOS.
The only way that I have found of making them visible as individual MIDI buses is Studiomux.
For freezing tracks, you can create a dedicated audio bus in AUM, connecting this bus to Bitwig via studiomux.
And then, when you want to 'freeze' a track in AUM, temporally send the audio of this track to the bus, recording the audio signal in Bitwig.
But it's also possible to record the individual track inside AUM, and then sending the resulting audio file to the Mac, via AirDrop.
If you only want to send audio in one direction, from AUM to Bitwig, Studiomux is reliable.
But it sucks when you try to route audio in both directions, and the FX insert option is a mess.
If you are absolutely desperate about processing a Bitwig track with an iOS effect, and sending back the audio to Bitwig, the only reliable way that I have found is to combine Sonobus and Studiomux. With Sonobus, I send the audio from Bitwig to AUM, applying the effect. And then, I send the audio back to Bitwig using Studiomux.
Too much of a hassle, until the point that I have simply opted for buying again the desktop versions of effects like Blackhole Reverb or Velvet Machine. And honestly, the only iOS effect that I currently miss on Mac is Rymdigare.
By the way, one of the confusing things of Bitwig is that it doesn't exist a 'freeze' track option.
Instead, you need to use the bounce in place function. First, add the track to a Group. Then, create an audio of this group with the bounce in place function. And then, you can completely deactivate the included track using the panel from the right.
It's confusing coming from other DAWs, but the good thing of this method is that you can easily deactivate the audio of the group and activate the track with the effects if you need to do some modifications.
RTP is a MIDI spec, not a windows or apple spec. RTP and IAC aren't the same. IAC is designed for midi between apps on the same device. RTP is designed for midi between different devices. IAC doesn't use the IP stack.
Wow, welcome to the 21st century. How far have we come from the "pick up a guitar and start playing" state of things 😀
These days you need to read a white paper to be sure that the technology is capable of serving all the subtleties of creating sound!
Very interesting thread BTW.
I, for one, welcome our new (insert techy 3 letter acronym) overlords.
The thing is that network MIDI is already implemented in MacOS out the box. And the IAC buses created will appear in other devices with the network MIDi implementation.
Hence my point, that using RTP MIDI on Windows won't change the result. All the MIDI ports created via the rtpMIDI app or the MIDI configuration tool in Mac, will be routed to a generic network bus port on iOS.
Unless you use an application such as Studiomux, which is able to make them visible individually.
@Pynchon Correct. There is only 1 network port on iOS. The midi coming in/out of the network port is the same. The protocols used to get that information to and from the single network port are different with IAC and RTP.
Since Krassman is not interested in studiomux, I was only talking out of the box solutions, and I have 0 issues with RTP via a (ethernet) cable. WiFi can be dodgy if your network isnt set up right or chatter kept to a minimum/not existent.
Edit: granted, all of that is dependent if he has a way to get the audio out of the ipad.
The only proper way to manage this is the following with audio4c
- record midi clips in bitwig with the midi controller to attached to pc, using Hw instrument device
- sending midi data (MPE hence the need for more ports) from those clips from ports of usb jack 1 (PC) to Usb jack 2 (ipad)
- AUM is set to receive midi from each port, and routes the resulting audio back to each jack.
- send audio data from usb Jack 2 to usb Jack 1, thanks to the HW instrument.
It just works and I really dont need more than 8-9 channel, plus the ones I can add on the pc. Crazy stuff !!!
I don’t bother with effects in Ios, its just easier to implement them with desktop versions in Bitwig. I never managed to set up an effect loop in bitwig with ipads.
@krassmann
I don't think you will need for all effects automation but still with one midi channel you have more than 100 CC per channel available
with one channel you can control the synth (notes and CCs) , plus effects (plenty CCs)
I reread your post (" The iCA2+ offers two bidirectional Midi busses between the devices.")
I think you are good to go with 32 midi channels and >3200 midi CCs
Thank you for all the interesting ideas. I think I need some more experimenting with different approaches. But right now I think that I would not like to sequence on the Mac but mix in AUM. And yes, the more I think about the more I believe two Midi busses is enough. So I think I try to solve my puzzle just using my iCA2+. I can keep you posted of my experiences.
Please do !!