Apollo Remote Recorder

Apollo Remote Recorder is an innovative iOS app that will change how you make music. It can capture sound from other apps using Audiobus, or audio from any iOS compatible input. Recordings are triggered with MIDI, and can be transferred to the desktop using the web server built into the app. The app can also stream audio over WiFi to other iOS devices, to PCs, and to Macs. For the most in-depth explanation on how to use the app (as well as YouTube demo videos), please visit the Secret Base Design web site, YouTube channel, and Facebook page.

There are hundreds of great synthesizers and samplers for iOS, but getting recordings in and out of a device has been a hassle. Most musicians use desktop DAWs -- Logic, Cubase, ProTools, Reaper, Ableton, and so on; the desktop DAWs offer limitless storage, a wide range of hardware and software interfaces, and more. Studios are heavily invested in their DAWs, and few musicians are willing to abandon them.

Apollo Remote Recorder is designed to bridge the gap between iOS and the professional desktop DAW world. You no longer have to give up a full fledged DAW as part of your work flow, and you don't have to buy a pile of hardware adapters either.

The app uses Audiobus to let you easily record synthesizers (with the recording happening on iOS, to avoid latency). The app features a built-in web server, which lets you transfer recordings to the desktop with an ordinary web browser. MIDI sent your DAW toggles on and off recording -- so the recordings are perfectly timed, and drop into your desktop environment without needing to be trimmed or edited.

The entire flow is digital and wireless. No sound degradation. No latency. Just pure awesome.

Some technical details: because the recordings are triggered by MIDI, the jitter in a connection should be minimized. We recommend hardware MIDI adapters for use with Windows and Linux based DAWs, and either hardware adapters or Apollo MIDI over Bluetooth with OS X. The app will work with MIDI over WiFi, but we do not recommend it because of the potential for jitter.

The app can also be used to record live instruments and vocals; any iOS compatible audio interface can be used, with the recording being captured either by sending MIDI from a DAW, or by tapping the buttons on the interface. The latency of a MIDI trigger will impact timing for the recording of live instruments; most DAWs support latency compensation for MIDI, making this problem easy to eliminate.

If the timing of a recording is not critical, the app can be used as an ordinary voice and Audiobus recorder, for sketching song ideas or taking notes. The built-in web server makes it easy to transfer the recordings to the desktop.

{See video at top of page}

Second YouTube demo