Thinking about using an iPad...

[stoken6]

6 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

Just found this hub - which gives you audio and two USB3 ports along with USB-C for charging:

And StarTech is a reputable name - or at least one I've heard of.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Synthaholic]

tl;dr on this thread, but I will add that if you enjoy your iPad, plus you play a lot of gigs, you'll end up wanting to buy another iPad. Mine was always out in the car with the rest of my equipment so I never got to use it other than on stage. Kind of a waste. But since I use Cubasis I was able to switch over to the Android version for stage. So, whatever you were thinking of using it for, see if there are Android equivalents. A cheap Samsung Galaxy Tab 8 may handle everything, at $219 right now (Costco).

[Reezekeys]

10 hours ago, Synthaholic said:

if you enjoy your iPad, plus you play a lot of gigs

 

I'm batting .500 so far, not bad I guess!

 

10 hours ago, Synthaholic said:

So, whatever you were thinking of using it for, see if there are Android equivalents. A cheap Samsung Galaxy Tab 8 may handle everything, at $219 right now (Costco).

 

And as I mentioned in this thread you "dr" 🙂 Target has the 9th-gen iPad on sale starting at $279. If one is already in Apple-world, a $60 difference isn't worth the hassle of switching to Android for doing gigs, imo.

 

[hrestov]

But with Android you can do 1% than what you can do with iPad…

 

[Delaware Dave]

59 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:

I'm batting .500 so far, not bad I guess!

 

Reeze, in NYC we know that can get you a 10-year $500M contract.  So in case you need a Roadie, I'm your man ....

[Reezekeys]

1 hour ago, Delaware Dave said:

So in case you need a Roadie, I'm your man ....

 

For all the gigs I'm not doing?! 🙂 

[ap297]

Thinking about pulling the trigger on a 9th gen Ipad (headphone jack a decision driver). Plan on running bread-and-butter vst (B3X, VB3m, piano, ep, strings, brass, synth, etc) running within Camelot Pro (I think)

Is the 64 GB model sufficient -or- stretch for the 256GB model?

[Reezekeys]

55 minutes ago, ap297 said:

Is the 64 GB model sufficient -or- stretch for the 256GB model?

 

I was wondering the same thing because I too am considering the same iPad. So I opened up the "Settings" app on my old iPad (Air 2) which is a 128GB model. General --> iPad Storage lists every app and its memory footprint.

 

I'm only gonna hit the high points because I don't want this post to be too long (fat chance!). I have Korg Module with the Scarbee Rhodes, Clav, and Strings. VirSyn AudioLayer sampler, with my acoustic piano (resample of the old Native Instruments NY Piano), Wurly, Brass, and funk guitar. ForScore with about  1.6GB of charts. SampleTank (which I saw on the list but realized I don't use!), Pure Piano (don't use), NeoSoul Keys (don't use), the Galileo organ, Model D synth, Synthmaster One synth, AUM, MidiFlow, VTines Live (don't use), and a few other guys that each use a very little amount of storage (10 - 15MB each). The total for all these apps and their data is about 10.5GB. When I dump the software I don't use, the total will be 7.5GB. These figures are the apps plus their data – documents, samples, etc.

 

While I can't know the exact apps you plan on using, seeing as you mentioned "bread-and-butter" sounds, I would say we're both safe with 64GB of storage - especially if you plan on using the iPad mostly for music. The total usage on my current Air 2 is 53.3GB of 128GB. My photos and saved Messages use the most storage, about 20GB total for those. Your photo library may be the deciding factor that determines whether you need the 256GB iPad. I know I don't.

 

Thanks for asking your question - it got me to discover the apps I'm not using and taking up space!

[hrestov]

If you use ipad mostly for music I think 64 gb is ok. 

[yannis D]

7 hours ago, ap297 said:

Thinking about pulling the trigger on a 9th gen Ipad (headphone jack a decision driver). Plan on running bread-and-butter vst (B3X, VB3m, piano, ep, strings, brass, synth, etc) running within Camelot Pro (I think)

Is the 64 GB model sufficient -or- stretch for the 256GB model?

