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Replace your pedalboard with a tablet or phone?

Would you replace your pedalboard with a tablet or phone?

  • I already have, and it's great! Let me tell you all about it...

    Votes: 2 1.4%

  • I want to try that, soon. Nifty neato!

    Votes: 4 2.9%

  • It is the future. Resistance is futile.

    Votes: 2 1.4%

  • Maybe someday? I need to know more. Cute idea.

    Votes: 14 10.1%

  • Probably not, I already have a perfectly good pedalboard.

    Votes: 35 25.2%

  • Hell no, you can take my pedalboard from my cold dead hands!

    Votes: 70 50.4%

  • Other

    Votes: 12 8.6%
  • Total voters
    139
#41
FretRiff said:
The issue with Line 6 hardware was due to an incompatibility at the end of 2019 that involved old Lightning cables and Apple fixed it a few weeks later in a later iOS release. No whims exposed to air from what I saw.
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Not to be pedantic but in my research it was around 6 months in the time between iOS13 and 13.4. That was enough time for me to just move on from the idea completely.

So in short it’s a risk, less of one now with everything being usb c but another example is Adrian Belew had an amazing fx processor on iOS called Flux, I don’t know if you could even get close with a combination of pedals. Flat out just doesn't exist anymore.

I feel I'm arguing against using an ipad as a rig when I did legitimately gig it for several years (I even recorded an album using this rig) and this is long before it was as good as it is now, just if you go down this route there are some risks and you should NEVER update your ipad just before heading off to a gig 😉
 
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#42
coyote1 said:
Yeah. But…. I’m doing it with keyboards. iPad is becoming the center of my keyboard world. Reasons?
1. NUMA Player. FREE, and includes a very good Steinway grand and very good Clavinet and marimba and many other things.
2. VB3m. A Hammond/Leslie modeler for $15. Its only weakness is fast Leslie, and that’s only because that particular sound is nearly impossible to model. And even at that, it’s not bad… but every other facet of VB3m is spot-on my actual Hammond console. I’m building a new ‘organ’ using a couple inexpensive midi controllers to run it.
3. SWAM woodwinds and horns. Sax, trumpet, trombone, flute. All as realistic as currently available without having the actual horn. $15 per instrument on average.

There are many other softsynths and whatnot that are free or very inexpensive and are excellent. And since I needed a new iPad anyway, this path became a natural choice.
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If I play keyboards live again, I'm definitely considering using a Proteus emulator rather than using my Proteus 1000 or 2000. But there I can use the second keyboard tier that would be on Proteus and place the laptop in a location that is convenient to see and safe. Plus I have a whole load of other VSTs

I might be tempted for other effects, but via a laptop for bass where it would be vulnerable and hard to see - I'd look at a small form factor PC and display in a mixer "rack".

I know these aren't tablets, but I don't have an iPad or iPhone and Android seems to have unacceptable latency. Anything above 20ms and I can barely play let alone it being enjoyable. I know being able to hear latency in the 10-20ms is unusual, but I can tell but it's not so bad as to make my skin crawl. I did test my hearing and apparently I really can hear latency in the 10-20ms range. It drove me nuts in a previous band when one of my bandmates used to clip 20-30ms off the end of a phrase. I ended up recording it to prove it to myself.
 
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#44
TaySte_2000 said:
Not to be pedantic but in my research it was around 6 months in the time between iOS13 and 13.4. That was enough time for me to just move on from the idea completely.

So in short it’s a risk, less of one now with everything being usb c but another example is Adrian Belew had an amazing fx processor on iOS called Flux, I don’t know if you could even get close with a combination of pedals. Flat out just doesn't exist anymore.

I feel I'm arguing against using an ipad as a rig when I did legitimately gig it for several years (I even recorded an album using this rig) and this is long before it was as good as it is now, just if you go down this route there are some risks and you should NEVER update your ipad just before heading off to a gig 😉
Click to expand...
Or Windows.
 
#46
if I wanted to use something digital as rig it's laptop. with the internet turned on.. and a rack case with a proper Di interface. and hardwired Midi control.. with backup Laptop.. more processing power.. use open source programs.. if you make a ghost laptop.. you can run everything off an external hardrive. relatively cheap.. and they are relatively cheap to make.
 
#49
Was that outputted on a manual typewriter? :cool: But seriously, all options have tradeoffs (which haven't been discussed for pedals in this thread). Different tradeoffs exist for price, space, capability, longevity, flexibility, recording ease, etc etc. Don't throw out the digital baby with the sonic bathwater.
 
#50
In our band, our guitarist uses sort of a hybrid setup.
Ipad for synth and rhodes type sounds, connected to a midi keyboard.
Then hx stomp connected to a big midi controller for his guitar.

