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A Complete Mobile Platform For Audio Engineers: The iPhone OS
What you need to know about the best Apps available for iPhone OS devices for Live, Recording, and much more.
Apr. 09, 2010, by Kyle P. Snyder
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  Software, Digital, System, Ipad, Iphone, Applications, Testing, Ipod Touch

For house engineers working a fixed installation such as a church, there’s a good chance you deal with an entirely different kind of control: system automation.

Whether utilizing solutions by AMX or Crestron, they can be controlled remotely via several terrific Apps. 

From Crestron Electronics comes Crestron Mobile Pro which is capable of communicating via Wi-Fi and Cellular connection with any Crestron 2-Series Control Systems.

For those using AMX or any users who require complete customization comes iMasterControl Pro. Also capable of communicating with any IP-enabled Crestron 2-Series control system or AMX NetLinx controllers, the iMasterControl Pro is a perfect compliment to any automation system and is completely customizable via desktop software which facilitates the porting of existing AMX or Crestron programs.

Info On The Run
No engineer can know everything, so it’s fantastic the iPhone OS has innumerable sources of information accessible at just the tap of a finger. If you’re not quite sure about a Pinout, just look it up in Pinouts by CP3 Inc., which includes pinouts for audio, video, and computer connectors.

Need to determine the load or span of trusses? iTruss by Xtreme Structures may well be the App for you as it provides a complete resource for those in the field.

Less than confident about a calculation? Several fantastic audio calculators are at your disposal. LiveToolkit, created by programmer and sound-engineer Andreas Zeh is the ideal tool for anyone in the trenches of live production.

This App allows computation of time and frequency conversions, limiter-settings, lighting fixture start address, and other calculations often required by audio and lighting engineers in an intuitive interface. Equally useful is Backline Calc by Audofile Engineering.

Geared toward live, recording, and broadcast engineers, Backline Calc allows easy comparison of power and voltage, conversion between frames and timecode, estimation of recording file sizes, and many other useful features.

Something for the Clients
What about the musicians? Ever worked a concert where a musician needed to borrow a tuner or metronome? Maybe volunteered at a church where it’s just good practice to have these tools handy for any eventuality? When it comes to tuners, there’s a clear-cut favorite among musicians: Cleartune by bitcount. A chromatic instrument tuner and pitch pipe, Cleartune packs features like custom temperaments, transposition, and adjustable calibration. A perfect compliment to Cleartune, Tempo by Frozen Ape is the most comprehensive metronome I’ve found for the iPhone OS.

Looking Forward
These are just a few of the countless Apps available to audio professionals who are willing to avail themselves of the latest advances in mobile computing. Be it the iPhone, the iPod Touch, or the iPad, these devices and more to come stand to change the way we work forever. Never before have we as an industry been given the ability to utilize such amazingly flexible tools with such a diverse and individual set of applications; it only gets better from here.

 

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Kyle P. Snyder is an audio engineer with innumerable credits in the public and private sector, writing about audio engineering, recording technology and a multitude of other topics as Associate Editor of ProSoundWeb. Find out more about Kyle at his website and blog http://kpsnyder.com.



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Comments (11) Most recent displayed first | All comments in chronological order
Posted by jcarry  on  08/29/11  at  04:38 AM
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Posted by Jason Sheroan  on  04/23/10  at  11:35 AM
Thanks Kyle. In the SonomaWireWorks FourTrack forum, someone posted this question:

"I have an ipod touch, one of the latest G3 ones that are called ipod touch rather then the previous touch G2.

I have the app and it worked well with the headphone microphone that came with it (it's the one with volume controls on it too).

I'm thinking about getting another mic, so record with, but I want a decent mic that isn't directional, so that I can record our band practices. Is there something that you could suggest that will record quite well, but wont clip at high volume levels? note that by high volumes, i really mean medium. we don't play that loud.

I also read in another thread that they have clipping. so could it be that regardless of what mic I get, I will still get clipping.

Surely this 4 track should be able to cope with recording in a live band situation, where sensitive mics will clip.

Any ideas before I contact itunes and ask for a refund on this application because it's impossible to use as advertised.

And here is what Sonoma replied:

"The clipping is not a defect of the software, it is a limitation of the phone. There is currently no way of setting input gain or input monitoring. We are currently developing solutions to these problems. Please check out site regularly and join our newsletter to get all the latest updates.

So, that is what I was sorta referring to. I just wasn't very clear because I couldn't remember exactly what the deal was. I bought a cable that allows me to connect an external T-Mic as well as a Preamp. But I think the battery in my Pre is dead because it did not sound good, or any different without it.

But if you are not able to control your input level inside the phone, what's to prevent your guitar signal from being too hot before it even gets to the phone? You will have to reduce the vol on the guitar to adjust it, and that will have an effect on your tone. I really want to be able to use FourTrack to do song demos, since I have my iPod on me all the time. It's fun to program drums in Beatmaker. So for now, I have to export it thru WiFi and import it into my DAW, which is fine. But it would fun to get a guitar input to work well. It may already. But I don't think having to buy a $200 interface makes any sense! It shouldn't be this hard! Thanks!

Posted by Jason Sheroan  on  04/22/10  at  04:08 PM
But isn't there some issue with 3Gen iPod Touches that makes it difficult to use any of these audio programs? I have one (64gig), and have yet to figure out just how to get signal into the unit. I've tried various cables, and none work all that well. It either sounds horrible, or the level is too low. And I've read that there is no way to control your input levels. The way I understand it, is that 2nd Gen iPod Touches weren't this way? but I really don't know. I just know that I have a lot of cool app's on my iPod Touch such as Beatmaker, Looptastic, Flourish, ThumbJam, Bebot, and DopplerPad, with no real way to multitrack any of it into something like FourTrack. Line6 is getting ready to release something that allows you to midi interface with the iPod/iPhone. And Alesis has a really expensive solution. Maybe I've just not yet found the right way to go about it?

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