Long shot. If anyone has the Play + and an iPad M1 or M2. Can you test, using something like AUM, Audiobus, etc, if you are able to hear audio out of the Play headphone jack, running three synths and changing patches without any degradation of sounds?
I know this is a very niche thing yet there is a belief that non m1 or m2 don’t have the required juice the Play needs. I can use AirPods perfectly fine as a workaround on the audio.
Why the iPad if you are wondering. I use it as a virtual pedal fx and in order for that to work, I need to run apps like AUM. With audio over usb, you can solo out separate tracks to apply fx vs the master track. Makes for a lot of fun.
I actually have used the Play+ and Tracker Mini with the M1 iPad Pro and AUM.
Have not encountered any issues so far. Audio is spit out again via the Play+ or Tracker Mini Line Out into your headphones including any processing you do in AUM.
If there is anything specific you want me to test or an example audio, let me know. Happy to help.
So when you run three synths at once and change a patch on anyone, with your headphones plugged into the Play +. you are not getting any degradation in audio through your headphones?
If so, I believe this answers a belief out there that the M1 and above provide the juice for Play to work in this setup. I then need to look into upgrading my iPad is this is the case.
I have a iPad air m1 and play+, I didn’t realize the audio would come out the headphone jack when trying audio over usb and AUM, going to have to try that. Going to watch your video later and will try it at some point. I was using the iPad speaker before that.
For me if you know everything that some gear is capable of then you can make the choices of which set of features to play with. And that obviously includes possible features that may work or partially work that are not described, or fully supported. Never considered I could do something like this even if it doesn’t fully function when I bought it!
I get no sound out of the Play+ headphone jack if it’s connected to the m1 iPad, only get the routing of the audio through the iPad speaker when setup with AUM and haven’t figured out how to send it to something else in a way that works.
Edit: I see AUM can route the output back to the play, got sound heavily distorted too, now going to attempt to fix it.
I was messing with output sources, and at some point switching it back to the play+ again seemed to fix it because before I was getting really bad distortion no matter what it was playing even just kick drums or just hi hats and that stopped happening. I believe if figured out what was causing it too now in some fashion.
If I play certain synth sounds it triggers the whole thing to break and even ones that were previously working now may sound like a distorted mess even if played alone. Then it requires messing around with the output or some other way to fix it. The fix for when it goes into that mode is get off the synth patch it doesn’t like, change output to something else and play for a second or two through that device, then change the output back to the play.
Note: (I think I may have the details a bit off needs more experimenting, but wanted a break from this – it is however looking like it might be usable as long as you don’t keep changing synth patches which seems to break it after a while).
Not noticing the “punchy” issue you mentioned in your video. You can accidentally cause a similar issue if you run the main mix at the same time as the other channels and then they stack and everything gets louder, but I don’t think you were doing that and it’s also expected behavior if you were to do that.
I also go the Play to freeze twice when experimenting, but don’t recall the specifics of what caused it, but it was during the time it was behaving really badly and not when it was functioning a bit better.
Hey, I have a first gen, iPad Pro 11” 2018 model A12x and I do get some distortion hooked up via USB-C, and using the audio port on the Play+.
However, when I use an Anker USB-C hub, and then I use a USB-A to USB-C cord, I don’t get distorted audio from the audio port on the Play+
So I suspected maybe there’s something going on with an apple branded USB-C cord, so I just tried a regular android USB-C cord and the problem still happens.
No it plugs right into the pad and gets its power from the device.
I originally used it on my tracker so I could control synths on my iPad via MIDI and because it has an audio out, I would be able to line it back into the tracker and sample it. It works on the Play and I’ve used it for the same reason, to control synths.
The listing says it doesn’t work with newer iPads, but I’ve tested it on my kids, M1 air and it works fine.
I didn’t use AUM since I don’t believe the problem is with AUM specifically. Since I already knew there was an issue with audio coming from the iPad and it sounding horrible, I cheated a little bit and I was just using Anamoog.
I had been testing with hubs but plugging power into them. I am using on of my 5 hubs and I have all three synths playing, changing sounds and SO far, no loss in audio quality. I am not saying this is the fix as I need to test on several occasions and running more than synth tracks.
I am shocked this is working as the manual states no hubs and as mentioned, my others do not work.
I’ve been down this rabbit hole of dongles and it’s not the best experience.
Well, I let it run for 15 min, changed up patches with all three synths and no loss in audio quality.
However, as I work in IT for my full time job, one 15 min test is not cause for, yep. this works. I will test each day for the next several weeks and report back. Clearly, someone else has a dongle that works. The problem is 1. let’s say we find the dongle(s), good chance they sell out. 2. dongle life is not welcomed by all. 3. we can say for certainty that everyone has a similar experience. 4. it’s another cost. 5. Probably more!
This is not a plea to the company to do anything in my eyes. I am doing something that is “out of scope” that I have a work around that works and very happy with. I still will not recommend this process as it’s super niche.
Part of me would not be upset if this post is deleted if Polyend feels this is not beneficial on their forum.
To me if even one hub is found that work, that must mean many others do even if most don’t because there are so many of them some others are bound to work then. I feel like you’re being overly cautious like we can’t make our own choices here on how to use our stuff. Disclaimers about that it may not work and not fully tested are enough for me. Already got all the things for experiments so at worst just going to waste some time. I can make mine distort with less than a minute of switching synth sounds and it sounds like you’re getting even closer to making it fully usable. Wouldn’t be surprised if polyend mentions no hubs if only because for a whatever reason most don’t work.That don’t matter if your does though! Not going to not use something that works just because it’s not working for other people.
