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FINALLY, Apple... (GB on the iPad)

#61
Just been having a dabble with it - so far, I'm impressed. :)

Not done much with it so far - I tried my Sei 5-string bass and my Krappy touchstyle guitar (connected using my iRig - thanks IK :) ), both of which sounded good through the built-in amp simulation, then added a beat using the on-screen drumkit. Works great. Going to try adding some of the soft-synth stuff next.

It might not be the most powerful bit of software ever, but it's definitely fun, sounds decent and I'm looking forward to playing more with it.
 
#63
A few further thoughts after playing with it some more...

The virtual instruments are actually really bloody good. :) The virtual rock guitar sounds great, and you can even do palm-muting! There's two modes - one where it gives you a set of chords based on the key of the song that you specify, and you can "strum" them, or pluck individual strings, and a direct notes mode where you "tap" the notes on the fingerboard, a bit like playing a Stick.

On the bass side, there's a virtual Precision, a virtual Hofner (neither of which sound particularly good, alas), and, most interestingly, a virtual double bass - complete with interactive fretless fingerboard! It also sounds pretty authentic. On the drums side, there's the onscreen drumkit which is smart and very usable, but there's also a "smart drums" mode where you place drum patterns on a matrix and it generates beats for you. Very clever. There's also lots of nice soft synths, with knobs where you can adjust the filters, etc on the fly, and a very nice "rock organ", complete with drawbars. These are all features the desktop version of GarageBand doesn't have...

Recording directly into it using the iRig was easy, I didn't notice any latency and the resulting sound was good. The way it's set up, you record a song one "part" at a time, which you can set up to be 8 bars, 4 bars, etc, then you string the whole lot together afterwards. I haven't run into any limitations with using it on the old iPad yet either - I think using it on the iPad 2 allows more live effects and more simultaneous tracks, but just laying down 4 or 5 tracks with minimal effects works just fine on the original iPad.

Basically, so far I love it. :D Going to play with it some more over the weekend.
 
#64
Thanks, Rusty. I had wondered about the palm mutes, myself. Good to know you can do them. I haven't had a need for the virtual guitar in GB, since I have AmpliTube 2.

You're not going to see any latency from iRig, because it is an analog device and moves at the speed of electrons. ;)
 
#65
Brian at IK said:
Thanks, Rusty. I had wondered about the palm mutes, myself. Good to know you can do them. I haven't had a need for the virtual guitar in GB, since I have AmpliTube 2.

You're not going to see any latency from iRig, because it is an analog device and moves at the speed of electrons. ;)
Click to expand...

I was expecting some latency from the GB software, since the iPad doesn't have the world's fastest processor, but even with monitoring turned on, there wasn't any. :)

The virtual guitar thing's cool if you happen to not have a real guitar handy, and, being a totally different thing to a real guitar, might lend itself to coming up with ideas you might not necessarily come up with on a real instrument. Personally, I'll still always reach for the real instrument first, but it's nice to have the virtual guitar in your musical toy box. :)
 
#71
hey Rusty, i was dinkin around w. garage band and the tracks you record dont have to only be 4 or 8 bars. Click "Automatic" and it will let you play as long as you want. i recorded 24 mins of just all kinds of crazy **** on my bass on 1 single track. then you just layer in some groovy drums and guitar work.

here's just a sample of what you can do w.this powerful little app. my Apogee hasnt come in yet so this is just straight up using the Mic about 4 feet from my speaker cab. The only real instrument here is my Ibanez SR-750 runing my crazy ass pedal rig and literally going through a crate PA 100watt. everything else, the drums the guitar layers are all Garage band created on the ipad.

Also keep in mind, when i get my apogee i'll be able to go directly into the ipad using any instrument and lay down 8 tracks worth of badassness then send it Directly to itunes published and i'll be able to sale my tracks, hell ill be able to make my own album!

this is a small sample of what i did, like i said the only instrument here is a real bass, everything else is onboad ipad garageband.

i just freshly uploaded this to utube so give it a sec to process the quality, but this took about 2 hours. the bulk of that being getting the sound quality good enough and then syncing in the drum tracks. took 5 mins to upload.

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#72
From everything I've researched, it seems that IK's iRig and Peavy's Amp Kit interfaces have flaws from the fact that they connect though the headphone jack on the iOS devices. This results in feedback and low noise level results, and requires constant fiddling with software settings to rectify the issues. A rep at the Apple store I spoke to yesterday confirmed he has experienced the same with the iRig. The recently released Apogee Jam D/I takes a different approach, connecting through the iOS dock. It also has an on-board gain control. Both aspects seem to produce a much better signal with no feedback or loss of signal. While I haven't tested any of these devices directly, this seems to be the consensus, and why I am leaning towards the Apogee Jam.

However, I am a big fan of IK's Amplitube software (I run the suite of solutions on my MAC), and wish I could pair Apogee Jam with Amplitube on my iPad/iPhone. I've read these are not currently compatible. I've also read that Apogee Jam is compatible with the Peavy Amp Kit software. I hope this forces IK to make their software compatible as well.

If anyone has any insight or direct experience pairing these solutions, please share!

Thanks!
 
#73
You are correct, SCLUCAS, AmpliTube 2 is not currently compatible with the 30-pin data port. We hope to introduce some compatibility later this year. Though I haven't had this problem myself, if you are experiencing noise from the iPhone headset input, you can get iRig Recorder.

BTW, Have you gotten the AmpliTube 3.5.2 update on your Mac yet? All of your previously installed AmpliTube models will automatically unlock and be available for you to use in AmpliTube 3.5. It should be waiting for you in your User Area.
 
#74
Thanks Brian. Yes I have updated to AmpliTube 3.5.2 on the iMAC, and very happy with the upgrades. However, I want a similar solution on the iPhone, for when I travel or just practicing when ever/where ever, and not confined to my iMac in my basement studio. Not sure how the iRig Recorder offers a solution to the issues described, but I will look into it further.
 

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