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.

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

Busking

edited September 2014 in General App Discussion

Does anyone busk with their live ios setups - if so what setup do you take (including amplification), what sort of music goes down well with people and is it worth it for the money?

Comments

  • Search some posts that supadom has done for the first 2 questions (thread about ios setup has vids?). Not sure there are objective answers to the last 2.

  • I've tried it a few times just using a Danelectro 9v guitar amp, didn't make half as much as I would with my accordion.

  • edited September 2014

    @dayton_mike said:

    I've tried it a few times just using a Danelectro 9v guitar amp, didn't make half as much as I would with my accordion.

    Hah! 'Weird Al ' already proved that! :-)

  • I was planning on busking in a few weeks using Loopy but on their forum, there was a thread about it having some SMALL problem drifting I think. In a private environment, not a huge deal but in front of a ton of ppl, can become horrible very quickly. This made me sad as Loopy has proven to be one of the most reliable, good apps out there since Audiobus first came out but if this has problems, not sure about other apps. If u wanted to just play the ios app with no recording, I think you'll be fine. Saw some guy playing an ipad in the subway in NY and it sounded good but he also had a good amp. That would be my opinion, invest in a good amp

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  • Excuse the basic question but what do you mean by drifting?

  • Drifting? It's when the loop goes off it's timing. It slowly separates itself from the other loop(s). I usually check this by doing a quick beat and listening for a few laps.

    I have experienced this. It's quite easy to solve this if you're in a studio situation but I too got to the conclusion that it isn't ready for live situations. At least using a usb mic, low latency, etc.
    I also got to the conclusion that this would immediately happen if I turned up the gain in audiobus.

    To solve it just re-starting usually works. Not always, though. First I have to find a gain position that isn't to high. Otherwise it's constantly happening.

  • I use Loopy live regularly. If it drifts, it has not been to the degree that it is noticeable. Of course, this could be verified be rehearsing your specific setup... and even recording it.

  • I've been using loopy and have never noticed any drifting within the app itself whatsoever. Not exactly sure how would that be possible since all of the loops have a common clock. I've even left loopy running overnight once to discharge my iPhones battery and the loops were running just as I left them. There is a slight drift between loopy and samplr for example but stopping and restarting the session in time with the beat sorts it out. I've also played loopy in parallel with impaktor's sequencer and they haven't drifted at all. Loopy's timing is super solid IM not so HO.

  • I'm sure. One can tell from your videos, @Supadom. :)

    And it's a wonderful app. On my top ten. Five, even.
    But unfortunately, although I know how to avoid it, it still doesn't go with my setup. I'm using an Air. It could be the mic, maybe.

  • @Macao95 said:

    I'm sure. One can tell from your videos, @Supadom. :)

    And it's a wonderful app. On my top ten. Five, even.
    But unfortunately, although I know how to avoid it, it still doesn't go with my setup. I'm using an Air. It could be the mic, maybe.

    What do you mean the mic? What's your set up? Are you using the internal mic?

  • :)

    I'm using a 7 port hub, samson q1u, behringer uca222 (although not at the same time as the mic as ios only recognizes one usb audio device simultaneously), akai mpk mini mk2 (;), novation launchkey mini and...yeah, that's it I guess.

  • I've never noticed any sort of drift in Loopy either.

    @JF96 said:

    Does anyone busk with their live ios setups - if so what setup do you take (including amplification), what sort of music goes down well with people and is it worth it for the money?

    On the question of money, think it depends on a) your location and b) how loud you can get. You need to be by tourists or people who don't wash out the background as they do the same walk they've done every day for N years. Tourists are also delighted to be there and are already sort of set up to spend money on 'fun'. Location also refers to currency. In the US, the largest coin people are likely to have is worth 1/4 of a dollar but in Europe you can get coins tossed of reasonable value.

    I busked my way around Europe with an acoustic guitar about 150 years ago. I did fine once I figured out the location thing and what people wanted to hear. It came down to about 3 money makers. When I needed to make as much as I could quickly (it was my only income — I blew my savings in week one of a two month trip!) I'd play those three tunes and then a filler to get people to pay and leave. Then I'd play the same three songs again and again. Not an artistic high point. I was 18 so 'enough' meant a hostel bed, some food and beer money.

