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.
Q&A w/ Fiddlewax Pro Developer
Thanks to @JohnnyGoodyear for the suggestion over in the initial Fiddlewax Pro thread. Still trying to figure out the best way to set it up, but thought it could be fun go over questions live. It'll likely be a public Google Hangout that lasts for an hour or so.
Anyone interested? 
For those new to Fiddlewax Pro, more info here: https://fiddlewax.com/pro
EDIT: The live event is over, but keep the questions coming below!
Comments
Hope to see many of you there in a few hours!
EDIT: (url removed - event is over)
I will try and make this. Am due to be on the road (and driving
, but if the session takes off, please, please archive/post a transcription. Good for you for being ahead of the willingness curve; at root, most user frustrations are borne of apparent indifference more than anything else 
Sure thing. The plan is to keep the full video around on YouTube after the session, assuming it's helpful.
Thinking of some things to be sure to cover. So far here's my list:
Any other big topics or open questions to be sure to include?
And if there's down time, I'll try to do some live jams. The fun start in just a little over an hour, so if any of you are around and curious, definitely stop by!
Hi Adam,
unfortunately I was late for your live-session.I've only seen the last couple of minutes.
BUT I think you did a great job and I really appreciate your effort to get in contact with
users of your app and explain what it does and what it does not.Thank you very much!
Thanks for watching @Schimanski -- I'm glad you appreciated it.
Unfortunately the video / audio quality was so poor and there were so few people that I feel it missed the mark.
Oh well, another learning opportunity I suppose. My upload bandwidth was super low and the camera setup was totally washed out with the iPad screen. Definitely need to have a better setup (higher net bandwidth - arg!) for next time.
For those of you that missed it, I'm not sure it's worth archiving. All the hiccups combined led to a fuzzy mess.
So back to the non-live Q&A... Does anyone have any specific questions about Fiddlewax Pro I can help answer?
I'll go ahead here. I'm a guitarist and bassist who primarily uses iPad to support my workflow to learn songs or jam. For jamming, I honestly find Ableton Live to have been the best tool, but I avoid desktop software now due to various hassles.
Ideally, I'd an iPad jamming tool that:
1) Quickly serve as a session drummer replacement. Including different patterns, tempos, an d fills
2) Let me lay down some chord progressions quickly
3) If I want to add some other riffs or melodies from other instrument timbres, easy to do in key.
Right now, the SessionPad apps are the best for this IMHO, though their chord editor is clumsy, and the resulting tracks can't be varied on-the-fly.
From owning Fiddlewax, I have little doubt that Fiddlewax Pro would do #2 and #3 better than anything else. But do you see your new software as something guitarists or instrumentalists would use as a jamming or performing tool?
Cheers,
Appreciate the effort, Adam. I tuned in for a few, but couldn't really see what was going on. Also, I didn't see any questions/answers listed. Check out Ustream.tv. I've participated in a few live events there and it worked well.
Are there any plans for sample import, custom kits, or expansions?
Sorry I missed it! (Damn lovely kids and their endless requirements...keep waiting for the College Update Package I've been promised, but nothing yet...
@joegrant413 said:
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Thanks for the high praise, Joe! I've debated adding some form of session drummer to Fiddlewax Pro, but have leaned away from it because it tends to lock-in styles pretty quickly and feel canned. I've gone ahead and added it to the feature request list anyway, so who knows, maybe if I can find a way to leave it flexible enough we can work it in somewhere down the line
Between jamming and performing, I'd say jamming. Personally I envision Fiddlewax Pro with the 80/20 rule in mind - creatively, it should be enough to get you 80% of the way there when you are sketching in, jamming out, and working through an idea. The last creative 20% is about dialling in the song and fine tuning timing, instrumentation, mixing, etc. for sharing/production, which likely happens in a DAW or studio setup (mind you, that's ~80% of the time though).
@telecharge, thanks for the Ustream.tv suggestion. As for imports, customization, and expansion, I'm all for it as long as it doesn't get in the way of the creative process. The current range of sounds and capabilities are designed to allow for a very broad set of timbre, tonality, and feel without bogging down the experience. Naturally MIDI and AudioBus open that up a lot with different synths, different effects, different recorders. Although, sample import could be a lot of fun if it's kept light-weight.
