The iPad offers great promise in terms of music making, and I’m not talking about karaoke or strange virtual guitar concepts: artists like Gorrilaz have managed to record full songs using them. Now you can, too, thanks to Griffin.
Griffin Technology has launched two new MIDI devices that can turn your humble iPad into a (reasonably) convincing portable music studio.
MIDIConnect gives your iPad a standard 5-pin DIN MIDI-in port for you to plug in MIDI devices, like keyboards and guitars, allowing you to record straight to the tablet. It also features a MIDI Out port that lets you use the iPad as a MIDI controller. Which is pretty freakin’ awesome.
The StudioConnect is an iPad dock that serves as an all-in-one interface: it deals with audio, MIDI-In and MIDI-out. Instruments or microphones can be plugged in through a mono 0.25-inch, or you can shove a mixer into the, umm, mix using the stereo 3.5mm jack. It also features left and right line-level RCA plugs, and a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack with its own volume knob, so you can monitor what’s going on, too. Also, you’ve got to love that glowing knob. I know I do.
MIDIConnect goes on sale this spring for $US79.99, while StudioConnect will be available in February for $US149.99. [Griffin]
MotorMouth
Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 9:23 PMI can’t see too many people trading in their current FireWire or USB gear for something like this. Music software has moved on a long way from the times we used to get up on stage with a Pentium III 800MHz PC. I think a tablet makes most sense for sketching out stuff on the go. That said, it would be interesting to know what sort of latency – the time between hitting a key and hearing a sound – you get from an iPad.
Danny Allen
Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 9:26 PMExactly. As a producer myself, this sort of stuff is basically the new 8 track for places like the dorm room, hotel room, tour bus, etc.
S. Nolan
Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 11:30 PMI can see this working well with the Rock Bang Mustang for recording some ideas while traveling for work. I wonder when they’ll hit Aussie shores?
Sevrin
Monday, January 16, 2012 at 7:48 AMYou can achieve the same results with a Camera Kit and USB to Midi Interface cable. Both of which have secondary uses.
NO DEAL!