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The more things change....
I stopped using my iPhone studio when Apple took away the headphone jack. I held on for as long as I could, but eventually had to upgrade. Without both the Lightning connector and the separate headphone jack I was dead in the water. Bluetooth (at the time) had way too much latency. I've recently gotten interested again, but am finding that so much has changed that nothing I used to do seems to work. I upgraded to AB3, but my core apps (iReal Pro, MultiTrack DAW, AUFX, AudioReverb) just don't seem to want to play nice. Rather than going through the brambles of trying to debug all of this (which seems a little pointless since I still can't use my original hardware setup) I thought I'd ask if perhaps there have been major changes in the last, say, five years that make it necessary or advisable to start from scratch. What I want to do is play backing tracks (iReal Pro,) play my horn through a mic (originally a Tascam stereo mic that plugged into the Lightning connector,) run the horn through effects, and then send all that to MultiTrack DAW to record while monitoring through headphones.
Has Apple somehow made all this obsolete in an effort to protect Garage Band? I notice that AUFX hasn't updated in over two years. Have the developers that I used simply dropped out? (I know that Multitrack DAW is still current and active.) Why does opening up one of my old saved presets in AB3 seem to stumble so much? Apps don't open. Nothing seems to work together.
I'm running iOS 16 on an iPhone 14, by the way.
What happened in the five years I was asleep?
Comments
Trump. YMMV.
The best solution is a USB-C hub with all the required ports. I like this one:
I get a headphone port, USB-C Power Delivery port (i.e. Input power), 2 USB-A ports female for all my legacy audio and MIDI controller devices, HDMI and an SD card slot. The gotcha is that its electronics requires upgrading from the default 20W power adapter to 60W to be able to power the iPad and support the Anker electronics for all those extra ports. Knowing I might connect a USB-A power hub I picked out a 100W USB-C Adapter to avoid finding some limit with a lot connected.
I Velco’ed the Anker Hub to my Smart Keyboard case to provide strain relief for the critical USB-C Connector into the iPad. I used it without the Velcro for several months and started to notice wear and tear on the USB cable where it joins at the iPad and hung at a 90º angle. The headphone connectivity started to become intermittent.
It’s much better with the added Velcro and a relaxed USB-C connection. All the extra cable clutter is also behind the screen when I add the extra devices too.
Lately, I have had to unplug the Anker to plug in my new Sennheiser Ambeo Headset and I have ordered an Anker USB-A male to Lightning female adapter to see if that works to use the Sennheiser’s while also powering the iPad. Conflict between the Anker headphone port and the Sessnhesier Lightning audio maybe an issue.
It seems like the main change for you is the widespread availability of apps as plugins in the AUv3 format while IAA (the old way of connecting apps) has been deprecated. It still generally works, but how well it works is a bit of a gamble and varies from app to app. The AUFX bundle itself, for instance, was re-released as a new set of AUv3-enabled apps: https://apps.apple.com/app-bundle/au3fx-1-4/id1608703945.
I would recommend sticking with AUv3 plugins as opposed to standalone apps both for stability and easier recall; you should be covered with AB3 and AudioReverb at least.
Yes. And IAA apps sometimes need to be opened before connecting to them in AB3 or AUM. It seems like launching them from a host app can result in incomplete initialization. I guess that's part of IAA being deprecated. Pre-launching could be a little difficult when loading a saved session, though.
The great thing about AUv3 apps is that their state is saved in an AB3 preset, so everything reloads exactly as it was saved.
Seems unlikely.
Your needs are covered by using just one DAW app of choice that has audio tracks and internal effects, for recording your horn and playing backing tracks. This simplifies one’s workflow. Roland Zenbeats would be my choice and its internal effects are top notch. Multitrack DAW is also very good but with a different take on GUI, nowadays support AUv3 hence you can still use AUFX but you need the the upgraded versions. The latter might be the way to go if you don’t want a new workflow and just want to focus on your music.
I agree with earlier posts, the difference you are experiencing is most likely the move to AUv3 instead of IAA.
Good luck, and share some music when you get your setup working!
/DMfan🇸🇪
Thank you for all the great comments. I'll explore this and hopefully get back into the swing of things.
Do you know McD if there is a 3.5mm to lightning female adapter that would allow one to connect the ambeos to the headphone jack on a lightning device, so it could be charged while using the ambeos?
I looked for such an adapter and did not find one. I will test this when it arrives with my Lightning iPad and a CCK adapter to add a power connection for the iPad:
OP uses an iPhone 14, that still has a Lightning port. Recommending a USB C hub is obviously not a solution. Nevertheless, you’re mentioning the Sennheiser Ambeo headset. I have this headphones too and want to use it with my iPad Pro that has USB C. I’ve seen two options, an Anker USB C to female Lightning and a UGREEN USB C to female Lightning. Both companies claim that it will work with the Sennheiser Ambeo Headset also for recording but at the review section of Amazon I see many different opinions about this. One person says it works fine, another claims that it will only record in mono and so on. What’s your experience thus far? It’s a bummer that Apple didn’t make a proper USB C to female Lightning adapter (well, they have one but that’s for charging an Apple Pencil for the iPad 10th gen, doesn’t support audio).
GarageBand needs protection?