Use Your DigiTech iPB-10 as an Audio Interface

It's not just a signal processor, but an audio interface you can aggregate with Mac and Windows

By Craig Anderton

DigiTech’s iPB-10 is best known as a live-performance multieffects pedal that you program with an iPad, but it’s also an excellent 44.1kHz/24-bit, USB 2.0 stereo audio interface for guitar.

USING IT WITH THE MAC

Core Audio is plug-and-play. Patch the iPB-10 USB output into an available Mac USB port. Now, select “DigiTech iPB-10 In/Out” as the input and output under Audio MIDI Setup. With my quad core Mac, the system played reliably with a buffer size of 64 samples in Digital Performer, and even at 45 samples with simple Ableton Live projects (Fig. 1)—that’s excellent performance.

Fig. 1: Setting up the iPB-10 for Ableton Live with a 45-sample buffer size.

USING IT WITH WINDOWS

The driver isn’t ASIO, so in your host select WDM or one of its variants as the preferred driver mode (MME or DirectX drivers work, too, but latency is objectionable). With Sonar using WDM, the lowest obtainable latency was 441 samples. With WASAPI, it was 220 samples. Mixcraft 6 listed the lowest latency as 5ms (see Fig. 2; Mixcraft doesn’t indicate sample buffers).

Fig. 2: Working as a Windows WaveRT (WASAPI) interface with Acoustica’s Mixcraft 6.

I was surprised the iPB-10 drivers were compatible with multiple protocols but in any event, the performance equalled many dedicated audio interfaces.

ZERO-LATENCY MONITORING

A really cool feature is that under the iPB-10’s Settings, you can adjust the ratio of what you’re hearing from the DAW’s output via USB, and what’s coming from the iPB-10. If you monitor from the iPB-10, you essentially get zero-latency monitoring with effects, because you’re listening to the iPB-10 output—not monitoring through the computer. Typically, for this mode, you’d turn off the DAW track’s input echo (also called input monitor), and set the iPB-10 XLR Mix slider for 50% USB and 50% iPB-10. (If you’re monitoring from the 1/4” outs, choose the 1/4” Mix slider). Then, you’ll hear your DAW tracks from the USB side, and your guitar—with zero latency and any iPB-10 processing—from the iPB-10 side. If your computer is fast enough that latency isn’t an issue, then you can monitor solely via USB, and turn on your DAW’s input monitoring/input echo to monitor your guitar through the computer. This lets you hear the guitar through any plug-ins inserted into your guitar’s DAW track.

THERE’S MORE!

As the audio interfacing is class-compliant and doesn’t require installing drivers, with Core Audio or WDM/WASAPI/WaveRT drivers you can use more than one audio interface (called “aggregation”). So keep your go-to standard audio interface connected, but also use the iPB-10 for recording guitar. As long as your host supports one of the faster Windows audio protocols—or you’re using a recent Mac—I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the performance.

Craig Anderton is Editor Emeritus of Harmony Central. He has played on, mixed, or produced over 20 major label releases (as well as mastered over a hundred tracks for various musicians), and written over a thousand articles for magazines like Guitar Player, Keyboard, Sound on Sound (UK), and Sound + Recording (Germany). He has also lectured on technology and the arts in 38 states, 10 countries, and three languages.