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Two iPads, MIDI, and a controller: a tale of woe
Ok. I know this has been brought up a lot, and I deeply apologize for the very lengthy dredging and hand-waving I'm about to go into. But I need to do this braindump and see if there are any new, coordinated ideas on this.
Preamble
Here goes:
The thing that stands between me and really getting things done is a control scheme that in ways replicates what I used to have in a hardware studio. And I've been fiddling around with a lot of options, none of which are in the Goldilocks Zone.
I love a good hardware interface. Mostly endless rotary controllers, because faders can't be preset unless they're motorized, and that's expensive. LED rings are helpful. Endless isn't necessary if the values can be preset/uploaded, but that preset feature is essential, because I don't want the value "jump" that occurs when you take over a synth with a control that's in an arbitrary starting position. All of which means "feedback".
This is the MidiFighter Twister. It's also potentially a couple of other things, but they're either rare, or expensive, or vaporware. The Beatstep Pro lack critical features, and the new Behringer widget doesn't exist yet. And I like the MidiFighter just fine... I just wish it also had labels, because I need that visual feedback.
So, now I get into control surfaces on the iPad... partly to get something responding to the MidiFighter (or something else) in a visual way, partly to be able to "snapshot" states of the control so I can start mixes consistently, for example. And partly to consider not using the MidiFighter at all, but stick with touch controls entirely... which in turn solves the "flying fader" problem.
There really are only three options here, as far as I know:
Surface Builder
I really like Surface Builder and have gotten pretty far with it. I wish I could copy/paste control sets from one instance to another, but that's a quibble. It's also not beautiful, but that's not a terribly important consideration. It has a few irksome limitations in control configuration.
And it has one maddening lack: throughput. I can send it control, which makes its knobs wiggle, but those wiggling knobs don't in turn send the changing values out to their synth targets. This means I have to work out an even more complicated topology, to integrate multiple controllers and targets, with feedback.
Also, it can't control itself. I can't, for example, include an X/Y pad on a surface with knobs, and have the pad wiggle the knobs, as well as send its values.
Loopy Pro
It still baffles me that when you load LP onto a MIDI track in AUM (which, btw, is my main work area), it seems to include the whole thing, including the audio features.
Be that as it may, it solves several of the issues with Surface Builder. It does throughput and feedback, and even self-control. It can produce multiple results with a single gesture. Editing that particular feature is a little wonky... if you decide you don't like one of the elements of the chain, you don't seem to be able to remove it, but have to start again. But I can live with it.
It's UI, though, is a limiting factor. The rotary elements only respond to "up"? I'm probably missing something there. You can't change the font size on the labels, or arbitrarily resize the rotaries. So if I want to really see what I'm tweaking, I need to add a layer of text labels to each element. Again, not a deal-breaker, but an annoyance.
I hate the fader elements. They're too wide. The spacing between elements is fixed, so I can't get things as compact as I'd like. The stage has elements I'd like to hide because they have no use. Etc. kvetch, whine.
TouchOSC
This thing is a monster, and it is monstrous to work with. The potential is fantastic, but the programming UI is janky as hell, the deeper scripting features have no thorough documentation, and the weirdest things turn out to be scripting features, as opposed to directly accessible controls. I really really want to love and use this thing, but it keeps telling me, in effect "talk to the hand."
Also, and this is the really important bit: it's not AUV3 and never will be. So I have to have this as a separately running app to work with my project, and can't see the synths and workstation I'm actually playing. This is a great argh to me.
MIDI Designer
Ick.
The heart of the matter
Anyway... so even if I stick with one of the two AU options, Surface and Loopy, it takes up a lot of screenspace, and maybe there's some merit in doing all the control on another iPad. Great. As it happens, I have two of those.
Buuuuut one of them is kinda old, and whenever I try to set up a bluetooth connection between them it barfs, apparently this might be because the older one can't do bluetooth MIDI, and the "network connection" thing is weird and inconsistent and for crying out loud why can't I just MIDI the stupid things together?
Which - aside from welcoming any and all thoughts and jeers in response to all the above - is really the question I have.
I have a Hyperdrive hub. It powers the newer iPad and provides four USB ports, to which I can attach MIDI controllers, an external headphone DAC, and so on. Works like a charm. But if I connect the other iPad into that hub, they don't talk to each other?
