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.
iMPC Pro - Glitchy Reverb ( not in a good way )
Is it just me, or do other people have problems with the reverb in iMPC Pro? Sometimes, the audio response when adjusting the controls is really laggy. Also it seems tricky to find settings that don't either kill the reverb completely or totally swamp the sound. But most importantly, the Buddha sometimes goes AWOL and stops transmitting his 'verby waves!
It just seems a bit buggy and random. Anyone else experienced this?
Comments
Even when it isn't glitchy, it sounds awful to me... But this is a minor annoyance on an overall fantastic app!
EDIT: clarification
I'm mainly using iMPC Pro as a beat/rhythms/drums creating thing for exporting into other apps. Not really as a beat production thing. It's IMO the best drum rhythm creating tool on iOS at the moment, simply thanks to a brilliant simple file/folder/search structure and handling that all other apps lacks, and a fast and flexible "piano roll" editor.
That said, if I do try to make use of the onboard effects, I do have the same issues you have. The effects are basically aux sends (and global), so I also have a hard time trying to find a good balance between the audio and the fx in iMPC. The Buddha goes AWOL too. I think he only wakes up if there's 808 sounds going on in there. Anyway, I rarely touch the fx though, I just make my rhythms/drums and get them out of there.
@chris.- ahh good (ish) at least it isn't just me. The fx are a bit dire really. I did try having a single track for each hit and sequencing them all separately so I could apply the fx individually, but it was painfully slow and the results didn't justify the effort.
@SaveAs - agreed, it just seems unnatural, but not in a good way!
All that aside, it is still a very good app.
can't say I've ever encountered any of the issues mentioned, I actually love the fx and find them extremely easy to dial in. Have you tried double tapping and using the fine tuning?
I haven't found any other app as easy to dial in what you need, the double tapp feature works on everything including wet dry mix knobs. I've never experienced glitching and I'm on an iPad 3 which could be described as the glitch pad depending on what you're using. For me to experience glitching with the imc pro I have to be running it through Cs spectral.
do the fx sound different than this video when you use them because I found the impc pros audio engine to break new ground in ios, when I first saw this video I thought surely it's not going to sound this good but it does on my iPad?
?…. you could hear a needle drop in here...
It's the beard. Looks sprayed on from the 'Immediate Hipster' line. Scares the children.
@SaveAs said:
Very constructive remark :-( ...
I knew 'haters' on video games forums, but I did not expect the same from the IOS music community... sad !
The Buddah reverb may not suit every musician need or taste, but it is not sounding "awful"... It is oriented to certain music genres (and not natural/accoustic ones I agree).
Concerning the bugs, yes I admit there are a lot of bugs in retronyms apps... But at least, their software are inovative, nicely presented and open for more possibilities of experimentation than most other music apps (for me at least)...
And retronyms are following the community and updating often...
Criticizing any App made by retronyms just because it is made by retronyms does not seem constructive to me.
Peace.
@ElGregoLoco
I'm certainly not a Retronyms hater. I love iMPC Pro and Tabletop.
But I find Buddha reverb very metallic and flat.
That's it
Thanks for the clarification SaveAs... It sounds way better when you say "I find it very metallic and flat" than when you say "it sounds awful" :-)
@kobamoto
I agree the fine tuning is nice. I really like the app and use it a lot. I haven't used the the fx much since i first got it, been using it clean to prep loops for other apps. But I don't remember it being as bad as it was the other night. It's not that the controls themselves are the problem, there seems to be a hit and miss response. I can adjust the reverb and nothing happens for a beat or so and then it comes in really heavy. It just seems quite unpredictable.
On the fx generally, yeah, the vid sounds good, I saw that a while ago. Personally, I think they are a bit off for my taste. I guess I was expecting more than drive and ring mod as inserts, the chorus and verb are, well, i can't really describe it, just not what I need from a send fx. The delay is ok, but then delay is delay I guess. However the IAA inserts function is good as are the sampling options.
@ChrisG - My approach/usage of it is 100% like yours. Think of the app as a "drum machine" and improvement on DM-1 (better samples, MUCH better file management, 64 instruments versus on 9), and this is a pretty useful app. It got tons of criticism at launch, but a lot of it was nitpicky or related to features that most people will never use. The effects features WERE a major "selling point" of the app, but their weakness doesn't break the app for me because there are so many other options to use effects through IAA (or AudioBus if you export your loop into an AudioShare or similar solution). This is an app most of us paid $13 for. It's a bit of beast to store at almost 500 MB, but the interface and sound quality is top notch.
