Saitara Software are Scottish developers of iPhone OS apps, and they’ve released two that act as DAW control surfaces. AC7 ($5.99) is for the iPhone and iPod Touch, while AC7 Pro ($9.99) is specially designed for the iPad. They’re both available from the App Store in the normal way, via iTunes.

You can ignore some of the other recommendations on the Saitara web site and next go to http://jacklinstudios.com/downloads/DP-AC7-DSMidiWifi-Bridge.html. From there, you can download and install DP-AC7-DSMidiWifi-Bridge (which undoubtedly wins the ‘application with the longest name on my Mac’ award). This little utility was written by DP guru Kelly Jacklin, whose very useful DVLatencyAdjuster application I featured in my DP column a few years back. It simplifies the whole experience of setting up AC7 with DP, and provides some extra features, such as dynamic track naming in the AC7 app.

Start up the DP-AC7-DSMidiWifi-Bridge app. It should ask you to locate the DSMidiWifi app, and when you’ve done that, it launches the app. That will happen automatically every time from now on.

Now to launch DP (or relaunch it, if it was already running). Create a new empty project (which you can bin in a minute, if necessary). This enables you to choose ‘Control Surface Setup’... from the Setup menu. How this window appears varies a little between different versions of DP, but the principle’s the same. Click a ‘+’ (plus sign) button to add a new control surface ‘slot’. Choose ‘Mackie Control’ in the Driver pop-up menu, then ‘DSMIDIWiFi-out-1’ in the pop-up menu that’s marked MIDI (in DP 6.02-7.1) or Input Port (in DP 7.11 and later). Once you’ve done this, OK the dialogue and quit DP. Quit DP-AC7-DSMidiWifi-Bridge too.

Everything so far has been basic setup stuff, and you’re not going to need to do it every time. How you actually start using AC7 with DP depends a little on how your Mac is set up, and whether you want AC7 to be a heavyweight mixing aid or just a simple tracking assistant that sends a few transport commands and tweaks a couple of track levels.

If your Mac is already connected to the Internet via a wireless router, the laziest approach is to do nothing: communication between AC7 and DP can take place via your router. There’s the potential for some flakiness and control latency this way, but if you have good signal strength it can work well enough. Here’s how it goes:

The down side of this method is that it disrupts your Internet connection if you normally use Airport to connect to the Internet. After you’ve finished with DP and AC7, you’ll have to go to the Airport menu, select ‘Disconnect from’ the network you created, and choose your normal router. It’ll be the same story for the iPhone’s connection. In return, AC7’s response is much snappier: ideal if you’ve got an iPad and have a six-hour mixing session scheduled!

AC7 itself sports controls that are found on a real Mackie Control, so some of them use terminology that’s different to that found in DP. The main thing to note is that there’s a dedicated DP mode you access using the Mode key, which is in the ‘Transp’ view of AC7 and above the master fader of AC7 Pro. To gain control of your pan pots, touch the ‘Flip’ key, and then the faders will represent pan positions vertically. Just like a real Mackie Control, AC7 displays a maximum of eight faders at a time, so to access further tracks, use the Track left and right arrow keys to shift along AC7’s fader ‘view’ one track at a time, or the Bank left and right arrow keys to do it in blocks of eight faders. Finally, iPhone/iPod users might want to note that the RTZ (Return to Zero) key, which shuttles DP playback position to the beginning of the sequence, is in the AUT/TR screen. Users of iPads can find it in the Transport key group. Beyond that, DP’s Mackie Control PDF is essential reading, and you can get to that via Help menu / Control Surfaces Help.