KVR Audio

Gribs · Post by **Gribs** » Sat Aug 30, 2014 3:40 pm

I am considering getting an iconnectmidi4+ to use with my gear and to try to get MIDI in/out and digital audio out of my iPad Air. I grabbed the manual from iConnwctivity's web site. The manual says to use the ASIO4ALL driver which will create an aggregate audio device with my main sound card (for me an RME Fireface 800 with my main DAW). Has anyone using an iConnectmidi4+ tried this in Windows 7 with a Fireface or other sound card? How does it work?

Aural Chaos · Post by **Aural Chaos** » Sat Aug 30, 2014 5:09 pm

Not with a Fireface, but am using it with Win7 and Presonus Firebox. The 2+, not the 4+, but essentially the same as far as audio pass through.

Works fine, getting it set up can be somewhat confusing. If you are using it bidirectionally, ie PC to iPad back to the PC, the latency adds up, but is still low enough to be tolerable for real time use.

bonso · Post by **bonso** » Sat Aug 30, 2014 5:46 pm

I was wondering about this too. Personally, I'm a bit scared by having to use asio4all in place of my interfaces dedicated ASIO driver as I have heard that latency is generally dictated by the worst performing interface/driver in an aggregated setup.

Given RME's reputation in producing drivers with great low latency performance, that might be a consideration for the OP if the I-connect needs a larger buffer setting.

My other concern was that without any physical ports to route audio directly into the I-pad, that the overall round trip latency would be larger than with an alternative setup when using a guitar amp sim or similar application for live playing.

Aural Chaos : Can I ask what latency/buffer settings are working out for you ?

Aural Chaos · Post by **Aural Chaos** » Sat Aug 30, 2014 6:03 pm

I'll check on the settings when I get a chance. It is correct about the highest latency of the devices being used. One thing that drove me nuts and made me spend tons of time with tech support (who was ultimately no help at all. Actually worse than no help- they made me try all sorts of stupid things that I was pretty sure were irrelevant) is that the iCM would seem to lock ASIO4ALL at a setting of 512 buffers. I eventually discovered that either it or Live were misreporting- I could actually adjust it and hear the difference, even though the values I was seeing didn't change.

If you aren't in a hurry and don't need as much MIDI I/O, I'd wait for the iConnect Audio. It's probably a least a couple of months away, but I think it will perform better as it doesn't require a second device like their current offerings do.

Gribs · Post by **Gribs** » Sat Aug 30, 2014 10:05 pm

I am told by those in the know that it is also possible to connect the iPad via USB to a Kronos then use the mixer to route the audio into one's DAW. I haven't tried it yet, but others that I know have done it successfully. I am looking for a way to get digital audio from iPad synths into a DAW for recording.

Another method would be to take the USB pass-through audio from the iConnectMIDI4+, put it into a USB-to-SPDIF converter, and then route that into the Fireface.

I don't think that the aggregate audio device thing would be any worse than using my Virus TI2 with the plugin and 16 channel USB audio in (though I think the most number of channels I have used is around six at a time).

Anyway, I ordered one of the iConnectMIDI things because I want it for other duties as well.

Aural Chaos · Post by **Aural Chaos** » Sat Aug 30, 2014 11:01 pm

I'm not sure that USB to Spdif idea would work, it needs to be plugged into a computer.
Using the Kronos sounds cool- I so wish my M3 had USB audio.

bonso · Post by **bonso** » Sun Aug 31, 2014 1:27 am

I guess the aggregate device latency limitations aren't really an issue for most situations (unless you insist on running 32 sample buffer or something), but I'm still a bit wary of switching to a more generic ASIO driver on stability grounds.
I agree it's probably no worse than using the Virus TI's USB audio, but I have heard some people having issues with that too! Anyway, I hope it works well for you.

The 'iConnect Audio' might be more suitable for my intended usage (mostly live effects/guitar processing), didn't even know about that one

Thanks for the info on the ASIO performance too. (ugh@ASIO not reporting although this is often a shady area in my experience.)

gjvti · Post by **gjvti** » Tue Sep 02, 2014 3:55 pm

Aural Chaos wrote:Actually worse than no help- they made me try all sorts of stupid things that I was pretty sure were irrelevant) is that the iCM would seem to lock ASIO4ALL at a setting of 512 buffers.

512 most likely is your iPad default buffer setting. Some apps allow to change this, some not. Full Audiobus 2 certainly is great shell for your apps allowing to change default buffer setting value.

Gribs wrote:Another method would be to take the USB pass-through audio from the iConnectMIDI4+, put it into a USB-to-SPDIF converter, and then route that into the Fireface.

Nope, unfortunately audio pass-through currently works only with ports 1,2,3 what means between computing devices (PC/Mac/iPad) and not with rear host port and soundcard/usb-SPDIF converter unless perhaps this converter is small low-cost linux mini PC (raspberry pi?) attached to posts 1,2,3, but that certainly cannot be guaranteed as I don't know if and how iConnect devices work with on linux

Gribs wrote:I am told by those in the know that it is also possible to connect the iPad via USB to a Kronos then use the mixer to route the audio into one's DAW. I haven't tried it yet, but others that I know have done it successfully.

