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Recommended Ipad CPU for ipad based guitar/vocal rig
Hello,
I'm investigating ipad based guitar/vocal processing rigs for live use. I'm thinking an ipad running 3 instances of MixBox--or something comparable: I want to process 2 guitar inputs (dual output guitar) and a vocal mic. At any given time, I'd be using two instances of MixBox (or something similar). I would switch between the mag pickup and piezo pickup effects racks using Audiobus or AUM, controlled via external bluetooth midi.
So my question: Which ipad should I consider? I don't need the latest--I'd like to keep cost down--but I want it to perform well without pushing the ipad too hard. I don't need a lot of plugins running; just enough to get me a decent 50's and 60's rock/country guitar amp sim, with maybe the odd tremelo or fuzz pedal, spring reverb--you get the idea. For the piezo pickup, some eq, and acoustic IR's. Vocals would need delay now and then, and a choice between 2 or 3 styles of reverb, depending on the song; maybe a harmonizer plugin now and then. Everything will be running into my yamaha stagepas, which already has a good sounding reverb, which could take up some of the reverb chores if necessary.
I have more questions, but I'll leave it at this for now. Thanks for any replies!
Comments
Get the most powerful you can afford.
Also I would think about the cost of using an ipad for amp sims and consider offloading that duty to something else.
Totally agree. I picked up an NUX Amp Academy a while back, and to me it’s better than any iPad amp sims.
For someone who has no idea,what is "the cost of using an ipad for amp sims"?
Thanks BroCoast. I've looked in this, and will certainly consider it. I've been using an ipad for backing tracks for years, and have been impressed by its reliablity--hence my interest in going in the ipad direction. Also, I'd have to add a second device to handle vocal processing chores, so the cost benefit shrinks a bit there. But, I'm not married to the idea.
Thanks michael. I believe you, but I'm surprised to hear this, given that these boxes are just low powered computers.
Check out a few YouTube reviews. No one I have watched has a bad word to say about it.
The benefit to an iPad user is that it offloads processing tasks from the iPad.
I'm going to go against the grain so far here. Of current models you can buy new, I think you can totally get away with a regular iPad 9th Generation. Where I wouldn't skimp on is storage space. And, it has a headphone jack.
But, longevity is a competing factor. The 9th Gen is at at or near the cusp of devices that will lose support for later operating systems as time goes on.
With AUM and Loopy Pro (highly recommended IMO) unused effect chains can be bypassed, freeing up almost of the resources they use. Loopy is a little more transparent in the way that it does this, but AUM can work in this way too.
The cost is the processing power needed to run amp sims at low buffer & high sample rate. Considering good sounding amp sim pedals can be had for anything from $30 - $300 often it makes more sense not to burn processing power on that. 🙂
Just a thought.
I played guitar through an iPad Air (1st gen) not long ago and couldn’t complain. Used AUM with Enso, Eos 2 and a few other plugins and still could play without latency.
When it comes to processing power all recent and most medium old iPads are suited to do your task.
I would get a used 200-300€ iPad anytime over an amp sim pedal.
An amp sim pedal might be great but will always stay in its current state. Has limited customisation options. If it has a display then the GUI will most likely suck (unless you get a high price unit). It might only have a mono output. And you might have to get effect pedals with it.
There are a lot of good reasons to go with iPad for that purpose.
As I said above it most likely got decent processing power, a great touch display, countless and always growing affordable host apps and effect plugins, it’s got unlimited customisation options, is very lightweight and with the right apps / plugins can sound fantastic.
With it I would get a proper audio interface (for guitar the Harley Benton MP-500 / Toneshifter Mega or Xtone are great options). Also get a solid iPad stand. I‘m using the K&M one. It’s also great for reading chord sheets / lyrics while playing / singing.
If you need app / plugin recommendations let me know
Personally I would much rather an amp sim pedal than even the best iPad amp sim apps. Even the very cheap (£30) Joyo American pedal is worth a look.
I'm using a Strymon Iridium, and compared to say the Tonex app I would choose the pedal every time. It just sounds better, especially at higher gain. There are other equally great pedals around, from Universal Audio, or the NUX Amp Academy that are definitely worth considering and IMO blow most of the apps available on iPad away.
To my ears most iPad amp sims sound thin and fizzy compared to the much more pleasing tones you get from a pedal. The only apps I would consider equal would be some of the Nembrini ones (Cali Reverb and Faceman especially) and some of the Choptones captures in THU.
The other benefit of using pedals is that there will be no latency issues and pedals are generally much simpler and don't overwhelm the user with endless options.
Not sure if anyone knows it. But the Neural Amp Modeler is coming to iPad very soon:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/neuralampmodeler/permalink/7118716041510491/
It quite possible will be a game changer for guitar tone and is open source
In some tests it’s amp profiling capabilities were better than Kemper etc.
On Tonehunt you can get hundreds of free amp models and IRs:
https://tonehunt.org/all
I’m quite excited about it.
So far I’m getting very warm and realistic results with Tone Deluxe and Nembrinis Klon plugin before.
When played through bigger size speakers it sounds very Fender amp like.
Thank you jacou! I may well do that. It's nice to hear someone has had had success with this concept. I am currently running a backing track/lyric & chord app on my ipdad called OnSong. My thought was to place midi commands in my songs and bluetooth them to my guitar/vocal rig via MidiMittr. Or, I could place all my apps on one ipad and use audiobus to send my midi commands to AUM or some such. I like the thought of everything living on one ipad; on the other hand, I need a back-up ipad, so I'll already have two, and spreading the chores between two ipads might be the safer way to go. What do you think?