So how the heck do I do this? How do I get two iPads to acknowledge each other's existence and communicate, and transfer MIDI over wire, not Wifi? And just for yucks, is it possible to keep them powered while doing this?
The only thing I can think of, that I haven't explicitly tried yet, is to put something like the Hyperdrive on both of them (I don't know if something like it exists for the older model), and jack both their USB ports into a third device... a MIDI USB hub? I dunno. And who's the host in such an arrangement? I guess maybe the hub? I dunnnooooo.
Has anyone worked this out? Do you have a setup doing this?
Comments
Will re-read later and post ( maybe try setups )
Aum advertises bluetooth?
I rememeber surface builder had an nfm mode ( or resolution mode ) which isnt what you asking but think it were to alleviate knob value issues etc, when mapped to others. Or screen knob tweaking isnt that great anyway but seemed ok with the additional mode and perhaps is also ok in loopy.
If all this fails.
Sequencing via blutooth might actually be better, then a page of knobs etc.
Then again sequencing plus knobs etc, would be better still.
See questions inline. There may be some misunderstandings
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Writing a new plugin that has stuff stripped out would be a major undertaking. With so much work being done to add core functionality, it probably isn’t likely to happen in the near to mid term.
Can you demonstrate what you mean? Anywhere in loopy where there are lists of things, you can slide left on a list element to delete it.
Can you explain more about what you mean?
I do prefer the haptics of hardware interfaces to touchscreens too. There are some hardware controllers that might be interesting for you. Both the Novation Launchpad Mini MK3 and the Behringer X-Touch mini are in my opinion fairly affordable and offer a good feature set. And it is no heavy stuff - easily fits into a daypack
While the LP-mini has the usual colorful LED pads and buttons, the Behringer X-Touch mini features 8 encoders with push operation, one fader and 16 buttons.
In the picture below I use both to control two sequencers on my iPad: The Launchpad connects to Prism, and the X-Touch mini controls Mozaic scripts.
When you load an AUv3 into a host, the app is loaded as a separate iOS process. The app then creates a separate data object for each instance of the AUv3. There is only one copy of the program to handle all the instances. LP cannot know how many instances you intend, so it must load all of itself, even to handle a single MIDI instance. Loading the AUv3 as a MIDI Effect just tells it what ports the host will use to communicate with it.
You can get midi going between two (and only two) devices over USB, and you can use a hub for this. The catch is one device must be attached to the host port of the hub and the other to a guest port. See: https://wiki.audiob.us/doku.php?id=loopy_pro_direct_midi_between_two_ios_devices
With a Lightning device, to provide power to the "host port" device you need a USB 3 Lightning adapter, and a second Lightning cable to deliver the power. (Power can't both work over the USB data connection.) The "guest" device can receive power from the hub if it's a powered hub.
You don't have to use a hub. You can connect directly over the USB cable. If the host device is receiving power it may have enough juice to power the second device.
I'm not up on how all this works with USB-C iPads. I know it can work, just not how.
Another option to consider is Network Session over wired Ethernet. USB ethernet adapters are fairly inexpensive. With an ethernet adapter on each device, you can connect the two together with a Ethernet cable and they should talk to one another. In rare cases an ethernet "crossover" cable might be needed.
I believe you could actually make use of two hubs in this situation. Both would be connected by the host port to the iOS device. The ethernet adapters would be connected to the hub as "guests". I think in this situation you could then connect other USB MIDI devices to the hubs. They would only be able to talk directly to the device hosting the hub, but the host on the device should be able to route the midi to the other iPad.
I've always been curios whether more devices could be made to work with each other using a network switch, but don't have the stuff needed to test.
Thank you all, especially for un-confusing me on some aspects of Loopy.
I definitely need to try some of the connectivity options offered.
I finally got it working. I’m not entirely sure what the magic gestures were, so I’m going to have to replicate it a few times to make sure I’ve got it down. But I was able to find a Bluetooth connection in the Network MIDI settings in AUM on both devices. It “took” after a bunch of fiddling around and I think the solution may have been getting midimttr to communicate… but as I say, I’m not entirely sure.