    Volume really matters so you can draw in a crowd (which draws other people in). I did ok but I never did nearly as well as a quartet of Scottish guys with two drums and two bag pipes (and a lot of chanting). I'd see them over the two months at different places around the continent and they took to buying me pity beers! Beyond the volume and the interestingness of that vs 'omfg another acoustic guitar...snore' they had a great schtick: at about half way through the last song of their 3-4 song set one of the drummers would stop, flip the drum upside down and walk the circle that had gathered collecting cash in the drum. They killed.

    But, the person on the street I saw making the most money was the guy who washed car windows at traffic lights in London and Madrid. :) By far. If I ever wanted to travel and make money on the street, I'd absolutely do that. No gear to lug around—spend $10 in each city you land in to buy soap and a bucket. He probably pulled in several hundred bucks a day.

    That is all to say, if money is the goal there are probably better ways than busking. It's really fun though and you will get a lot out of it. Getting on stage can be hard. Walking to a street corner and starting to sing is way harder. You'll get ignored and scoffed at and judged and man, you toughen up fast. I've never feared a stage since. I can also tune a guitar by ear in the midst of a hurricane, 20 years later, I'm quite sure. :)

  • edited September 2014

    @syrupcore, you look great for 168!

  • @Syrupcore

    Yes. The street is the big teacher. I can understand when you say you never feared a stage since. It's incredible what you can learn in a single session. It's one of the this I wish I was doing right now.

  • @syrupcore

    I can also tune a guitar by ear in the midst of a hurricane

    I sense a session coming on....

  • Cheers @moonwolf. It's the açai berries, quinoa and twice-daily vigorous masturbation.

  • Thank you all for the comments!! The reason I'm asking is because I'm primarily a drummer and am in a few punk bands. As anyone in bands know, I don't make any money doing music so I wondered if anyone in this forum had ever tried looping live for money busking. I can't/ don't want to take a drum kit to busk as it's a pain so I thought this might be an answer.

    Even if it's a small amount it's more than I get currently doing music and I really can't complain if I do get money doing it as I love doing it.

  • edited September 2014

    One super tip for busking is to get some cd's ready for sale. The most money that is made busking comes from CD sales. It doesn't have to be flash just a few tracks DIY style you can sell for min £3. Increase the price proportionally to the quality of the content.

    Edit: goes without saying that it also works really well as promo.

  • @JF96 said:

    Thank you all for the comments!! The reason I'm asking is because I'm primarily a drummer and am in a few punk bands.

    Get some buckets. If you don't make any money, you can use them to wash windows. Steal a shopping cart to move your buckets in and you get a tambourine sound to play as a bonus.

  • @syrupcore, good health regimen. I think the key is "vigorous."

  • edited September 2014

    Hey guys, to all of you who do NOT experience drifting, care to share your exact set up and recording style? I usually have a drum sample as my initial loop then build up guitar parts over guitar parts and it will drift at some point. And if u look at this link, you'll see im not the only one:

    http://forum.loopyapp.com/discussion/2107/midi-sync-a-fool039s-errand#Item_28

    Should point out though I was using a Pigtronix looping pedal with midi sync that had gotten rave reviews but it could've been that piece of gear that caused the drift.

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  • I see that @Htmx came up with an interesting workaround of running 2 instances of loopy on one device. Couldn't that work?

  • Thanks Supadom for the pointing that out. I'll try and give that a shot. I recently bought a Keith McMillen softstep midi foot controller for ableton but it can also work with ios devices so wanna try that out.

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  • @gjcyrus - Loopy HD [sadly] has a crappy drift issue with regards to MIDI clock and other programs using the same clock. There are no issues with Loopy drifting against itself.
    It does not play well with others.

  • @b0bert0 said:

    @gjcyrus - Loopy HD [sadly] has a crappy drift issue with regards to MIDI clock and other programs using the same clock. There are no issues with Loopy drifting against itself.
    It does not play well with others.

    It's my problem exactly. I can set the buffer to 1024 after a hard reset, in airplane mode, setting loopy itself to 525, etc.. No deal. It drifts. I never used any type of sync.

  • edited October 2014

    Wow, this is pretty Nutts. I had loopy down as the most tempo safe app. I had it running
    With Impaktor's own looper for hours without a drift and never noticed anything between loopy loops either. My only complaint is that samplr despite being start/stop/tempo slaved to loopy it does drift eventually but nothing a mid session stop and restart can't cure. As long as you started recording on the one otherwise it's a mess.

    Edit. Also syncs with turnado, effective super well. Oh well, I guess we're all using different devices in different configurations and in different climates ;)

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