Yes, i think it is. Mine is 9th gen w 64 gigs and it's half empty, although i got many apps (AUM, Korg Module, VB3m, Minimoog, and many many others). Audio jack makes things easier. 

[AnotherScott]

Yes, I agree that 64 can definitely be enough, but it could also conceivably get tight over time, depending on the precise apps you choose and how many of their expansions you may want.

 

For piano, Ravenscroft is under 1GB, but Colossus has a variety of purchasable pianos, which can get quite large (14 GB for the biggest one, 30 GB if you wanted to buy all of them... though some of them are 1 GB or less and that may be all you need). For EP, Neo Soul Keys tops 8GB, but there are numerous smaller options (and Neosoul does let you offload some of its stuff to an external drive). B3X is about 1.1 gig but VB3m is tiny (about 10 mb). Mellotron apps can be large (Sampletron is 4.3 GB, but even some large ones are much smaller... Streetlytron Pro is 1.7 GB, M3000 Ultimate is 1.1 GB, Mellowsound is almost a gig). There are lots of small synth apps, but Syntronik is about 6.5 GB. There are apps that play soundfonts (and/or your own custom samples), and while the apps may not be large, you could theoretically build up a substantial library of soundfonts/samples for them to play. In dedicated orchestral instruments,  iSymphonic (mostly strings with lots of optional other sounds) is 1.4 GB without any IAP, and Heavy Brass approaches 400 mb, though there are also "multi-sound" apps that include brass and strings as well. Some multi-sound apps themselves can be quite large, also depending on how many IAPs you buy. My SampleTank and Korg Module Pro (with its library of sounds shared by multiple Korg apps) each top 5 GB.

 

I have an older 32 GB iPad which has most of my preferred music apps on it, but eventually it did reach the point where I had to become selective. 64 would probably be fine, but I'm not sure it's enough if you don't want to ever have to even think about it. Unfortunately there's no 128 option on this model. So yeah, I'd probably stick with the 64. But since it does appear to be the last model with headphone, and you're going to try to get as many years as possible out of its usage, if you want to future-proof it for as many years as possible, it's certainly not a bad thing to have 256, I guess it comes down to how much you want to pay for that "insurance policy"  (though it will still ultimately be "stuck in the past" when some future OS won't run on it, or when its RAM or processor power becomes a limiting factor... I don't know how long it will be before we see things that won't work without the M1 processor, for example). But you can see that if you actually did want every one of the biggest things I mentioned, adding up all those largest options, 64 may still not seem exactly "spacious." But you don't necessarily need all those biggest options. And in fact, if you bought all those largest apps and IAPs which could task the 64, you'd probably be spending more on those purchases than the price difference between the 64 and the 256... so while thinking "do I really want to spend the $150 for the extra space" you might also consider "do I really want to spend $150 or whatever again on the apps that prompted me to want to go beyond 64 in the first place?" IOW, in a way, you're paying more money for the privilege of being able to spend even more money.  

 

 

[Reezekeys]

I might start another thread about this, but I just played six shows with Average White Band at Jazz Alley in Seattle, using only my original iPhone SE (2016) for all my sounds. This is the base model with 32GB storage. It has pretty much everything I detailed in my post three posts above yours - a duplicate of the setup on my 128GB ipad Air 2: acoustic piano, Korg Module with rhodes, strings & clav, horn & guitar samples, Synthmaster One, reverb & eq efx plugins, a DX7-like app and a few percussion loops. It's possible some of the music apps I don't use aren't downloaded to this phone as Apple automatically "unloads" unused apps after a while. Those don't account for much storage though. I discovered I have almost 4000 photos and 400 videos on this phone - so I'll be looking into dumping those since this original SE is strictly for music making. The point is, seeing what I can do with 32GB tells me 64GB is very likely more than enough for anyone's music making needs on a gig - at least, for us older "bread & butter sounds" folk! 🙂 

