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 StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
What's everyone's favorite conv reverb for guitar now?
There are a few out there and a few more ways of setting it up. Correct me if I'm missing some options here.
Auria's conv
Altispace
Mobile Conv
Rooms!
Amps that let you bypass cab and use your IR files:
THM Overloud
BIAS
Tonestac
What's the best setup for sound and resources? How do you do it? IAA, Audiobus or...?
Comments
Good topic - I wondered how to do this best also. Got it working once using Auria and the Overloud and Convolution plugins. But my device is too slow to do that well. Also tried Fiddlicator as an effects slot app, and same for AltiSpace, but the latter has built in additional latency.
I did some basic reading on IR cabs and how this works, but what exactly am I simulating? For example, if I have an IR of a Peavey 5150, am I simulating that whole tone, or just the cabinet? I was using flat EQ settings with no power amp and feeding that into the convolution app/plug-in. It sounded good/interesting, but demands too much resources for it to be practical on iPad, at least in my experience. I know this is a big thing with desktop PC users.
I gather that an IR can be simulating a cab, a full amp, a space, or anything else that can alter acoustics. Here's a pretty nice site to learn more...
http://designingsound.org/2012/12/recording-impulse-responses/
@funjunkie27 said:
Right, so in an iOS setup, if I want an overdriven Marshall sound, for example, the additional gain comes from whatever I am using as a preamp, right? That's why I wondered if it really is more just like a power amp or cabinet. The IR sample is static - it captures a snapshot in time of that speaker/amp's characteristics.
There was a thread here from DerekB that explained how he was doing this in Overloud. And maybe a YouTube video. He used the same preamp (US clean or whatever) in a flat EQ setting, no matter what sound he was going for.
I think if you want an overdriven amp sound, you just need to search for that IR. If you want to drive that further, I think it would be like a crap shoot, since you would be adding distortion on top of the existing IR, but without the specific amp that was used initially. I think we're saying the same thing though.
I think an IR is created by comparing a reference sweep against the affected sweep, and the difference between the two is the IR file. When creating one for a cab, I assume a reference amp must be used, otherwise the amp characteristics would be part of the IR. I imagine the mics used need to be normalized out as well, otherwise you would introduce the mics' characteristics too. Seems like a pretty involved process.
An IR is used to emulate a cabinet or some quality of space (e.g., a specific cathedral or a particular hallway). It is not capable of modeling and entire amplifier signal chain like tube output or the like.
You can have IRs that emulate particular microphones set at particular distances from or angles to (e.g., on- or off-axis) a sound source.
I think I get it....it can only model the reverb characteristics....right? With that, I gather it could model chains, but would not include any other characteristic of the chain aside from the reverberation contribution.
http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/The_Working_Guitarist_All_About_Impulse_Responses
Here's a Pete Thorn article that explains it a little more from a guitar cab perspective. It's not just "reverb", it's like snapshot of all of that sound's characteristics. This gets kind of blended over the raw guitar signal, and the audible result is something pretty close to the source. Excerpt:
"Compared to traditional speaker simulators, I find that IRs offer much greater realism and depth. When you apply an IR to a line out signal from your amp, you are not just applying a preset EQ curve to your amp’s signal, you are essentially applying the distinct sonic characteristics of a certain speaker, cabinet, mic, mic preamp, and any early reflections that also make it into the mic during the recording process. There are libraries of IRs available to you at your fingertips, an almost endless variety of cabinet and mic’ing combinations. You can mix and match and blend virtual cabinets to your heart’s content. And when you land on a sound you really like, it’s easy to store that sound within your DAW, so you can call it up again later."
Thanks for the link and the further explanation!
The Rooms description actually says that you should use an iPad4 or newer for live monitoring with a IR file. So, this may be a test for my (faster) iPhone, but I think as a general rule, trying this on an iPad2 is a losing battle.
I found some VST plugins that do this on my PC - I wanted to play around with those. Currently fighting my crappy Behringer interface/drivers, however, so it was another wasted 30-60 minutes flipping through Windows settings instead of playing instruments. Sigh.
