Re-visiting an iPad Live Rig

[yannis D]

On 4/13/2022 at 12:35 AM, analogman1 said:

So... is the current consensus that for very basic use of the iPad live (i.e., just using it to run ONE synth app at a time), using the basic Apple addapter with the USB cable input for charging would suffice?

I've had that cable for a few years. 

And, for output, I'd just use the headphone output.

I have a ton of programs I've bought; everything from Audiobus to AUM etc.

But it all seems too fiddly...

I just want to run a single program on the iPad at a time. 

That particular program might change, depending on the gig; (If I'm jamming with others, B3-X; at gigs. maybe iWavestation or a Mellotron program)...but don't need anything fancy for switching between programs etc.

What do you folks think? Thanks SO MUCH in advance...

If you need one app per concert, what you have is ok. Cable to connect iPad with your keyboard and maybe a USB Hub to charge your iPad. Most of the times the biggest problem in iPads is the lack of memory. Mine (iPad mini2) has only 1 giga, so I'm very careful how many apps I run at the same time. Some of them are too heavy (Ravenscroft) and I won't take a chance live.

If your iPad has more than one giga of ram (ideally 3 or 4) there's a buffer to run many apps in parallel through a dedicated host (like the AUM) without any problem. Let alone one app per concert. What is your pad's ram?

 

[analogman1]

My iPad mini is 5th generation; 3GB of Ram. Works great with all of my apps, even B3-X. 

 

I have Audiobus 3, AUM, iMIDIPatchbay, and all of the MidiFlow tools. 

 

Maybe I should reconsider giving some of those a whirl... I guess it's the whole convoluted wiring thing of small adapters/boxes etc. that really irks me. 

Which is why bypassing a lot of variables would work for me. However, of all of them, AUM looks to be the most straightforward...

 

EDIT: Just started messing with AUM. It's actually a lot simper than I thought, as far as just making a channel strip with a few plug-ins loaded...

 

Which is best for simplicity, in your opinion?

 

Also, I'd love to add an iPad Pro to my setup but what do you do to get around the absence of a headphone jack? I could hook it up to my Radial KL-8 rack mounted Keyboard mixer but that kinda defeats the whole "grab and go approach". (I use MainStage and Radial KL-8 for those situations)...

 

Thanks in advance, you folks ROCK!!!

[drawback]

3 hours ago, analogman1 said:

Just started messing with AUM. It's actually a lot simper than I thought, as far as just making a channel strip with a few plug-ins loaded...

 

Which is best for simplicity, in your opinion?

Although Camelot may likely be simpler to some folks, I’m not a “here’s a box, fill it” person. I much prefer the fluidity of the channel strip approach in AUM; it’s just simpler to me. My instincts were the same about Pagemaker vs Quark.

[Reezekeys]

AUM is pretty deep and I'm very impressed with what I can do on an iPad Air 2, a device over seven years old now. Using Virsyn's AudioLayer app with Logic's autosampler is a game changer for me - I can bring the multi-gigabyte sounds of my regular laptop rig on the iPad, albeit with some compromises which I'm working to minimize (I know I'm not the first on this forum to mention using AudioLayer for this). It's a work in progress but I'm pretty confident that an iPad rig will be my main gigging setup, maybe not in the immediate future but somewhere not too far down the road. I have the thought that as I expand this setup, the Air 2 may reach its limits with processing power so a newer iPad will be in my future. The only downside there is that I'll greatly miss the headphone output; I plug the Air 2's output directly to the inputs of my two QSCs. That's a fantastic convenience imo, as opposed to needing extra cabling and devices to do it.

[yannis D]

4 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:

AUM is pretty deep and I'm very impressed with what I can do on an iPad Air 2, a device over seven years old now. Using Virsyn's AudioLayer app with Logic's autosampler is a game changer for me - I can bring the multi-gigabyte sounds of my regular laptop rig on the iPad, albeit with some compromises which I'm working to minimize . 

Sorry for my ignorance but I'd love to know more about audiolayer app. Is that some kind of expanded Koala App or more? Is there a way to incorporate Kontakt libraries to the iPad through audio layer? 

 

[drawback]

13 minutes ago, yannis D said:

Sorry for my ignorance but I'd love to know more about audiolayer app. Is that some kind of expanded Koala App or more? Is there a way to incorporate Kontakt libraries to the iPad through audio layer? 

 

This is new to me, too. I’m going to do some reading asap.

[Reezekeys]

AudioLayer is a sampler app like Kontakt but it can't load Kontakt libraries. It does, however, import Logic's sampler format (exs24). It's a little convoluted, but by loading Kontakt into a Logic channel, then the "autosampler" plugin in a slot below, setting some parameters (how many velocity layers you want, how long to make each sample, how many semitones between samples, etc.) you can create an exs24 instrument pretty easily. I airdropped The resulting exs file (and samples) to my iPad and everything imported into AudioLayer. It's a pretty impressive and full-featured sampler app.