[yannis D]

41 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:

I might start another thread about this, but I just played six shows with Average White Band at Jazz Alley in Seattle, using only my original iPhone SE (2016) for all my sounds. This is the base model with 32GB storage. It has pretty much everything I detailed in my post three posts above yours - a duplicate of the setup on my 128GB ipad Air 2: acoustic piano, Korg Module with rhodes, strings & clav, horn & guitar samples, Synthmaster One, reverb & eq efx plugins, a DX7-like app and a few percussion loops. It's possible some of the music apps I don't use aren't downloaded to this phone as Apple automatically "unloads" unused apps after a while. Those don't account for much storage though. I discovered I have almost 4000 photos and 400 videos on this phone - so I'll be looking into dumping those since this original SE is strictly for music making. The point is, seeing what I can do with 32GB tells me 64GB is very likely more than enough for anyone's music making needs on a gig - at least, for us older "bread & butter sounds" folk! 🙂 

Is there any video on YouTube? I'd love to see this set up with this great band

[Reezekeys]

34 minutes ago, yannis D said:

Is there any video on YouTube? I'd love to see this set up with this great band

 

I haven't seen anything posted, though I know folks were filming. I did post a pic of my "stealth iPhone rig" in a previous comment in this thread: https://forums.musicplayer.com/topic/183936-thinking-about-using-an-ipad/?do=findComment&comment=2924560

 

I kept news of the switch to an iPhone to myself - nobody noticed the phone or commented on any differences in my sounds (which might speak more to where they want me in their monitor mixes 🙂 ). To be extra-safe since this was the first AWB gig with the phone, I had my laptop set up & connected as usual, with my regular software loaded, just in case I had to quickly switch; I would only need to move the audio cable from the phone to it. Nobody was the wiser and the phone never glitched or did anything funny so the laptop remained a prop for the whole run! I did notice that the phone's headphone amp may have less headroom than the one in my laptop, as I needed to make some overall level adjustments on certain plugins, then tell the sound man to add some gain, to avoid minor clipping on some patches.

 

 

[yannis D]

6 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:

 

I haven't seen anything posted, though I know folks were filming. I did post a pic of my "stealth iPhone rig" in a previous comment in this thread: https://forums.musicplayer.com/topic/183936-thinking-about-using-an-ipad/?do=findComment&comment=2924560

 

I kept news of the switch to an iPhone to myself - nobody noticed the phone or commented on any differences in my sounds (which might speak more to where they want me in their monitor mixes 🙂 ). To be extra-safe since this was the first AWB gig with the phone, I had my laptop set up & connected as usual, with my regular software loaded, just in case I had to quickly switch; I would only need to move the audio cable from the phone to it. Nobody was the wiser and the phone never glitched or did anything funny so the laptop remained a prop for the whole run! I did notice that the phone's headphone amp may have less headroom than the one in my laptop, as I needed to make some overall level adjustments on certain plugins, then tell the sound man to add some gain, to avoid minor clipping on some patches.

 

 

Yes I remember this set up, I just wanted to see it perform live

What to do usually play with AWB? Like organs and pianos or auxiliary keys? It’s interesting you have the nerfs to bring this set up to a high profile gig though… 

[Reezekeys]

11 minutes ago, yannis D said:

What to do usually play with AWB? Like organs and pianos or auxiliary keys?

 

Yes, mostly pianos but quite a few other sounds as well. The original incarnation of AWB did not include a separate keyboard player; Roger Ball (the alto saxophonist) played auxiliary keys. I know they used a fair amount of keys on their recordings, which again were mostly Roger, but I believe also included session players. These were almost always secondary parts.

