Been working out a PE Tracker based mobile setup for some upcoming travel while staying fairly minimal and with the ability to be fully battery powered at times. The tracker mini will of course minimize this even further but until then this will do quite well. Below is my setup. Curious to see what others have come up with.
Tracker powered by iPad Mini.
Bidirectional midi between tracker/ipad via usb.
Audio from iPad into input of Tracker.
Using Tracker to sync, sequence and sample a variety of iOS apps.
Tracker audio out to Bose S1 Pro Battery Powered PA Speaker or wired earbuds.
iPhone & Shure mic & little collapsible tripod for found sound sampling.
USB Micro SD Reader for loading found sound samples to Tracker’s SD card.
CME Widi Jack for those times I want to use the iPad as a wireless midi controller for the Tracker.
Battery bank with solar charging capability.
The key to this setup is really the CableCreation iPad hub that supports downstream power pass through so I can simultaneously power the tracker, have bidirectional midi and run audio out of the ipad into the tracker.
Nice mobile setup! Thank you for describing it here.
@ambivalence was mentioning the same gadget just a few days ago. I have never tried one but a combination with the Mini sounds logical. Are you happy about its latency?
The latency is inaudible and claimed to be about 5ms. Haven’t seen/heard any issues, they’ve made my life a lot easier. No brainer for portable devices. I guess, every newly released gear should have BT MIDI built-in by default, it’s 2023 for gods sake.
I’m pretty sure it’s Singapore, as well as MorningStar. The link you shared also states that cme-pro dot com is the manufacturer site. When I had a little chat with the support of both companies, there were some mentions that their relationships are pretty close because of that.
I’ve been using the WIDI Bud Pro for a while now on my PC. It’s how I connect a couple of MIDI Wind controllers I have to my PC so I can use them in Reaper. It works perfectly, and I haven’t noticed any significant latency.
So, when I saw the Play has 3.5mm MIDI jacks, I jumped on Amazon and bought the CME WIDI Jack too, with the 3.5mm cable option. I’ve already used it with the Bud to interface the Play’s MIDI tracks with Reaper, my favorite DAW. It’s truly wonderful, and it keeps the cable count down.
I just got the Play a couple of weeks ago, and it’s a total blast to work with. The CME products just make it easier and expands my capabilities. I don’t have a cool system like the one in this topic, but I do have my Play set up to operate mobile. The speaker I have is not as fancy as that Bose, it’s just a small Bluetooth/Aux speaker with really good sound. I have a power bank, but I don’t have one with as much solar charging input as the one in the picture. I’d have to use a standalone solar charging array that I have. It’s a larger array, so it’d charge the power bank faster.
I don’t currently have a nice tablet, but I do have a decent Chromebook. I have some MIDI software on it that’s Android based, and some that’s web based. This Chromebook is getting a bit long in the tooth, so I’ll probably have to flash it with an appropriate Linux distro. Then I’ll look at Linux based DAWs. But that’s a project for later. I’m still learning the Play!
Hello,
I am posting to this threat as it has the only mention of a chromebook which I could find here.
After finally buying a little beaten OG tracker second hand, I tried to play with some of the Android music creation apps while I am waiting for the missing MIDI adaptors to be shipped, but found that the USB MIDI does not seem to be recognised at all. I have tried Cubasis 3, FL Studio Mobile, Roland Zenbeats, Sunvox and TouchOSC, which due to limitations of Android on ChromeOS only support a single MIDI device, but work fine with my CME U6MIDI Pro interface. Additionally I tried to simply sync with ORCA, which relies on WebMIDI and also works fine with any MIDI device that I have available, but again no dice. My phone with Android 12 does not seem to provide enough power to start the Tracker with a USB C to USB C cable. When I connected the phone via USB C to my monitor, it was recognised as a USB hub and I was able to start the Tracker. However Protokol (Midi monitor from Hexler) crashes during this process and still, after restarting the app the Tracker is not listed, I didn’t go through the trouble of trying the other apps on the smaller screen. MIDI settings on the Tracker itself have been confirmed to work with my Linux desktop, but this configuration is not portable and lacks the touch interface for messing with the instrument parameters.
I’m curious to hear if any other Android users found a suitable configuration and if my observations also apply to the Tracker Mini and Plus.
Perhaps I’ll report about editing MOD exports in SunVox at a later date. The generative apps from the same developer are an amazing source for samples, that don’t require MIDI connectivity to work either. Once I finish some track on the Tracker, I will try to create a project from the stems in JammPro for additional remixing, it seems to me that this would be a funky way to record similar and more advanced effects as with the performance mode. I’ve seen some people ask if it was possible to record the performance effects on the Tracker itself and recommend to check this app in case you really feel this to be a limitation. Koala Sampler has an option to set the bit depth for export to 16-bit and I’ve used it successfully to record vocals and guitar phrases that exceed the Trackers sampling length and chop them to fit the memory.
Last but not least, I’m using the Tracker with the Volca Mixer with the send to Aux in for effects, if there are any Wishlist items for using the MIDI connectors as simple analog clock sync, please let me know, otherwise I’ll create one later. My naive attempt to use a myVolts Beat Splitter to swap left and right of the MIDI out to the MIDI in of the NTS-1 then sync out to the Volca Drum was unsuccessful.
Since this is my first post in this forum, I want to say thanks for having me.
I’ve found much better resources than from other gear specific groups on Facebook and am looking forward to share my experiments with you going forth.
Hey @slartibartlars welcome to Backstage! Glad you found your way here!
Android is notoriously difficult if not near impossible (via USB). I personally have no experience with chromebooks so i can’t help you there. But i’ve tested an older OnePlus 7 (running Android 12) and got MIDI working there. Surprisingly a much newer Samsung Galaxy S23 (running Android 13) i couldn’t get to connect at all. As to why that is the case… .
As it stands now i’m using a CME WIDI Thru6 BT Hub for BT MIDI communication with iOS and Android devices and that seems to be very reliable and let’s me use TouchOSC to create custom interfaces to control MIDI aspects of the Tracker. CME WIDI Jacks work too btw.
I’m not aware of any such wish atm (but i may also be wrong).
NTS-1 is TRS-A as far as i know, so yeah you’ll need a converter in between, especially if you want to just use jack cables. You can find some simple TRS-A to TRS-B jack adapters quite easily (1, 2).
I also fully agree that the developer behind SunVox has a couple apps that are total gems and a great sources for samples!
I work in the ocean for months at a time, so my setup is always mobile. At the moment, I use the Tracker+, the MC101, and usually I will bring one small extra portable ‘synth of the week’ to add extra flavor
Thanks for the reply, same as you reported in the other thread, I’ll be relying on regular MIDI connections as soon as the adapters from Polyend arrive.
Glad you found your way here! 
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