Want to connect Acer tablet to an audio mixer B3-A40FHD-K0MW tablet

Hi,

I have searched the forums a bit but cannot find a specific answer to this question so thank you for your help with this.

I plan to install a basic mobile recording software app (FL Studio mobile) on my Acer B3-A40FHD-K0MW tablet (the Iconia One 10) and use it to do live recordings of my band at gigs. The question is about connections. I own a Yamaha MG10XU mixer which has a USB 2.0 B type port in the back and want to connect it to the Acer tablet so that I can record directly from the board to the tablet, which has micro USB ports. Is this possible? I have not been able to find a cable that will make this connection and have talked to Yamaha support and Sweetwater sound, both say it is not possible.

This mobile recording software will definitely run on Android, but maybe this is not the way it's intended to be used--I'm a Windows user new to Android, so am learning the uses and limitations--please excuse my ignorance if this seems like a foolish question.

Basically what I want to accomplish is to have a small all in one device that can (1) do simple live recording tasks, (2) store and play incidental music between sets, and (3) display music charts, and (4) connect via cable (bluetooth is OK but not always reliable in some circumstances and anyway my small live mixer does not have bluetooth connectivity)--a 10" Android tablet seemed a good solution for this, and I located the FL Studio mobile recording app that runs on Android, so I thought this would work--if not maybe you forum gurus might have a different suggestion for hardware that would allow me to do all these tasks.

I know I could get a Windows surface and run Windows, but I wanted something smaller, simpler, and less expensive, and again the Iconia seemed to fit the bill, but maybe this just won't work.

Help!

Thanks again!

Accepted answers

billsey

There are a number of different type of microUSB cable and it's very often not obvious which are which. You want one with OTG support (On The Go) that allows you to plug in data devices. Those devices are expected to be peripherals, like keyboards, mice or flash drives. If the Yamaha Mixer looks to the system like a data storage device or a data stream, I would expect the Android app would work. Is Sweetwater Sound the app developer? How do they suggest it be used?

billsey

That looks like it should work. FL Studio mobile looks like it's developed and marketed by Image Line Software in Belgium. They have a support section on their website so you ought to be able to get it working with their help. Let us know how they do, there's bound to be others in your shoes eventually.

user108

Awesome TX

All comments

billsey

There are a number of different type of microUSB cable and it's very often not obvious which are which. You want one with OTG support (On The Go) that allows you to plug in data devices. Those devices are expected to be peripherals, like keyboards, mice or flash drives. If the Yamaha Mixer looks to the system like a data storage device or a data stream, I would expect the Android app would work. Is Sweetwater Sound the app developer? How do they suggest it be used?

user108

Thanks, this was the most helpful advice I've gotten yet on this seemingly arcane issue. Sweetwater is just a music equipment supply house that also provides some advice/support on the phone, but in this case they were not much help. It would be even more helpful if you could provide a link to a cable like you describe on some vendor site, but I should be able to locate something like this with the info you've provided.

user108

so this otg cable would work with the tablet I ordered, correct?

https://www.cablestogo.com/product/27320/6in-mobile-device-usb-micro-b-to-usb-device-otg-adapter-cable

tx

billsey

That looks like it should work. FL Studio mobile looks like it's developed and marketed by Image Line Software in Belgium. They have a support section on their website so you ought to be able to get it working with their help. Let us know how they do, there's bound to be others in your shoes eventually.

user108

Awesome TX

user108

Actually got the OTG cable and it does not seem to work. Customer support at the cable supplier said that this cable will work with this device. The Acer user guide claims it will work but so far it does not. So trying to figure out how to make it work.

I plug the OTG into the micro USB port (I have tried both ports) and plug a USB memory stick into the other end--when I look at the USB tethering menu it is grayed out--can't be turned on, says that USB is not connected. I also tried plugging it into an adapter and then into my mixer (as in the above thread) and it does not seem to recognize the mixer as a device, or any sort of connection.

Please advise...thanks!

billsey

Boy, that cable should just work for anything that doesn't require a lot of power. Tethering is different than connecting a flash drive. Tethering let's you share internet connections between devices. With the flash drive plugged in can you see any of the files?

user108

Ah, thanks for that clarification on what tethering is good for, makes sense. But no, when I go to the file manager I can see the local drive, the micro card that I put in the top slot, but not the attached flash drive.

I thought order might matter, so tried powering down, unplugging cable, etc., but no dice. The battery was pretty low so maybe it's a power thing, now that it's all charged up I am going to try again.

billsey

What size is the flash drive and which way is it formatted?

user108

Hey

I've tried two drives:

Sandisk 16 Gb FAT32

Cruzer micro 512 Mb FAT

Neither of them shows up in the file manager, no sign that the tablet sees them.

I have seen some posts and comments on Google Play store that suggest some app might be the solution, like there was one called stickmount I think, and some others. Some posters were talking about super users, permissions, that sort of thing. So if you know of an app that might help this work?

At this point it sort of seems like a defect, since most of what I read says it should be plug and play with this cable + tablet combo. Is there any way to test the micro port and see if it might be a hardware issue? Or possibly I need a software update. I think I've already had the tablet do an android OS update to the latest version.

user108

OK, no response. At this point I cannot even get the tablet to see a thumb drive (as above) via the OTG cable. Acer tech support (called them) no help so far. Their response was that if the port works for charging (it does) then there is no defect, so they did not have an answer for why the tablet cannot see a USB drive. They suggested the brand-new cable could be defective, which I suppose is possible, but unlikely. They are supposed to call me back with some answer if they can come up with one. But I would say at this point that if you want plug and play OTG support, do not buy this product, because it does not work. If I come up with an answer I will post it here, but so far what I am seeing at various forums is that other people are having this issue, should be a known problem, but nobody has a fix, at least not that I have seen yet. I have of course scanned the app store and there is a lot of gibbering about different apps, but nothing clear--I don't want to try 20 different apps to get this to work. But maybe that is what is expected when you buy one of these.

billsey

What did the folks at Image Line Studio say, or did they just pass it off?

user108

Their support was basically useless, to me at least. But, I have worked out a solution to the basic problem of not being able to connect anything via the micro USB ports. Acer phone support did call me back and suggest that I try the app USB OTG file manager, which made sense--when I got round to checking, I had already installed it. It was not even actually as good as the native file manager, at least for my purposes.

The basic solution so far is that the top port works, but the side port does not. I thought that I had tried the top port before, and maybe with all this fiddling I did fix something, but now I can see that when I plug the OTG cable into the top port, plug a USB drive into the other end of the OTG cable, and look at the native Android file manager, I can see all the files on the USB drive. This is progress.

According to some web sources, one of the ports does not work for anything but charging (side port works for that) even though I think the Acer documentation clearly states that both ports support OTG. I may be misreading this, but if not, sounds like a bug, or I just don't know how to make the tablet see that side port.

Next things--I have a USB cable to connect from the OTG cable to my USB hub for my computer and peripherals, but when I plug that into the OTG, the tablet does not see it, nor does my computer see the tablet. Not sure if this is supposed to work, but seems like it should.

Also am proceeding with the original notion of connecting my mixer to the OTG cable and seeing if I can use one of the recording apps from the Google store to record direct from the board.