 

The current band is not a one-for-one recreation of the original line up, instrumentation-wise. Hamish Stuart switched between bass and guitar, and sang lead on some tunes. I play bass for the tunes he used to play bass on, but I don't play guitar - so I use samples! (I also can't sing, which is why we have Brent Carter singing Hamish's songs). I flesh out our two horns with samples since many of the original studio recordings employed expanded horn sections (lots of times it was the Brecker Brothers). I do some organ playing, and clav on one tune. Mostly it's rhodes, with a bit of acoustic piano as well. I layer in strings on the ballads too.

 

Some of the more exotic things I do (maybe not so exotic to the preset jockeys here) is to trigger and control percussion loops for a few songs. On "Schoolboy Crush" I start a loop of the jangling sleigh bells that begin the tune. Since I'm playing bass for that song I had to program things so my sustain pedal would first stop the loop playing, then allow me to manually play the bells by pressing & releasing the sustain pedal. I couldn't have done this without the iOS app StreamByter.

 

I guess I'm not gonna "start another thread" about this as I intimated a few posts up - I've probably said too much already! 🙂 

[ShadowMan]

Regarding IPad size, I have a gen 9 with 64gb. I run AUM with NeoSoul keys, B-3X, Korg Module, Ravenscroft and Zell (harpsichord app) 

 

Am using just half the 64gb (with other apps and music) - and it runs great. 

[Reezekeys]

3 hours ago, yannis D said:

It’s interesting you have the nerfs to bring this set up to a high profile gig though… 

 

"Interesting", or "stupid"? 🙂 Actually, I spent quite a number of hours programming my i-device setup. AWB had almost two months of no work between the Seattle gig and the one before. I got things pretty well finished the last week of November, and spent the next few weeks running this setup all day, exercising all my controller's buttons, sliders & pads, stepping through the presets multiple times, etc. IOW, trying my best to break it. I did discover a few quirks along the way but nothing that held me up long. By the time we got to the gig I was confident things would go well. As I said, I had the laptop there for backup. I'm probably not going to set it up at future gigs, but it will be in my backpack at the back of the stage, sleeping with my software loaded up and ready to go with a quick flip of the screen and plugging in a few cables. I may also bring my iPad with the identical setup loaded, sleeping of course, and ready to go with a tap on the home button.

 

The bottom line is that the sounds from the phone are about 90-95% of the way to what I was hearing on the laptop. I may put in the time to close that gap more, but for right now I'm happy. I had an accident with the laptop a few months ago, something almost too dumb to mention - it vibrated off the bass amp it has always sat on, due to a crappily-contructed stage that vibrated with every kick drum hit. I'm lucky it wasn't ruined (just a white spot on the screen where the corner of my in-ears mixer nailed it). I was daydreaming about using my phone on AWB gigs, but that incident spurred me to make the dream reality.

[drawback]

 

4 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

I guess I'm not gonna "start another thread" about this as I intimated a few posts up - I've probably said too much already! 🙂

You've come a long way since your first query into iOS and you've taken it farther than anyone I've heard of. I've followed your progress closely and appreciate the shop talk! 👍

[Synthaholic]

On 12/14/2022 at 9:59 AM, Reezekeys said:

 

I'm batting .500 so far, not bad I guess!

 

 

And as I mentioned in this thread you "dr" 🙂 Target has the 9th-gen iPad on sale starting at $279. If one is already in Apple-world, a $60 difference isn't worth the hassle of switching to Android for doing gigs, imo.

 

Oh, if they're that cheap then I agree. I see 64GB for $269 online, if that's enough space for you. But my main point is that I really missed having my iPad at my fingertips to do countless things, because it was out in the van in a briefcase because I didn't bring it in the house.