But at least I know it’s possible. So I really can get the dual surface I want.
Have you looked at the Behringer X Touch and/or the expander and mini variants thereof? Motorised faders, user configurable scribble strips, scene recording… out now, and have been for some time.
https://www.gear4music.com/Keyboards-and-Pianos/Behringer-X-Touch-Universal-Control-Surface/XOY?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD_kjLSJsVaOdqK29oiPe5-nKYRtD&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlvW2BhDyARIsADnIe-LssVtMeauqCDZ7t0lNef7AUwgDXYi1lHVPg-P6JIO9-UhCU0IOxz0aAmIIEALw_wcB
https://www.gear4music.com/Recording-and-Computers/Behringer-X-Touch-Compact-Universal-USB-MIDI-Controller/XOZ?_gl=1*1w98cyt*_up*MQ..&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlvW2BhDyARIsADnIe-LssVtMeauqCDZ7t0lNef7AUwgDXYi1lHVPg-P6JIO9-UhCU0IOxz0aAmIIEALw_wcB&gbraid=0AAAAAD_kjLSJsVaOdqK29oiPe5-nKYRtD
I have looked at those and similar. Perhaps I should again, but at the moment their form factor doesn’t quite conform to the inside of my skull, if you know what I mean. I do wish Behringer would get their BCR32 to market. That thing might just do the trick.
The quest for controller perfection is such a fraught expedition.
To connect two MIDI hosts, you can use a special piece of hardware like this : 2Host v3 - MIDI Host Adapter. Unfortunately it's not available in stock right now, but I think details for building your own are available on GitHub. If you decide to go that route, you should check out the topic on it over at the lines forum.
That is a great, great idea, and it should have occurred to me. I can build something just like this using components from Adafruit, and adapt that code. Thank you for the suggestion.
A small point for sure here, but Interestingly I was able to get Surface Builder to control itself in at least one scenario. I set up a fader and and xy pad both on MIDI Ch 2 and Port 2 and the fader will control the xy pad within the same surface, so it seems that it is possible under certain conditions.
*Edit - I was able to get an XY pad to control a fader on the same surface, so both ways. This was in AUM.
Regarding copying between SB instances, there is a sort of a workaround. You can copy objects between scenes in an instance, so if you have a spare scene, you can copy the objects you want to place in another instance on a new scene, then export only that scene from the surface, then create a new scene in the destination surface, and import the exported surface into the new scene. From there you can copy over any objects between the scenes. So, not ideal , but it saves having to recreate objects.
I think I did do that once while experimenting, and also found that using the different ports was key. I’d have to try it again just to be sure. So yeah. It doesn’t seem to have the very full-featured self-control capability of Loopy, but there is some.
I do not know enough about midi etc to even know what you are asking properly but I came across this video. I was amazed what this guy was able to get an APCmk1 to do with a mosaic script he wrote and provides. It is for AUM but should work with loopy pro.
Also, wouldn't Ableton link allow control over 2 iPads?
About connecting two iOS devices, after failing to get anything to work stable over wireless connections, I now have a working solution. A (second hand) rk006 connected via usb to one iPad, then the other iPad is connected over usb to a beatstep pro, that has midi in and out connected to the midi in out of the rk006. The beatstep can also be replace with any other usb controller with hardware midi in and out, like the novation circuits, even my s1 works but then I get ground loops. The rk solved my ground loop problems, because all my hw usb synths are now powered separately from a usb charger, and receive clock and cc’s via midi. Clock works great, and since the rk is providing clock and has individual clock shift for all ports, you can easily compensate if a device runs behind a bit.
Those are some nifty widgets.
If you have a Raspberry Pi laying around, you could build a "Zynthian" for your MIDI connecting needs - and much more.
There is no need to buy the Zynthian hardware. And you can download the OS image directly from the website. It works with multiple USB devices connected to the Pi's USB ports. And if you want audio you can use more or less any class compliant USB audio / MIDI interface. I once built one with just a Pi3 and the simple standard 7inch Pi touch screen.
https://zynthian.org/
Interesting. It looks like a host for the Linux-compatible freeware synths, with a custom wrapper to add features. Not entirely sure I’d want that whole thing, but I definitely want to look at the source. Might be something to emulate on laptop.