He used to have a big pedalboard before, and a macbook, and loads of other stuff.
It was a mess, and rarely worked as it should lol

Me, I use a combination of a few pedals and hx stomp, connected to a poweramp.
I could do with just the stomp and only have a midi controller in front of me.
I can’t see how changing out the hx stomp to a ipad/laptop and some kind of audio interface(to get sound out to a amp and FOH) would improve things?
 
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#52
dreamadream99 said:
To me, the best thing about pedals, is you can turn them on and off with your foot. My foot is not doing anything else when I play. my hands are. Both of them.
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You don't change sounds with your hands, but rather use foot pedals of some sort. I have a three button one I could use to cycle through patches (although it really belongs to the dogs, but that's a long story) and a Zoom B9 can do a similar job. Native Instruments Guitar Rig floor units offer buttons to change parameters and an interface. Harley Benton has something similar. Nobels and Behringer make MIDI floor units with lots of buttons and things like the MIDI mouse offer the option to change with a smaller footprint, and there are a plethora of cheap BlueTooth units for about $50.
 
#53
TaySte_2000 said:
...It was all good until an iOS update caused my line 6 interfaces to stop working.

By the time the tech moved on to where there was usb c on the iPad, my iPad was so expensive I didn’t want to have it on stage with me...
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Code Brown said:
It's unwise to build your house on sand. The tablets / phones and their OS are always changing, updating, crashing, etc. I love the idea in theory, but in practice I'd rather have the simplicity and stability of a small pedalboard.
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/THREAD

With 15 years as an IT Professional, I can tell you right now that using anything with "Planned Obsolescence" as the primary business model is not a wise idea. I'm all for technological innovation, but I would strongly suggest technology that is designed to be "standalone" in function and purpose. Zoom and Line 6 HX stuff is great, would definitely jump onto that bandwagon before going the iPad route.
 
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#55
Interesting thread. Over the easter weekend I realised that I was harbouring resentment towards my Quad Cortex for its slow development cycle and annoying potentiometers. When I saw what the 2nd hand market price for it was (still very high), it got me thinking about alternatives.

I do a lot of work as an orchestral recording producer and FOH engineer and had moved to using an iPad running ForScore ages ago. I was prepared for failures and frustrations so usually had a backup on my laptop at hand. But in 6 years it's been rock solid, and in fact having the cloud sync meant that any machine I was near could work as a backup. I wondered if this would be a similar experience using the iPad as an audio engine. I have no concerns about tech failure or software update issues as I already am careful about that as I use my devices for work everyday.

I have used AUM for an ages for small tasks and always found it to do exactly what it says it does. I grabbed an RME Babyface audio interface and a few plugins and started to play around. I was very surprised at the"feel" of the setup, very tight. Using a test rig I measured the latency of the system ( I run at 96kHz, 128 sample buffer) and was pleased to see it at 6ms. For reference the Quad Cortex with no blocks is arounds 2ms - however once you load an amp model, cam sim, and capture you usually get up to around 12-14ms.

As an engineer, I loved the ability to use similar studio grade EQ / Dynamics plugins like FabFilter on my bass iPad pedal board, as opposed to being stuck with the options available on the QC. Also, as the AUv3 plugin format is quite common there is an easy path to developing some custom plugins too.

Shall see how the next few weeks go, but I can see myself building a small unit to house the audio interface, power and iPad that can sit on top of the amp to make it neat. Adding a small footswitch would allow for scene / pedal changes, and perhaps a midi controller for parameter adjustments. I have a Midi Fighter Twister that is very adaptable, and have just seen the Melbourne Instruments Roto-Controller device which has motorised pots.

Whilst it feels odd to be considering moving from a dedicated and great sounding pedal like the QC, I cant help but feel that there is something about freeing myself from one manufacturers ecosystem.
 
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#56
To be fair, you don't need to "replace" your pedals with a computer. You can use them in conjunction. Digital pedals (except PT2399-based delays) are also tiny computers anyway.
If you already own a multi-fx with USB audio, you could incorporate a computer-based processing into your signal chain right away. No need to lose any of your existing pedals.
 
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#57
Iristone said:
To be fair, you don't need to "replace" your pedals with a computer. You can use them in conjunction.
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Yes you are right, but I dont like holding onto redundant gear, especially when it is still worth something. I am going to leave it a few weeks, but at this stage I believe I can replicate all the aspects of the QC that I value into an iOS based system.
 
#60
sydneytdc said:
Thats what it measured yesterday with v3.1. What have you seen?
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Interesting that you measured it rather than just heard second hand. I have to admit that I have only heard second hand so I will stand corrected. Videos and measurements on the web in a few places, I know I saw threads on the gear page for one and youtube reminds me that I watched this video a while back.
 
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