[pjd]

I got curious about how much space I use for music apps on my iPad:
 

App              Total   App Sz  Data
---------------  ------  ------  -----
iSymphonic       2.30GB  1.41GB  .89GB
SampleTank       2.11    1.58    .54
GarageBand       1.67    1.66    .01
Cubasis          1.45    1.15    .30
Sibelius         1.30    1.29    .07
Module Pro       1.28    1.28    .04
Music            1.22     .02   1.21
Casio MusicSpace 1.18    1.14    .04
Hammond B-3X     1.11    1.11    .01
Korg Inc.         .86            .86
Gadget            .82     .82    .01
Model 15          .43     .43    .01
Model D           .28     .28    .01
Mobile Sequencer  .27     .23    .04
JeuxdorgMini      .19     .18    .01
Chord Tracker     .18     .14    .04
forScore          .14     .02    .12

iSymphonic, SampleTank and Module Pro include add-on expansions like Miroslav, Cinematic Brass, General 128, Neo Soul, Module Performance Expansion, Organ & Clav Collection.

 

Overall, 39.3GB used out of 64GB -- mostly Apps, iPadOS and System Data. I don't do video or many photos. Digital music is modest, a couple of hundred backing tracks.

Hope this info helps someone plan.

 

All the best -- pj
 

Music blog: sandsoftwaresound.net

 

[ap297]

Just picked up a 9th gen 64GB in space gray - what a slick machine!

Is there a way to transfer my programs from VB3m android to the IPad version of VB3m?

[Docbop]

18 minutes ago, ap297 said:

Just picked up a 9th gen 64GB in space gray - what a slick machine!

Is there a way to transfer my programs from VB3m android to the IPad version of VB3m?

From  their website....   It's understandable it's a platform change and code  base.

 

>>>>

A: You can not. And this is not up to us.
Google and Apple do not allow the exchange of Apps, there is nothing we can do. If you want to have the same App on an Apple device and a Google device at the same time, the only solution is to buy it twice.

This also applies to the reverse: if you purchased the Android App first, you cannot "transfer" it to an iOS device.

 

<<<<

[Reezekeys]

I'm guessing ap297 is not referring to the apps themselves but their data, such as presets?

[ap297]

Yes I meant programs. I have been running VB3m on an android tablet and have come up with some great sounding presets (programs). I have no problem purchasing the ios version of VB3m for my new ipad. I am wondering if there is a way to take my custom presets developed on android VB3m and "port" them over to VB3m ios on Ipad.

[ap297]

Meant presets...

[Reezekeys]

I don't know of a way to transfer any file directly from an Android device to an iPad though there may be a 3rd-party app for that. If you use a Mac, one method might be to email the preset file from the tablet to the Mac, then Airdrop it to the iPad. I've Airdropped many preset files between my i-devices and Mac.

[yannis D]

Just to fire up the iPad desire: just came back from a new project rehearsal. I used my Novation Ultranova as a top keyboard and a Yamaha keyboard in thebstudio controlling my old iPad mini 2 with the designated Korg sound card that provides the iPad with power and has a stereo jack output. It run perfectly although the mini has only 1 giga of RAM and can be shaky. Not this time. I used Korg Module Rhodes (the Scarbee expansion) and the Juno app (don't recall the name) within AUM on the two songs we worked on. Everything run smoothly and the sounds were perfect for the songs - I seriously think of bringing this combination out when the time is right. Maybe I will use instead my newer 9th gen iPad with the same Korg sound interface, for better performance (3 Gigas od RAM)

[Reezekeys]

Just got back from Best Buy with my 9th-gen iPad. I'll be unboxing soon. Very surprised to see it has the same rear camera as my iPad Air 2 from 2014! The front camera is much improved though. Hopefully this will let me add more CPU-hungry plugins to my setup, or at least keep the CPU meter on AUM below the 80 - 90% it sometimes reaches with my Air 2. $270 ($60 off the Apple price) is a pretty nice deal.

[zephonic]

On 11/28/2022 at 3:19 PM, pizzafilms said:

 

 

Wondering how anyone else is dealing with controller connection (wired? Bluetooth?), audio out, etc..

 

I'm using a Yamaha MD-BT01 bluetooth MIDI device and latency is manageable but noticeable. If you really want to dig in, I think wired is still the way to go.