Hey Guys, I’ve really tried to find the answer myself.
I just got my Tonverk yesterday and haven’t been able to get usb audio to work from my Samsung Android phone. I have Digitakt 2/Digitone 2 ans use it all the time for both sampling and recording audio out over usb but Tonverk seems to be an issue?
For sampling it just doesn’t seem to send any audio over and USB audio out with DN2/DT2 i could just open my camera app or voice recorder and it would say “using usb mic” and just work but with thie I’m getting nothing.
I couldn’t get USB audio to work either way. I wanted to sample sounds I recorded from phone > TV, and I wanted to be able to make video clips where the TV system audio is picked up by the camera app instead of the internal mic. No to both.
The crude workaround to the first is a USBC to 1/8" TRS dongle and a mini to dual 1/4 TS cable using the audio input.
Yeah its frustrating. I make videos using USB to my phone ans tge camera app. My work around is sending TV audio to DN2 then using that to record USB audio.
Yeah, I’ve been using a zoom LiveTrak mixer to convert audio to USB. It would really really really be nice if they’d implement Host mode. And not ban me for requesting such.
I used to be able to record audio from my Android phone to my TV before. I had a good time then playing string chords from one of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies with Grainer.
Today, I decided to sample Górecki’s Third Symphony, but I can’t get it to work. I’ve tried literally everything. Bummer.
Google does not care. Androids usb audio implementation is extremly wonky for stuff thats not a headset. Its a problem for years and trying different hardware and phone combinations i decided its not worth the hassle for me with how often its not working.
(Thers a reason why apple became the de facto standard for mobile audio setups, they took it serious and you can rely on it working if you need it as a professional (not me, touring musicians, live mixing tools, reporting).
I believe its due to it being a true audio interface now. I’m not sure its something Elektron could fix. It really sucks, honestly considering switching to iPhone when my contract is up as I use my phone for making easy videos.
I guess I’ve been lucky! I wonder what the difference is in the implementation on those devices. Ableton also only make Note for iOS so maybe it’s less about what Google are doing and more about these other businesses not having proper coverage. Would be interesting to hear from Elektron why it’s not working, or is inconsistent.
There 2 reasons: apples handling of audio in IOS (it essentially gets a higher priority and better treatment from their OS development team), this makes timing aspects and latency a way bigger thing on android then on IOS. Apple also auv3, enabling plugin functionality, something not possible on android.
Part of why is because apple has a unified Audio system (CoreAudio), enabling inter app routing of audio. Android psandboxes apps and the audio is handled on an app level.
Then thers the audio host functionality, android still supports going by their documentation usb audio 1 (they mention to plan for 2, but no idea when thats coming) so for example you have a hard limit of 2.
UAC 2 was 2006, 3 2016 and 4 2023. 2 seems to improve the clock handling for multiple audio streams, bzt im not enough into it to understand if that has an inpact.
IOS has implemented Class 2 and 3.
Then thers the difference how different android manufacturers produce their devices, some have a really bad latency, some even have latency towards the touch inputs.
Add to that that more paying customers are on ios where the implementation can easier guarante a certain quality on all devices and its clear why IOS is the platform of choice for audio apps.
So yeah, its not to the devs, its to the underlying software architecture.
Elf audio (koala sampler) has often discussed the differences in different contexts, thats why some features dont work on android (ableton export and auv3 plugins), features often did first come on IOS and why the stability/latency is better on the IOS version.
The Ableton move Devs also mentioned on their discord that the problem is that android only supports USB audio class 1 to this day. Ableton move only has a class 2 implementation, hence doesn’t work as of now on most android devices via USB for audio.
I am always hopeful for an android update finally addressing this, but all we seem to be getting are more AI features
Apple is interested in the market of audio gear because they have Logic/Final Cut, they took in earlier into consideration and had a leg up from the start.
Google has no leg in media production, reaching the market now is a lost cause for not that much return compared to other stuff (ai goes well with selling data/services and adds).
UAC1 is enough for headsets and hifi DACs for media players. Little inscentive for them to invest in implementing the others.
