iPad Alesis IO Dock, Ableton, iKaosilator, iElectribe, WIST?

[dreamwalker]

I finally went out and bought myself an iPad 2 and the Alesis IO Dock. With the exception of Touchable, I have yet to get any real midi integration with Ableton. Perhaps it is not possible with the apps I have been trying to work with. Specifically I'd love for Ableton to act as a master and Korg's iKaosilator or iElectribe to run as a slave. I have experimented using WIST to wirelessly sync an iPhone 4 with the iPad successfully. But I have to manually change the tempo and beatmatch the mobile apps every time I change the tempo in my Ableton Live set. It would be so nice and smooth if it was all midi synced to Ableton.

I honestly thought that is what the Alesis dock would do for me. But so far, minus the nice inputs and outputs, it is a glorified charging station. There is not a whole lot of information on the net about it either. It seems people are mostly using the IO dock to work with midi keyboards. That is cool but I was hoping for more.

Anyone have any idea if what I am trying to achieve is possible? I noticed there is an mobile app called Midibridge available, not sure if this could help accomplish this or not.

I am also curious if anyone has heard any plans to create a WIST plugin for use with Live or if Ableton is working on a proper mobile integration for ios 5?

I have to say, pretty excited about all the possibilities of having the iPad in the studio, but I have yet to figure out the best way to use it in a live setting. Especially since I love my APC40 and plan to keep using it to drive my live sets on stage.

I look forward to hearing your input.

[rixdelrio]

I totally agree.

Just got the Alesis io dock and after searching the net and reading this it seems there is now easy way of having Live as master and say iElectribe on ipad as slave...

[bigbadotis]

The WIST stuff seems cool, but, to be honest I would prefer just regular Virtual MIDI sync + background audio. I'm having fun running a slew of audio programs at once and sequencing them all with Genome... can't do this with iElectribe.

[dreamwalker]

Interestingly enough I tried plugging my akai mpk25 into my computer with a USB and then an oldskool midi cable from the mpk25 to the midi in on the io dock. Ableton acted as a master and the ielectribe acted as the slave. First real progress with the io dock so far.

[rixdelrio]

cheers dreamwalker for that... i tried the same with my novation remote 37sl with a old school midi cable in the midi thru and it works... there is quite a latency though... not sure if thats just the ipad being slow or if its due to some latency setting in ableton... hmm latency sucks

[dreamwalker]

I don't get latency from the ipad itself. Seems like it is Ableton

Here are some latency tips that might help:

1. turn buffer down to 128 or 256 if your computer can handle it
2. set the input channel to bypass the master (ext 1/2 instead of master)

[dreamwalker]

I noticed this particular post came up near the top in google search results for ableton live and the alesis i/o dock, so I thought I'd drop in and post some new info I recently learned.

It has been a few months since I got my ipad 2 and alesis i/o dock. I pretty much love the combination. Though I had been getting serious glitching sounds at random times. I learned there is a fix for this which I link to below.

1. upadate ios to 5.0.1
2. update alesis i/o dock firmware 1.0.7

all the details are in this video's description (the video does have some good points too but a lot of it is in reference to garage band):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haSajpEg ... re=plcpwww.


I also wanted to tell you a little more about how I deal with latency when using the i/o dock with ableton. In addition to my earlier comment about about adjusting the buffersize and bypassing the master channel in Ableton, I also send the master out on the i/o dock to my soundcard inputs which I set to record to a channel in ableton. However, I mute the input channel while I am playing along to my production. Instead, I send the headphone out jack on the i/o dock to a separate channel on my studio mixer (the outputs of my soundcard go to another channel on my studio mixer). When I play along I hear this live sound from both ableton and the ipad/dock. After I record, I un-mute the input channel in ableton and then I simple adjust for any latency with the clip start arrow. Usually a minor adjustment is necessary.

Good luck!

P.S. still hoping for wist integration someday. That would be ill-sauce.