I also think state saving could be super handy for the looper (it's on the list, too). Sheesh, design tradeoffs are difficult to keep tabs on. I keep wanting to add more, but I know that feature creep can lead to clutter that squashes the songwriting/jamming process. I'll keep pushing on it!
No worries, @JohnnyGoodyear. I think you have your priorities correct
Adam, thanks very much for the replies! FWIW, I'm a UX / usability guy, so I greatly appreciate any effort to keep the design focused on the main usage you envision for your customer.
I'm in also in a very small minority of guitar or bass players who see iOS as an attractive platform.
Cheers,
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Judging by the number of guitar interfaces and amp/effect simulations not that much of a small minority ....
Alright,folks, I went ahead and got it. I'll chime in sometime later to say how I like. Cheers
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Thanks @joegrant413. I hope you enjoy it
FYI, I've already started making updates based on all the feedback here so far. It'll likely be another couple days before I finalize the code and submit it (review times seem to be around 11 days right now on http://appreviewtimes.com ) -- keep an eye out for that in the next couple weeks!
All that to say that the comments really are making a difference. The discussions in the AudioBus forums are greatly helpful. THANK YOU, and let me know if you run into issues or have more ideas and questions.
Cheers, Adam
Hi Adam, loving this as a midi controller and a sketch tool. Any chance of dropping the minimum BPM lower than 60? down to 10 would be great.
Interesting thought, @thinds. There's no technical reason the BPM couldn't go significantly lower or higher. What's the need to go all the way down to 10?
The tradeoff would be reduced resolution when trying to carefully slide the BPM up/down (for example, if the same distance on the screen represents 10-500bpm it'd be tricky to slide directly to something common, like 120).
Hmmm.. Three options that come to mind:
I would only use it for MIDI output so the resolution is not an issue. I love controllers that go waaaaay down. Great for evolving ambient stuff.
@thinds said:
+1 for that.
Cool. I think we'll go with #2 then.
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That way resolution stays high for quickly setting tempo when songwriting, but you can adjust the tempo manually with the plus and minus button to a much wider range if you want to (1-300 bpm).
Just wanted to let you know,I tried two different "setups". All midi-out: drums to DM1.chords to
Animoog,the remaining parts to Sampletank.Record into Auria.Everything worked super!!Second one: export Midifile into Cubasis and edited sounds there.Great!It's really easy to work out an Intro,Verse,Chorus etc. for a song and then put these parts together in any Daw.Great App!!
Excellent Adam, thanks very much.
In the 1st scenario, do you have to send the MIDI one part at a time to each app? Or can you do all at the same time? Thx, Joe
All at the same time.All you have to do is : set the midi channels of the receiving apps to the
same as the instrument you used in Fiddlewax.You can try this by changing the instruments
you want to record in Fiddlewax,they all have their own midi channel starting with 1.I don't
think you can change this after you have recorded a "track" in Fiddlewax.
That's right. Each instrument lives on its own channel in Fiddlewax Pro.
I've been working on some changes to make this clearer based on all the comments here. When the next update comes through, you'll see the channel number indicated beside each instrument whenever MIDI output is enabled to make it easy to understand the mapping.
The first instrument (piano) starts on MIDI channel 0 (which some programs confusingly show as 1) and the rest are in order from left to right in the interface.
Hi,
Could we switch midi on/off per instrument please? (Sorry I know i've asked before).
Most likely scenario for is that i'm likely to want to audition one synth and keep, say, the drums and the bass or strings or something internal to Fiddlewax. It's a pain (for me) to have to hook up 3 or 4 or more apps every time I want any midi out.
Also - it's very odd to me that the metronome sends out midi (a simple internal click at all times would be better I think )
Thanks
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Hi Adam,in the "chords part" is there a way to change the octave?If not would it be an option
for an update?Because many apps sound one octave too low when I use this part with midi.
Again: Great App!
Hi @Schimanski. I just added that functionality to the code this morning!
Hold tight -- it'll be in the next update
Wow bespoke software
Waoh!As a guitarist and owner of a small studio this app is superb for setting up good
sounding basic tracks in a couple of minutes without the hassle of discussions with any
keyboarder etc.I do love good,tasteful keyboarders but they are so hard to find ( here ).
I just completed an app update based on all the feedback here. Thanks again to all who have submitted questions and comments!
It should come your way in the next 7-14 days (based on http://appreviewtimes.com).
Of course, I'm still working on next, next updates so keep the ideas and questions coming.