Tascam has announced the iXR USB Audio/MIDI Interface with iOS connectivity.
The iXR is a full-featured “Made for iPad” PC/Mac USB audio interface. You can use it with your Mac or PC, but it also connects directly to your iPhone and iPad via the standard iOS Lightning or 30-pin connector.
Features:
- Ultra-HDDA mic preamps with phantom power, mic and instrument-level inputs
- Zero-latency monitoring
- MIDI in and out
- Up to 96kHz/24-bit resolution
- Rugged, ‘backpack-approved’ package
- Balanced stereo outputs
- Works with iPad, iPhone, Mac or PC
Pricing and Availability
The Tascam iXR will be available ‘soon’, with a street price of US $159.99. See the Tascam site for details.
Glad to see MIDI i/o in the feature list. According to the specs, it is bus-powered when connected to a mac/pc USB port. It requires 5v, 700mA from a USB power supply or power-bank/battery when connected to an iPad. It will not charge your iPad while connected.
Not charging iPad while connected is a bit of a con for me so finally settled on the Apogee One for this reason but no MIDI means another USB port is needed.
Hmm. Might actually pick up one of these. How the heck do I pronounce iXR, though? Is it ‘Ickser’ or ‘Eye-X-Arrrrr?”
EICKXSEOUR
is it possible to connect this to the iOS device via USB? If so, then it may be possible to charge and play at the same time, using the newer Apple CCK which has power passthrough.
That is exactly what I ended up doing, along with a powered hub between the iXR and the CCK, which doesn’t use the iOS port on the iXR at all. For that matter, I plugged in a different USB audio interface, by another manufacturer even, and it also worked fine. The lack of charging makes the iOS direct connection feature fairly useless to me, after my experimenting I find that I have a lot more choice. I still generally like the iXR, but that iOS port is mostly useless to me aside from very quick sessions. Btw, use a powered hub that’ll plug into a battery to maintain portability; I use a battery with multiple outlets to power the hub, iXR, and iOS device all at once. You’ll have to plug the CCK directly into the battery, instead of the powered hub, otherwise iOS will get confused.
Clarification: it’s the Lightning cable that plugs into the CCK to provide charging power that must be plugged directly into a battery (or other power source). The hub itself is directly plugged into the USB port on the CCK for data transfer.
Would be really great if there is a possibility to be able to use this interface as a digital i/o from the iPad to the computer. Wishful thinking I guess…
Can I trade-in a dodgy iU2 for one of these?
Why wouldn’t I use the
Behringer iStudio iS202 iPad Docking Station ? Seems more integrated.