Transfer MIDI and audio between iOS and your Mac over USB

Making your iOS device an integral part of your Mac-based music-making setup is getting easier and easier.

Earlier this week we told you about Music IO, which enables you to shuttle MIDI between your iPad/iPhone and OS X machine, and now we have Midimux and Audiomux, two apps from Touchable developer Zerodebug that can handle MIDI and audio respectively.

Midimux is first out of the blocks. Operating over a single 30-pin/Lightning to USB cable, this enables you to control iOS apps with hardware MIDI controllers that are connected to your Mac, sequence and trigger iOS apps using a Mac DAW, and use iOS apps to trigger and sequence hardware instruments that are connected to your Mac.

You can also control Mac applications using a suitable iOS app (Touchable, Lemur etc), and it's possible to connect more than one iOS device to the Mac simultaneously. Midimux is available now from the Apple App Store priced at £7.99/$9.99.

Audiomux hasn't been released yet, but promises low-latency audio streaming between your iOS apps and Mac (again, over a single 30-pin/Lightning to USB cable). It integrates with Audiobus (in fact, this is required), and enables you to connect multiple iOS devices to your Mac, each of which will show up as its own audio device.

Audiomux is expected to cost $6.99, though we're also told that it'll be available in a bundle with Midimux that'll cost £7.99/$9.99, effectively making it free if you buy Midimux now.

Both apps also require server applications for your Mac - these can be downloaded from the Zerodebug website. You can see them in action in the video above.

Ben Rogerson

I’m the Deputy Editor of MusicRadar, having worked on the site since its launch in 2007. I previously spent eight years working on our sister magazine, Computer Music. I’ve been playing the piano, gigging in bands and failing to finish tracks at home for more than 30 years, 24 of which I’ve also spent writing about music and the ever-changing technology used to make it.