Has potential... – musicIO: Audio and MIDI over USB Review

I was looking for some options for core midi routing and I was originally going to purchase midi bridge. This popped up in the search and looked intriguing and thought it might offer a little more flexibility with my setup. I wish I would have done a little more research before and purchased Midi Bridge instead. This is a decent app and has potential, but I was enticed by the idea that this might be able to replace the iConnectivity 2i2 and a Presonus iOne I had purchased earlier in the month. My first mistake was to assume that it used CoreAudio which could be connected over network protocol similar to rtp midi. This was my own lack of understanding of the features of the app. Really the best thing this has going for the app is the fact that you can use the standard usb cable that comes with the iPad to connect the midi and audio. Being able to charge the iPad while its doing midi and audio is a huge plus as well. The biggest lack on the midi side is that it doesn’t support multiple midi ports and routes. I think it would have been better to have used connection to core midi that could be connected through audio midi setup on the mac. I use the camera connection kit with the rest of my setup. This means I cannot use my other equipment along side the this app all that easily. If this app had more abilities internally to route and do audio it might have work arounds. But I found it to be hugely limiting and lacking flexibility. In my setup, if the server and client had a way to also connect through TCP/UDP i think i could have made it all work. That would also allow for audio over lan which would be useful. I don’t know if it is capable of doing so however. The next portion of gripe is in the audio transfer. Congratulations to them in many ways for doing this since its one of a kind as i know, but its not perfect yet. Though I havnt seen anyone do it better yet. It actually does better than the usb audio bridge that the iConnectivity 2i2 gives which I was also disappointed. The iConnectivity has so much latency that it was completely unusable in my opinion. Maybe for certain return tracks, but I’m talking somewhere around 15-30 milliseconds which is unacceptable. Music IO has it right on that end where the latency can get done to rate where i felt was actually quite comfortable. However no matter what buffer setting i selected in both the IOS app or the OS server there seems to be glitching. It is a small and slight thing, but it was consistent and unaffected by the buffer. Im thinking this is something that could be worked on and fixed in future updates. Its slight but just enough that i won’t even try and use it in a real performance yet. The audio quality of seems to be good as well. But I’m not convinced that it is transferred as linear as i had hoped. Its a slight thing, but in conclusion overall the app does not compare to the reliable, sound, latency, and performance of straight dedicated hardware like the iConnectivity 2i2 and Presonus iOne. Its a much cheaper option however and will do just fine in most simple configurations. Worth the money if you are just getting started. I could see future updates adding some real potential to the app. But for me its an app that I might not ever use and was quite a chunk of change for an iPad app. I think i would have been better off with Midi Bridge which is what i originally needed for the same price. But now I’m hesitant to purchase that as well.
Review by Loom Sun on musicIO: Audio and MIDI over USB.