iRig MIDI Core MIDI Interface for the iPad review

There are loads of great music apps available for iOS, Garage Band, Animoog and many from Korg have very playable sounds but playing them from the iPad touch screen is not much fun and this is where iOS MIDI adapters come in. IK Multimedia’s iRig MIDI is a compact MIDI adapter for iOS devices that enables MIDI interface with an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. Many iOS music apps support Core MIDI so you can control virtual synths, drum machines and music apps from a MIDI device like a keyboard or sequencer. I connected the iRig MIDI to my 3^rd gen iPad via the 30 pin connector and it then gives you MIDI in, out and thru plus a micro USB port for charging. In the box you get two cables for connecting up the iRig to a standard MIDI port. Getting started with it is really easy, you just plug in the iRig connect up a MIDI device and then with an app like Animoog you can start playing the sounds from a MIDI keyboard. There are two LEDs for showing MIDI activity which is very handy when you are trying to figure out what is going wrong in a complex MIDI setup. I didn’t notice any latency with the adapter and the apps I tested worked fine with it (Garage Band, Animoog, Korg Gadget). My main irritation with it is the connector, the 30pin connector doesn’t fit that well into the iPad and is prone to coming out which is not something you would want when playing live. A small knock and it pops out which is pretty frustrating, if you are not moving the iPad then it’s ok. The other issue with it is the supplied MIDI cable are a little short. I didn’t get any stuck MIDI notes when I was using it with my synths or connected up to a PC via Cubase, I did get a couple of app crashes when switching between music apps on the iPad but this isn’t that unusual since upgrading my iPad to iOS 7. There are free apps from iRig that you can use with the Interface. There is a MIDI recorder for simple recording and playback of MIDI. It can record MIDI notes and sysex which can be handy for saving synth patches. The other apps are sample playback and a piano app, the apps are basic with a few sounds and there are in-app purchases to buy more instruments. There are a lot of good music apps for iOS, Animoog is my personal favorite. So overall it works pretty well, it dos feel a bit cheap and the connector isn’t great but it does the job and it turns the iPad in to a useable musical instrument. The iRig Core cost £37 on Amazon. In this video a take a look at the iRig Midi.