I am trying to see if Cubasis on the iPad will meet my needs. I decided on Cubasis because it supports Audio and MIDI and looks like a reasonable learning curve. I am moving from an ancient but stable setup with a hardware based digital mixer/recorder (portastudio like - Yamaha AW-4416) and Yamaha XV-5080 midi sound module (which has analog and digital I/O).
So I have Cubasis installed on my iPad and have moved some tracks over, etc.
I was looking at the UR-44 interface, figuring that it is from the same company and should integrate well.
I had anticipated that I could find a software replacement for the XV-5080. However I have not found anything I like as well, but I suspect I don’t know some of the options available. If I keep the XV-5080, then I was thinking I would like digital input, which the UR-44 lacks. So that had me considering other hardware options with both MIDI and digital I/O.
So that has me considering other audio interfaces. So my questions are:
Are there other options for replacement of the XV-5080 on the iPad?
Is the UR-44 any better integrated than other audio interface options that have digital I/O (Focusrite 18i8, or anything from Motu, go all out for Apogee quartet but I don’t see that that supports MIDI in and out, others.). For instance is there iOS DSP integration in Cubasis that is unique to the UR-44?
Or is the digital IO from the XV-5080 not really important, and just using the audio IO to the UR-44 won’t make that much difference in sound quality?
the UR44 provides perfect integration with Cubasis (as well as Cubase on PC and Mac) and provides 4 mic preamps, 6 ins, 4 outs, MIDI I/O as well as onboard DSP power. Furthermore dspMixFX is available on the iPad and lets you set and tweak the included dsp features (mixer and effects such as sweet morphing channel strip, Rev-X reverb, guitar amp classics).
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The motu interfaces are not class compliant, so while they are great (i have two), they are useless for the iPad.
Most, if not all of the Focusrite interfaces are USB class compliant… I use a 18i20 as an ADAT mux for my MOTU 828mkIII and also test drove it with the ipad… So, while it is reasonably priced and has SPDIF and plenty of i/o i would not recommend it for the iPad due to>>
a) its HUGE… 4" deeper than the MOTU
b) no hardware (or iPad) access to mixer capabilities
c) input gain controls are not ganged in stereo mode …so knobs 3/4 adjust independently ch3&4 even when its set as a stereo input…effectively meaning you cannot use the knobs in standalone mode.
having a SPDIF connection is nice, but not essential, as any decent qualit interface will more than preserve the fidelity of the XV (which has older DACS anyway)… so dont get hung up on spdif.
I dont know the UR44, but having app access to the mixer is a huge deal… and it seems a decent price.
I had thought that the UR-44 might be restricted to connecting to one app at a time.
How is the integration of Cubasis with the UR-44 different from how the UR-44 works with other ipad based DAW software with the dspmixFX app? Is the difference that you don’t need Audiobus?
Does it matter what order Cubasis and dspMixFX are started ?
And lastly, and slightly off topic for this forum, if I picked up Cubase for the PC, then the PC version of dspMixFX is not needed and cannot be used at the same time, correct?
dspMixFX can be used along with another app such as Cubasis.
The app has been designed to control all DSP features of the hardware (such as the mixer and the effects) from the iPad. To give you one practical example, use the app to record your guitar in Cubasis using one of the guitar amp classics or record a vocal session using the sweet morph channel strip plus REV-X all provided by the UR.
Give the In-App help of the app a try to learn more about its features.
Hi, I would like to tag onto this message with a concern of my own.
I’m setting up my own home recording studio and have been planning on picking up a UR44 as I have to simultaneously record 2 mics plus an instrument. I like that the UR44 is capable of 24 bit 192 kHz recording, and would like to record at that sampling rate. I don’t want to record directly into my laptop because I’m pretty sure the fan will be picked up my the mics. I was planning on getting an ipad as well as cubasis in order to make totally clean recordings. However, I was concerned that the USB 2.0 might struggle to keep up with that much data flow and learned that cubasis only can record in 16 bit, 44.1 kHz…
So… I still want the UR44… But what are my other options for recording at a high sampling rate without the noiseof a computer fan? Any suggestions?
It really depends how in depth you want to take Cubasis. If your looking to just record and edit this app works very well. If you want to go into mixing your project you really need to move your files to a different system. Cubasis is limited in the mix and master process. If they update soon with tweaks to their EQ and compressor then it will serve all the way around. Hopefully someone is working on an update to be released soon. Even if it is a partial update with a few fixes, that would be tremendous. At least we will know they are trying to update.
As announced earlier, we are working on the next update with full speed.
The scope of the update is on iOS 64-bit support, new features and user-requested maintenance fixes.
The announcement will follow once the update has been submitted to Apple (though a little bit of patience is needed).
We’re confident the update will be worth the wait…