This obviously was done via computer (ipad->iconnectMidi->PC/MAC->Kronos) or connecting iPad to Kronos directly (via apple USB adapter) without iconnect box inbetween.

---

From my experience iConnectMidi4+ audio pass-through using ASIO4ALL wasn't easy to set-up. I got dropouts and really large latencies until I figured correct ASIO4ALL stings. I believe this is somewhat irrelevant of PC sound card/interface used. But in the end it works acceptable - signal chain: iPad->iCnonnect->ASIO4ALL->AbletonLive->RME UCX.

Unfortunately ASIO4ALL on my system doesn't work well in multichannel situation (in fact it doesn't work at all) so I had to figure out how to use audio pass-through with native RME driver.

Audio pass-through from iConnect appears as input in Windows record device list. I think, I selected 'use this device' on device properties for iConnect and was able to pick up audio pass-through signal from iConnect in one of available UCX TotalMix PC inputs. From there you can certainly submix it to DAW with Loopback using native RME driver. RME drivers are supposed to support multi-client access (accessible from multiple applications) so in my case I am able to use RME native ASIO driver in Live or Cantabile and receive pass-through signal at the same time in TotalMix. But I guess that pass-through signal trends to take first available PC channel/input, which is also default DAW output so they get mixed without additional control and to adjust levels separately, when monitoring both PC and pass-through audio signals in TotalMix I had to reroute my DAW output to other channel.

Also I guess it is important to use same sample rate and bit depth throughout the signal chain, as well as slaving iConnectMidi audio clock to your DAW PC is recommended. If you have trouble routing pass-through signal to your DAW which uses soundcard/interface native ASIO driver you can google - there are some paid ASIO bridge/signal router solutions. Can't recommend any particular though, haven't tried them on my system.

Aural Chaos · Post by **Aural Chaos** » Tue Sep 02, 2014 4:04 pm

gjvti wrote: 512 most likely is your iPad default buffer setting. Some apps allow to change this, some not. Full Audiobus 2 certainly is great shell for your apps allowing to change default buffer setting value.

.

Nope, this happens even with no apps open. Hell, it happens even with the iPad unplugged from the iCM. As soon as the iCM is enabled in ASIO4ALL, the slider snaps to 512. As I said though, it doesn't really matter, because you CAN still adjust the buffers, only what is reported in Live is not correct.

gjvti · Post by **gjvti** » Tue Sep 02, 2014 4:21 pm

OK, than that is different story

In my case I'm certainly able to change buffer settings in ASIO4ALL without snapping to 512, but note, that it is strongly recommended you should access ASIO4ALL control panel from you DAW audio configuration option and not directly. And also make sure you select the particular device whose buffer settings you wish to edit otherwise ASIO4ALL might show buffer settings for some other (perhaps default) device.

Aural Chaos · Post by **Aural Chaos** » Tue Sep 02, 2014 4:31 pm

It doesn't work that way- when multiple devices are enabled, you can only adjust settings for the whole aggregate, not separately for each device.

When all is said and done, audio pass through with ASIO4ALL does work well, I just had some hassles along the way.

gjvti · Post by **gjvti** » Tue Sep 02, 2014 4:36 pm

Aural Chaos wrote:It doesn't work that way- when multiple devices are enabled, ...

This well might be ASIO4ALL bug. As I wrote, on my system I'm unable to utilize UCX multichannel functionality with ASIO4ALL - audio gets gated when I enable multiple inputs/outputs. I tested this both with Live and Cantabile and I think this was without iConnect connected.

Aural Chaos · Post by **Aural Chaos** » Tue Sep 02, 2014 4:45 pm

It's not really a bug, it's how it has always worked...

Josh_iConnectivity · Post by **Josh_iConnectivity** » Tue Sep 02, 2014 8:06 pm

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Hey Gribs,

There are a few ways to control latency, depending on the setup and how the iConnectMIDI4+ is being used.

1) Change the Audio Playback buffer in your DAW's (Preferences > Audio)
2) Change the latency setting in the iOS app preferences. Sometimes this is just a low/hi setting.
3) Change the iConnectivity hardware buffering options using the 'Audio Info' panel in iConfig.

Most of the time, when hearing latency when using a MIDI device, you are dealing with the delay that happens with D/A audio conversion. If the signal is passing digital to digital, which 'Audio passThru' uses, you should not experience much latency.

Also, if you have an application that lets you select a different hardware for the input and output, you may not need to use ASIO4ALL. ASIO4ALL comes into play when you need to use the inputs and outputs of both interfaces at the same time. Some DAWs will only let you choose one source in the preferences, others may let you choose a different source for the input and the output.

If you run into any troubleshooting situations, please drop us a line here: www.iconnectivity.com/support (http://www.iconnectivity.com/support)

-JS

Gribs · Post by **Gribs** » Wed Sep 03, 2014 2:46 am

Thank you everyone! I have to wait a bit for the iConnectMIDI4+ to arrive as Sweetwater is waiting for delivery if the lightning-equipped versions (I think that might just mean they ship with a lightning-to-USB cable instead of a 30 pin to USB cable).

As far as connecting throughout the Kronos goes, yes that is direct from the USB kit. I think my friend who does this uses a camera connection kit with an older non-lighting equipped iPad.

iconnectmidi4+ audio pass-through and aggregate device in win7?