Audiobus: Use your music apps together.

What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.

Download on the App Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Understanding Workflow

kgmessierkgmessier
edited July 2014 in General App Discussion

I came at the iOS music world from the guitar side of things. Prior to Audiobus and all things iMusic, I had almost no familiarity with DAWs, synths, drum pads, samplers, sequencers, MIDI, and so on (short of GarageBand loops).

Now that I’m waist-deep in it all, and with the water rising, I’m gaining a better understanding of how things fit together—at least for my own needs right now. However, there’s still some domain language I’ve yet to learn. One of the terms I read a lot is “workflow,” and while I have a nebulous understanding of its meaning from context, I never really got a firm grasp of it. Maybe the definition is different for everyone, maybe not. I assume it at least shares a few common denominators among those who have one.

In short, would some of you music production pundits share your own definition of what workflow is—either generally speaking or in your personal world—and how/why you came to that definition and your own implementation?

Comments

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]

    If you tend to do things in a certain order, ideally each step follows on easily from the previous one. That's your workflow.

  • ThomasThomas

    Workflow will be different for most people. For example, Figure was the 1st music app that I got hooked on. After buying Loopy just because everyone said you should, and realized I could clipboard my Figure loops right into it flawlessly, it changed everything for me. I went nutz originating ideas in Figure, editing or muting a part, then dropping it into Loopy. From there, I could perform real time arrangements into BeatmakerII. That ended up being my workflow for most of 2013.

  • ColoobarColoobar

    Good question! When songwriting do you tend to write a guitar riff or melody first and then add the chord progression, or vice versa? Or do you look for inspiration in an app by finding a certain sound that you can work from and then make the rest of the music fit that, or maybe start with bass and drums first and then build up the song from there? There's a lot of possibilities. I don't think there are any wrong answers and you've found your own personal workflow when what you're doing seems to flow in a natural progression and doesn't seem forced. Like a painter starting with a blank canvas, the first brush stroke is made from a pool of infinite choices. Every brush stroke after that is a series of diminished possibility until when the last brush stroke is painted there is only one place for it to fit.

  • WillWill
    edited July 2014

    Agree with the above. Workflow will vary depending on the person, project and tools at hand. I mostly just look for it to be smooth so that whatever I'm doing, the process of doing it isn't in the way of doing it, if that makes sense. With apps and buffers and AB and panels and ports and channels and pasteboards... things can get convoluted quickly vs, say, a mic, an organ, a guitar and a 4 track. It's great to have all of these tools at my disposal but I do spend some amount of time working to get certain workflows down so that when it's time to create, the tools fade a bit.

  • JohnnyGoodyearJohnnyGoodyear

    @Coloobar said:

    Like a painter starting with a blank canvas, the first brush stroke is made from a pool of infinite choices. Every brush stroke after that is a series of diminished possibility until when the last brush stroke is painted there is only one place for it to fit.

    Love the painting analogy...

  • ThomasThomas

    @JohnnyGoodyear said:

    @Coloobar said:

    Like a painter starting with a blank canvas, the first brush stroke is made from a pool of infinite choices. Every brush stroke after that is a series of diminished possibility until when the last brush stroke is painted there is only one place for it to fit.

    Love the painting analogy...

    agreed

  • kgmessierkgmessier

    I just realized I never thanked you guys for your responses, so…

    Thank you!

  • aBGNaBGN
    edited August 2014

    syrupcore wrote:
    Agree with the above. Workflow will vary depending on the person, project and tools at hand. ....... With apps and buffers and AB and panels and ports and channels and pasteboards... things can get convoluted quickly vs, say, a mic, an organ, a guitar and a 4 track....
    Totally true statement. Almost endless possibilities for personal workflows.
    But, I think, a good indication is: the better the workflow is, the less it consumes time, storage space and CPU performance; assuming, nevertheless, it is still delivering the desired quality.

Sign In or Register to comment.