@SaveAs - I personally don't have a problem with someone coming forward and saying something sounds "awful" if they aren't doing it to be mean or malicious about it. I understand that developers of many apps (though not necessarily a bigger operation like retronyms) frequent these boards, and feelings can be hurt. But if you spend the money on something and find an aspect of it to be subjectively bad, I'm interested in hearing that opinion before I spend my money. Not only is this forum the only real place I'm likely to read about that kind of stuff, but impact on things that need improvement in apps is helpful to the developers who do come here, and might not have realized there was a problem (or perception of poor quality).
?…. you could hear a needle drop in here...@ElGregoLoco said:
criticizing the impc pro app for no reason is ridiculous and most that I've seen is unsubstantiated but criticizing retronyms…. you've gotta be kidding they've earned it! just like they've earned the good credit for the impc app. errr i mean impc pro app. and I say this in the most polite and respectful sounding voice imaginable
@xen said:
i hear you, I've been lucky with this one, I use it extensively everyday for very long periods of time- basically I'm selling my maschine because of this app, anyway the only glitches I've encountered are with the flux fx, it occasionally freezes if I'm doing too much with it but other than that literally every other thing has been spot on knock on wood. My use is repeated and repeated and repeated sampling effect mangling and resampling, never had any clicks or such in the audio and rarely use the fade feature as I can spot a zero crossing by ear and by eye but I've been sampling like a fiend for too many years to even say, started out on a roland w-30 and then on down the line
anyway whatever the issues are that you're having I hope they clear that stuff up, and I hope they fix the audio export bug and put the loop button from the audio copy app into the impc pro sample editor where it belongs and fix that damn flux capacitor hahaha!
on second thought maybe criticize is too strong a word, I'd rather say that retronyms can be maddening at times.
@kobomoto
Traditionally I've always been more into synthesis than sampling, but I'm moving in the sampling direction. I've always edited audio, but more as part of mixing tracks rather than composition. So I've been using iMPC to prepare sampled sequences of synth patterns for use in Cubasis and Gadget, to get over the fact I can't run a dozen synths at once on an ipad. However, iMPC is starting to suck me in.
A little off topic but I have been on the fence about buying this app. Anybody know when the price is going to increase? Still says that $12.99 is the intro price?
is it really? it's the best twelve bucks you will spend if you're interested in this kind of workflow it's amazing that it's still on sale!
@kobamoto said:
I'm not sure if I understand your point. All that functionality you are asking for is available (for free) in Tabletop since long before iMPC PRO's release.
@kobamoto said:
For now, couldn't we use iMPC Pro as a instrument in DAW apps. such as Cubasis, BM2,etc. along with the IOS synth. apps?
@firejan82 said:
since my point never included table top I can see where you'd miss it.
the impc workflow is a natural for sequencing other instrumenets, it's been tried and tested for years and is very inspiring. I've had tabletop for quite some time and it's workflow does not feel the same but when I feel like that kind of workflow I open tabletop.
@kobamoto said:
If you open iMPC PRO in Tabletop you get that iMPC workflow plus you can use that same piano roll in Mastermind to midi sequence those synths. Isn't that what you are asking for? Why should Retronyms bother making a MIDI sequencer out of iMPC if you can already do all that?
the same reason why they bothered to make the impc when you already have a drumsampler in tabletop. The very same reason. Thats just my opinion though man, maybe you thought it was unnecessary for them to make the impc pro?
I don't know about that. iMPC PRO added new features that iMPC didn't have, same is true with iMPC and Gridlok. What you are asking for is a feature that's already available.
@Dham said:
Using iMPC Pro in Cubasis is clunky. It can't be used in song mode while playing in sync with your DAW.
It would be great if Song Mode would "stick," if it could be put in External sync mode and trust your DAW's tempo, and it could pay attention to song position pointers and jump around the timeline as you jump around in your song.
Even better if you could just sequence it in Cubasis, but still access things like the other sound banks and other tracks via unique midi notes.
the tabletop eco system is what it is ymmv like i said when i'm looking for that feel I reach for that, but the impc pro eco system is even more intuitive, give us some simple midi in and out and people will write allot of music with it, just like hardware mpcs and hardware synths.
I have been installing and deleting Tabletop over and over again since I first got it. Always like the idea, always (always) get driven quickly mad by the crashing.
@JohnnyGoodyear said:
Doesn't crash much for me but still, that is a better argument. I couldn't defend my "why should they bother..." statement from before against this, but that's probably the way Retronyms are looking at it anyway, I would think so.
Retronyms touts the classic capabilities of the mpc and loudly, I don't believe there is a defense for why there should be no midi sequencing of external synths in this app!