Apogee Duet and iPhone 15PM

[klspahr]

I have an older Apogee Duet for iOS & Mac (not the current Duet 3). I have used it on an older iPhone with a lightning connection and that worked fine. It also works great with my M1 MacBook Air using an aftermarket mini USB to USB-C cable which I am also using when trying to connect the Duet to the iPhone 15.



I have tried all the current Apogee iOS apps with no avail. They don’t see it. I have also tried the Apple adapter for USB A to USB-C and the factory cable with no luck. I have also tried with and without the Apogee AC power supply.



When the Duet is connected to the iPhone, adjusting the speaker volume on the Duet will cause the volume display bar on the iPhone to reflect the volume changes I am doing on the Duet. Also in GarageBand I can adjust the Channel 1 gain and it changes the gain in GarageBand except I can’t get the Duet Channel 2 to used by GarageBand. So on some level it is connecting. It’s just not very usable since I can’t record stereo or make changes in the Duet interface.



I didn’t try MIDI yet because I was mostly interested in recording stereo audio.



Anybody have any suggestions?



I just thought it would be cool if I could record good quality audio with my current iPhone.

 

[sahnert]

I have the same model and ran into this exact issue when iPads switched to USB-C.

The official word from Apogee (as far as I can find) is that’s just the way it is, at least as far as iPad is concerned. I would guess that the answer is similar for the iPhone

Link to knowledge base article

 

[klspahr]

I was thinking about getting an apple USB-C to Lightning Adapter and trying that. Since it is not critical that I get this setup working it will probably be awhile till I pick one of those up.

 

[klspahr]

I bought the Apple USB-C to Lightning adaptor and there’s good news and some bad news - so far.

I am using an iPhone 15 ProMax (17.3.1) and connected the Apogee Duet for iPad, iPhone, & Mac using the Apogee lightning cable through the Apple Adaptor. (You have to use the Apogee AC power supply because the iPhone will not supply power to the Duet but the Duet will charge the iPhone.)

I found the old Apogee Maestro app will allow you to adjust and control the Duet.

The newer Apogee Control 2 does not see the Duet and is “waiting to connect”. I tried different connecting and powering up sequences with no change.

The Apogee MetaRecorder app sees the Duet and controls the Duet. I haven’t messed with that app much, but I will.

The bad news is GarageBand can not see the Duet. I want to try a few things but this is the app I really wanted to use.

I also want to check out some other audio recording apps.

Please post any ideas or experiences you have had with this setup.

 

[klspahr]

Ok, got GarageBand to use the Duet audio, haven’t tried midi but I feel good about my chances.

I start GarageBand, connect to the USB to the Duet, then I plug in the power to the Duet. The Duet starts up and then GarageBand notifies you that a new interface has been connected.

In the Settings app under GarageBand you need to allow GarageBand access to the microphone - that setting also includes audio interfaces evidently.

GarageBand for iOS seems a bit flaky. You turn off the Count-In but it counts in anyway. The Metronome volume doesn’t stay where you put it, if you turn off the metronome and turn it back on it resets the metronome volume. GarageBand also seems to put effects on tracks by default, it took me awhile to get them all turned off so I could get a clean recording.

Oh well, I bet I’ll find more flaky behavior as I work with GarageBand.

The MetaRecorder app records audio from the Duet just fine. Might be the easiest and quickest way to record simple audio with the Duet on the iPhone.

 

[MajorFubar]

Unless you're into just making 'beats', recording with the iOS version of GB is just not a great experience all round, and is even worse on the iPhone because of the cramped working environment. It's too bad you don't have an iPad (maybe you do?) because Logic Pro on the iPad is pretty sublime. It's not all there yet with the same bells and whistles as the MacOS version of Logic, but it's a way way better experience than GB on an iPhone.