This thread seems covnvoluted...but ill give it a go,
@wayni said:
An aux send or plugin in Auria.
@DerekBuddemeyer made this walk-through
To muddy the waters a bit, true stereo reverb has a left and a right stereo file. example
Maybe I am too cautious in this description. Of course it depends largely on the IR length and the buffer duration setting. The demo mode of the latest version of Rooms! includes a few short IRs, so feel free to test these with older devices also. If your device is too slow for convolution, then you can at least use the iOS AU reverb, and chances are good that this works even with the ultra-low 1.5 ms buffer duration setting (2.9 ms with Audiobus).
In order to use your own IR's you have to be able to bypass the speaker cabinet in whatever amp modeling app you're using. In the 4 that I have, I believe it's not possible to disable the cab sim in ampkit+, Bias, or JamUp but I think this is possible to do this with ToneStack. Not sure if Amplitube can do that. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I've actually used Rooms! With BIAS successfully via Audiobus on an iPad2. I recorded directly into Audioshare as opposed to doing so within a DAW. but now I have a nifty iPad Air and every option available.
I have used Tonestac with Mobile Conv as an IAA insert in Auria and Cubasis with no problems. Using RedWirez cab IRs. Also, Saturn into Mobile Conv. Good results.
Very good info. I really like Mobile quite a bit. Also, for those wondering: the Conv inside Auria turns off when you record enable a track. Just turn it back on.
You can bypass cab in BIAS, Tonestac, and THM.
JamUp does not seem to have a seperate cab simulation.
You can disable cab sim in BIAS by lifting the cab off the chain and switching off 'Room Control' just left of the level indicator along the bottom of the screen. In ToneStack you can switch off the cabinet or leave it out altogether.
Cool beans I'll check out Bias then. I've downloaded the "God's Cab" IR which is supposed to be pretty good. Any idea what kind of pre-delay is required for using IR's as a cab sim? I've got Altispace but the best pre-delay it offers is around 20ms. There's also a Convolution Reverb with the IAP in MultitrackStudio but I'm not sure what the specs of that one is either.
In AmpKit+, I believe you can bypass it by turning the power off on the cabinet. Actually I think you can power off both the preamp and the cabinet. I used AmpKit with Fiddlicator for probably the best results I got for IR cabs on iPad.
This is just too much hassle for my needs. I understand the benefit, but it's not like the results I've heard are demonstrably better than a good amp and 'verb setting in Bias, ToneStack or whatever.
Note - this is not a rip on convo reverbs or any apps that do that - I really like the reverbs on AltiSpace, Rooms, etc. I just want to play guitar and this is starting to feel like playing for the purpose of playing. I also feel like the modeling stuff has improved to the point where most users won't notice a big improvement going to IR versus just running it through a good app.
There is a monster difference. But you are right, BIAS sounds good out of the box with it's built in cabs. Many quality sims use a conv reverb and cab IRs for the cabs they have available. Why they don't allow the user to load custom IRs is beyond me. I'm not sure if BIAS does this but it is possible.
The trick is finding that one combination which works best for you. Once you do it's gravy from there.
since when does tonestac let you use your own IR??
My understanding is that you load the IR in Fiddlicator and then use that as an IAA effect inside Tonestack. Have not yet tried this myself though....
are there any that are audio units?
I guess if I really wanted to record on ios I would have to actually render one track at a time.
no way to process multiple IRs at once unless you have all the different IR capable plugins. lmao.
you should make your app an Audio Unit so we can have multiple instances of Cabinet Impulses
has anyone actually used Altispace to load IRs??
I loaded the IR file and then had to convert it to a sample and then routed an amp sim with no cab into it and it sounded like shit.
hopefully im doing somethign wrong and didnt waste 6.99?
That works really well.
yeah when fiddlicator doesnt have a load error lmao.
How about an IR loader that is an AU unit so it can be loaded multiple times?
I don't remember having load errors, but I haven't used it in a while. It may depend on the impulse used.
Not an au, but you could use auria's convo verb for it and have multiple instances.
I wish I could use Auria. Any DAW for iphone also that has conv rev?