AudioLemon

Has anybody used the camera kit USB port to send MIDI. Can I just connect it direct to a sound cards inputs. What are the late cues compared to using MIDI over network?

Alternately what is the best MIDI connection you have experienced with the iPad.

ipad-and-midi-options

With the camera kit, or something like the iRog, you can just send midi through a midi cable. Hook it up to a input and that's it.

OK thanks. I looked at the iRig and Alesis iodock but i have heard many bad reports on both - breaks and faulty MIDI. I will try a USB to MIDI cable and the camera kit - it must be better than network MIDI.

iConnectMIDI – It's expensive, but really solid and capable.

Thanks Chris - the ioconnect does look very sturdy... and expensive. In the long run I will try to get as part of some project or something. It looks like the best solution, reliable and good for collaboration.

Hi woyteg - I have been using the Beatsurfing app and that way of control really suits me but sends out MIDI - MIDI over network is good but does choke and has dodgy timing. I use OSC with TouchOsc or I will but it has given me trouble so far on Android. I have tried OSC only a little on the iPad yet. I also have yet to look into fantastick and the MMF framework.

I'm sure there are some goods reasons for using midi insrtead of OSC.

My experience is that if you use a router that can assign a fixed ip to the iPad or whatever, and to your PC, this can be a highly uncomplicated, reliable setup, that exceeds MIDI in terms of latency and clearness (due to the adress handling using custom descriptions within the adress rather than a number pair from 0-127 and 1-16 for CCs, so i always ended up writing big tables to know what's happening on each CC#)

hi grizzle,
I'm sure there are some goods reasons for using midi insrtead of OSC.
My experience is that if you use a router that can assign a fixed ip to the iPad or whatever, and to your PC, this can be a highly uncomplicated, reliable setup, that exceeds MIDI in terms of latency and clearness (due to the adress handling using custom descriptions within the adress rather than a number pair from 0-127 and 1-16 for CCs, so i always ended up writing big tables to know what's happening on each CC#)
cheers!


btw.. i tried TouchOSC (worked a long time with it, but it was constantly unstable), MMF, c74 and the lemur app.. lemur beeing by far the best for me

I tried MMF and Fantastick last night but there seems to be a problem with Max6 or Lion. It worked but it did not draw all the sliders correctly on the iPad. The communication was fine but some of the sliders on the iPad did not draw their slider position bars so you couldn't know the value of the slider without looking at Max on the Mac. The slider did send data just did not show position.

I logged into my Vodafone router but there is no option to pick a static IP. They are my ISP and after a bit of research found out they only issue static ip's for business clients saying IP addresses are limited. I'll have to try it someplace else - wireless really would be preferable.

If you are going to go the wireless route, you might want to look into ad-hoc networks, which are networks that don't go through a router and instead connect peer-to-peer.

FWIW, and contrary to woyteg's experience, I've found latency to be much better with a wired MIDI interface instead of wireless.

I set up both the MMF, Fantastick and Beatsurfing with an adhoc network with no encryption. It is simple and fairly stable really but the beatsurfing thing is a performance app - small chokes can ruin the flow. It is fine for other things like TouchOsc as that's mostly quantized, Sliders or XY pads not as critical when it comes to timing.

I will try the USB camera kit - no rush yet - I'll see if I can get one 2nd hand.

For others who might find this post another option I was given was to jailbreak the iPad and install MiWi and use this to tether the iPad to the Laptop over 3g. I have no experience at all there but I was told it was stable - do not know if it is better than a wire though.

I am not a network specialist, but once more i want to add my two cents, hoping for somebody to affirm or contradict my assumptions.

I am using a router since i connect a PC for visuals a Mac for Max/MSP, a Pacarana and the Ipad. But i would also use one since it seemed simpler (compared to ad-hoc) to assign static ips, so i could "hardwire" my [udpsend 10.0.0.2 5000] instead of using bonjour. I used to work with bonjour for some time but it was the cause for many Max-crashes on my system(the bonjour external was also an experimental or beta version at that time and i think it still is)

About the latency, i think, and that's mainly the point where i would wish somebody to chime in and tell us some facts, that OSC in general has the potential to be faster than MIDI, mostly due to the opto-isolators used at every midi port. BUT i think OSC doesn't have a constant latency when sending too much data. I don't know about MIDI, but i guess it shouldn't be much different, but one usually doesn't get to sending so much data due to the 8 bit standard.

I am not a network specialist, but once more i want to add my two cents, hoping for somebody to affirm or contradict my assumptions.
I am using a router since i connect a PC for visuals a Mac for Max/MSP, a Pacarana and the Ipad. But i would also use one since it seemed simpler (compared to ad-hoc) to assign static ips, so i could "hardwire" my [udpsend 10.0.0.2 5000] instead of using bonjour. I used to work with bonjour for some time but it was the cause for many Max-crashes on my system(the bonjour external was also an experimental or beta version at that time and i think it still is)
About the latency, i think, and that's mainly the point where i would wish somebody to chime in and tell us some facts, that OSC in general has the potential to be faster than MIDI, mostly due to the opto-isolators used at every midi port. BUT i think OSC doesn't have a constant latency when sending too much data. I don't know about MIDI, but i guess it shouldn't be much different, but one usually doesn't get to sending so much data due to the 8 bit standard.
?
Cheers!


I use a router & static IP too but in case you want to use bonjour/zeroconf, those java externals never crashed yet on my setup:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/oscjavaformax/

And Mattijs, the well-known developer, is very responsive to bug reports!

I remember I tried another external (by some guy from IRCAM, Müller maybe?) a couple of years ago, but this one was indeed unstable.

I use a router & static IP too but in case you want to use bonjour/zeroconf, those java externals never crashed yet on my setup:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/oscjavaformax/
And Mattijs, the well-known developer, is very responsive to bug reports!

Hi Patrick - I saw that you could connect Fantastick/MMF using bonjour/zeroconf but I did not know about the externals. Downloading them now. I'll try them out and see if there is an improvement.

IPad and MIDI options???