implications if iOS7 on the DAW landscape

If there is one thing I could ever want from using Cubasis, that is the ability to control external apps. Properly control them, not use the Audiobus workflow to copy/record audio into it. Audiobus is… ok, it serves a purpose, although it feels like a clunky way round of what would be done on a workstation as a matter of fact.

So I did some digging on what iOS7 would bring and dragged this up:

From what I gather here, this could give us the opportunity to control one or more apps from within a DAW.

I’ve not seen any talk on this really, and I was wondering if it is something that might creep into Cubasis. Being able to control the various VSTi apps within Cubasis would be absolutely cracking.

Hi Fourfourfun.

I think those are great news. :slight_smile:
Thank you for sharing.
We have to discuss this feature of iOS 7 with the developers of Cubasis.
At this point we can not say how the benifit of Inter-App Audio will look like and how easy it will be to implement it in Cubasis.
We will take care about it.

cheers,
Jan

It’s by far the most intriguing development (for me) in iOS7. The one thing that stops my tablet from being more than an audio curio is the fact that it is so hard to get all the synths talking to each other.

Yes, we have Audiobus, but I find it is more of a clunky “make do” band-aid without true VSTi type performance in DAWs. Would be awesome if Cubasis was able to control multiple instances of synths (plus parameters).

I can imagine it being a challenge, and I can’t even imagine the technical hurdles to get over (i.e. you want to use more than one Sunrizer sound, can you have two instances of the synth?). Although part of my desires seems to be getting satisfied by the appearance of new synths within Cubasis itself. Part of the reason I invested in the app was for its potential growth, rather than 1.0 state. Seems to be bearing fruit!

Still, an exciting future to come.

I wonder whether, at present, the processing power of the iPad itself is the key limitation here rather than the technical issue of the audio routing, etc.? I’m on a 3rd gen iPad (and I appreciate that the 4th gen models have more horsepower) but, for example, running Cubasis, Audiobus, a few audio tracks and then trying to drive a single instance of something like Thor or Nave or iMS-20 get the CPU meter really cranked.

While I suspect Cubasis could technically already send MIDI data out to several synth/drum apps right now to control them all at the same time, whether my iPad could keep up is another matter. Thankfully, I also suspect this is a limitation that will generally recede as Apple continues to drive the iPad spec forward (and my bank balance downwards).

Not sure about others but, at present, I find working a ‘MIDI track at a time’ provides the best workaround; creating the part, rendering it as audio and then muting that MIDI (I can go back and edit it and re-render if required) while I move to the next thing. Nope, not as slick as on a desktop where you can have multiple VSTi all going at once but it gets the job done. I guess this CPU/processing bottleneck is also why the original Cubasis sample-based instruments and new Micrologue synth are all pretty well streamlined to consume as little CPU as possible (and are therefore not as fully featured as some dedicated synth/sample apps) so as to allow multiple instruments to be run simultaneously within a Cubasis session?

… roll on iPad 5 :slight_smile:

Cheers

John

Frankly, this all reminds me very much of 1998. :nerd: I remember when SB introduced audio into Cubase, and I remember thinking “this is going to be great” - and it was, but it took several years for computers to catch up.

Remember that similar hurdles had to be crossed by both MacOS and Windows to make VSTis practical, and to get a real-time audio stream without dropouts…then the whole business of CoreAudio, ASIO, a low latency audio I/O, proper multimedia instruction sets at the CPU level, etc…I would say a solid 4 years floated by between when I launched my first VSTi and when I was able to actually get full time work done.

Fortunately iOS already has a leg up when it comes to audio, but getting all these audio and MIDI communication protocols sorted out is definitely a work in progress!

4th gen Ipad has a 2.3x cpu power of 3rd gen iPad, and 5th gen ipad probably 5x-6x that cpu power, like a i3 Intel cpu.
With that computing power, you can use more synthesizers without problems.

Hi Benis67,

fingers crossed you are right re the iPad 5; that would be nice :slight_smile: Even the ability to run two or three decent synth apps alongside Cubasis without pushing the iPad itself into meltdown would be most welcome.

… that said, it will be interesting if, at some stage, iOS - or the apps themselves - allow us to run multiple instances of a synth as can be done on the desktop.

Cheers

John

I’m discovering that my iPad 64gb 4th gen can approach “meltdown” levels without ensuring accumulated background apps are not fully shutdown. Some do seem to linger in idle mode eating up bits of power. Audiobus is one of them

I’m glad I would be able to pass this one on to my wife to replace her 1st original iPad and update mine … She uses hers for a few casino games and light web browsing