Ipad Midi controller USB help....

Can anyone help me because firstly I'm a complete idiot when it comes to these things.

Now I seen some videos for Touchosc and it looks great as control surface for Ableton, now I really can't use wifi to connect it my Mac. So its there a way where I can use a wired usb connection to my mac instead to utilise Touchosc?

cheers, Lemur is far too expensive at the moment for me.

At the moment i been reading up about it, but generally I just been more confused.

From what I read I need a irig midi and then the camera kit?, then for my laptop i need to buy a midi to usb to connect the irig to midi and it work?

you shouldn't need both the irig midi and the camera connection kit - its one or the other really

its basically:

irig midi>included midi to standard midi cable(if you use this you cant also use the camera connection kit as it blocks the ipads connector port)

the better option is

camera connection kit>usb to midi cable (provided it is class complient - there are lists of compatibles around)

either way you will need some sort of midi interface on your laptop

i went and bought a midi mobilizer, but then afterwards realized by using that i couldnt use my audio interface with the ipad. and discovered the far better solution was to use:

camera connection kit> powered usb hub which then goes to both:
> midi interface (microkontrol)
> audio interface (UA25-ex) (some audio/midi interfaces allow both audio and midi to work at same time - mine doesnt which is why i have to use the mikrokontrol for midi)

far better solution for me as i use animoog, and i can get high quality sound out of the interface and control it from my MPC at the same time. but it works in reverse as well as i can send midi from ipad using touch osc.

so in summary camera connection kit is a far more versatile option in my opinion

Cheers, OK entertain a fool.

So cheap camera kit off ebay, usb to midi cable which i have already and then the us to midi connected to a midisport and I can get Touchosc to work like that?

yep - but i think you may need a powered usb hub in between the camera connection kit and the usb to midi cable (as the ipad doesnt send power)..

not all usb to midi cables work though, but the ones that do seem to be very cheap anyway.

yeah and then it should connect to your midi sport..

when i was purchasing my camera kit, in the reviews i read it seems you do have to be a bit wary of those cheaper ebay knockoffs for this purpose - quite often they dont do the job. grudgingly i pad full price to apple when normally i would try to avoid doing so.

Cheers, OK going for the irig midi to midisport, this won't need a poweredhub and should work?

do I need to install any software for Ableton to recognise the ipad as a control surface?.

Over WiFi you would use MIDI Yoke (32bit only I think) or some other virtual MIDI port freeware. Over USB I believe you only have to activate the physical MIDI ports that you've connected too.

Grab this - http://livecontrol.q3f.org/

Premade Touch OSC Live Template. The installer likely puts a Python script file in your Live folder so you will have a defined device to choose in Ableton's control surface preference; activate the ports in the regular MIDI port preferences too.

I've got 2 iPads and an iPhone, Camera Kit and the Alesis I/O dock. I haven't used any of them in a while, but I need to set it all back up. As I refresh my memory on all this hopefully I can contribute more to these threads.