 

http://www.virsyn.net/mobileapp/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29&Itemid=8

[UnderGroundGr]

Anyone use Camelot Pro?

[ShadowMan]

I thought I might  lighten my load by going with Ipad apps and a controller - so decided to do a real world test for a few weeks at rehearsal.  Brought my old, unused Kurzweil stage piano and left it there. Figured I could then do minimal carry - just a bag w/Ipad, iRig, cables, IEMs. (Using BX3, Ravenscroft and Korg Module.)

 

I finally determined that by the time I hooked everything up, dealt with constant flakiness with midi rig and controller, widely varying audio levels and all those cables… that it was just easier to haul my Nord, plug in and play. Except for transporting to and from my vehicle (and up and down stairs), carrying a board was just simpler, faster and more reliable.

 

So for me, while the current midi and IOS technology is great it just isn’t worth the aggravation. I don’t see any way I would ever think of gigging with it.  

 

Things I DID learn? Well, my old 90’s Kurzweil piano still really cut thru the mix when the midi rig crapped out.  And an old Voce midi drawbar controller works pretty great when dialed in with the BX3 app.

[Reezekeys]

You can't argue against the simplicity of turning on a hardware keyboard and being ready to play. Since I don't have one of those and have been relying on a light controller + laptop setup, having a workable iPad rig is actually easier than what I usually deal with. I agree there can be a few hoops to jump through getting everything to work smoothly - but to me it's worth the time investment, and I get the hoop-jumping done at home so when I get to the gig there aren't any issues. So far, the jumping is more about me learning the software than any unexpected hardware issues. My only issue was having the sounds I was used to, or as close as possible, so I can enjoy myself on a gig. Shockingly, my burgeoning AUM setup seems reliable, at least with the VIs I'm using right now.

 

The cool thing about using an iPad as a sound source is that I'm bringing it to gigs for chart-reading anyway! In that way, it's not really an extra burden, except I have to connect its audio output to my speakers – which I would do with my laptop as well, of course.

[Stokely]

Had a funny--though not at the time--moment at a gig last night.  This was a step up for us, a corporate gig in a restaurant with really good lighting and a stage that had people on all sides and up above on a 2nd floor.  All that said, it was probably very visible when I hit a chord on my MODX (set to play the ipad organ) and...nada.  I could see the notes playing on the B-3X keyboard but no sound.  I kept playing my other keyboard, thinking "uh oh, may have lost my organ for this gig, it's some kind of glitch."  Tried a few things including reconnecting the usb, checked a few things during the song and before the next one.   I was trying not to be the "the musician having problems" guy so I was trying to be subtle about troubleshooting   

Long story short:  I had turned the master volume on my MODX down completely at the end of the previous song to do a fade-out.  Apologies, ipad.   I did have a glitch at a previous gig and now I'm pretty quick to blame the ipad for anything.   Also, not a good way to do a fadeout I know, I really should have used the other controls.

[Reezekeys]

I just got back from an easter brunch gig - playing 5 hours solo at a country club. I brought my iPad with AUM, but also the MacBook Pro with my regular gig setup. Not so much as a backup, but because I have some fun playalong tracks there that aren't in the iPad yet. And yea, I wasn't 100% sure an iPad-only rig would get me through a five-hour gig. I was also curious to A-B the Native Instruments New York piano I sampled into the iPad with the original in the laptop, to see how much of a difference I could either hear or feel.

 

Long story short, the iPad rig worked perfectly and it looks like it'll be my new go-to for these kinds of easy-peasy gigs where I'm just needing the basics. My MacBook Pro had some hiccups with midi communications, fortunately I solved it quickly but if this was a gig where I was more exposed or had people actually listening to me, it would have been mildly embarassing. The iPad rig now seems simpler, definitely easier to carry, and now that I have a "close & good enough" version of the piano I'm used to playing that satisfies me (for now at least!), I'm a happy guy.

[D. Gauss]

On 4/14/2022 at 3:52 PM, analogman1 said:

 

 

Also, I'd love to add an iPad Pro to my setup but what do you do to get around the absence of a headphone jack?

i have newest ipad mini 6, not pro. with 256Gb. i use one of these:  

[hrestov]

Camelot pro is great. You can do scenes with auv3, complex midi filtering and routing, view the score associated to a scene/song. 
play backing Tracks and link marker in backing track to automatically change the scene. I dont have aum, but i dont think that there is a thing that camelot can’t do. 
It’s also  quite simple. Better than Mac’s MainStage.