Correction: I don't think I'd need MidiMittr for the first scenario.
If you use two iPads for your regular setup then you no longer have a backup iPad. You would still have to have a working standalone setup on each of the iPads in order to have a backup.
Thanks richardyot; I will check this pedal out. There seems to be a fairly strong consensus that pedals sound better. The problem is I am trying to process a dual output guitar, and my vocals. The NUX pedal michael_m suggested is very appealing price wise, but I'm not sure it could get me the acoustic processing I'm after for the piezo out on my guitar. So that would mean two pedals, and a third device for my vocals, and possibly a fourth device to route midi to them all. Doable, but not desirable. I could use a foot pedal splitter to route the mag and piezo's to a single input on a pedal, but I'd rather not. The Helix line 6 can do everything I want, but it's too expensive, and much too big and heavy. The headrush core could work, but it's also quite big. Something in between these two would work, if it existed. I might be able to do it with some clever routing on a HX Stomp. I've looked at some of the more affordable multi effects boxes, but I run into lack of inputs. Many pedals lack midi in for automation, which is a deal breaker for what I'm trying to achieve.
As far as sound quality goes, I can live with good as opposed to great, and I don't need saturated distortion tones.
Re-amping is also trickier with an outboard pedal. If you're recording already amped input, re-amping is out of the question. If you record dry and send to the pedal that way, you have to have a way to record the dry signal, then make an FX loop.
Of course, fully committing to audio, and not getting tied up in endless tone tweaking has some definite advantages. But personally I like to keep my options open sometimes.
And unless you have a midi controllable pedal, you're reduced to twiddling dials for even live tone adjustments per song.
I don't know if that matters much to you but the pedal will still be working well in 30 years. The iPad will need replacing in max 7 years. Probably more like 5 years.
I'm actually just using one ipad right now, for backing tracks, and an acoustic guitar & a vocal mic straight into a yamaha stagepas. It works great, but my tone palette is limited, so I"m looking to move to electric guitar, with effects. I could plug my electric and mic straight into the yamaha if one ipad failed, and provided I had backing tracks on both ipads, I could get through a show just playing clean guitar. (Of course, I could also have a one ipad-stand alone setup, with a second standalone ipad backup on the ready to be plugged in should the first fail, so I guess my point is a kinda moot. )
Oh cool OnSong. Yeah I’m also using OnSong while playing electric guitar through AUM in the background - controlling everything with my feet thtough the Harley Benton MP-500. Couldn’t be happier with that setup
As I wrote before my guitar goes through the Nembrini Clon Minotaur AUv3 then through the Tone Deluxe (Fender style amp sim - input gain fairly low as it’s distortion isn’t very pleasant) and after that it goes into a delay bus and reverb bus.
I aligned everything I need to the 8 midi foot pedals of the MP-500 and two extra expression pedals plugged into it.
I couldn’t recommend that setup more
Perfect jacou! Thanks for your input. I'm going to try a slightly different configuration, in that I'll be adding a vocal mic to the mix, and imbedded midi in my backing track instead of foot pedals. (I don't think I need expression pedals, but that's something to consider.) I may try Stage Traxx instead of OnSong as it has an option I've been wanting for years: the ability to mark sections of the backing track, and loop them for as long as you like. So if you see people get up to dance just as your song is about to end, you can hit a midi pedal and repeat the last chorus, or whatever. I really like OnSong, and I've sent them a request to add this feature, so we'll see what happens.
Yeah those Joyo pedals sound good. I find for live guitar it’s better to have the sound taken care of by something you can absolutely rely on outside of iOS.
The main advantage for me is I can run at a buffer setting of 128, monitor time based fx sends, have no latency on my guitar at all and still very playable iOS instruments (around 5ms latency) with plenty of headroom.
If I was using Tonex or other apps I would want to get the RTL down to a minimum which means almost dedicating the iPad entirely to just being an amp sim.
Good point.
I think you mean the Sound Master? Not trying to be picky, just wanna save the OP some time finding it if they're interested.
Thanks @wim but I actually meant Tone Deluxe by Julien Faure. I’ll correct that.
https://apps.apple.com/app/tone-deluxe/id1559352936
The demands of audio are not great, relatively speaking. In theory, I agree with wim that just about any iPad can do what you want. Last year's back-to-school model would be a good choice - because it's cheaper, but you can still upgrade the software for a few years.
However, while I've been using an iPad to make music at home since 2012 (probably 3 different iPads in that time), I still don't use an iPad onstage for anything except set notes and sheet music. I don't want to be that guy on stage cursing at his iPad.
I’ve been using iPads in practice rooms and stages since 2018 and never had a problem. In my experience it’s more reliable than other computing devices. As long as you don’t forget to charge it beforehand 😄
This has been my experience too. Once, at an outdoor gig in direct sun during a record high heatwave, it overheated and shut down. But that was a stupid situation I won't let myself get into again. Now, I'm only running OnSong, so we'll see how it goes with the more complex set up I propose. I'm going to test it out. I'll report back when I've had some experience working with it. If it doesn't work out, I've got some good input here re pedal solutions. Thanks to all!