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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Nave vs WaveGenerator
I checked the forum search function, and I couldn't find any thread like this. Forgive me if a thread like this exists.
I only have a budget for one of these wavetable synths, and they both clock in at $19.99. I can't figure out which one would be the deeper of the two. By deeper, I mean more features, functionality, tweakability, etc. (I'm talking about comparing something like Gadget's Wolfsburg to something deeper like z3ta+ .) Which one is the preferred of the two? Any advice and insights are greatly appreciated.
Comments
WaveGenerator is a deeper app (Oscillator control is far deeper, wavetable editing is more exacting, but I've found the GUI to not be the friendliest). I've found Nave to be way easier to use.
I'd recommend Nave to everyone. Some of the most fun I've ever had with sound design.
One thing I'll give props to WaveGenerator is its integration in WaveMapper. WaveMapper is one of the coolest concepts for a synth I've encountered.
Nave by a mile, has more functionality and a way more usable interface.
Sure someone will say the exact opposite now ;-)
Wavegeneratorr is the deeper of the two by far. The sound quality and available presets also tip in its favor. I too found the UI a bit confusing, just because there are so many options, but over time things have become more clear. These minor difficulties in navigation were never an obstacle for getting awesome sounds out of it. Somehow, the configuration of the keys/pads makes WG very playable, more so even than Nave's blades. Buy WG now and get Nave later. Either way you won't be disappointed.
Regarding to wavetable manipulation, PPG is far beyond Nave! PPG has very special taste! PPG too beautiful.
But I like both! Because Nave has more diverse sounds in those table and good effect section.
I cound not vote which one better than the other.
Tough question, the kind I always solve by buying both. If you are new to wave table synthesis maybe Nave first, as ppg is so parameter rich and complex. Both are beyond great, so you can't really go wrong, and there are tons of free preset banks for both, the Nave ones include beauty from many of our forum members here.
Where can we download free Nave patches?
I have a probably a couple hundred from various sources. There's a post here from just a few days ago about a bank from Red Sky...
I tried that one. But for some reason I can't get Nave to produce lush strings or Pads like the ones I get through Z3TA
Z3ta: talk about lots of free presets out there...Z3ta is maybe more of a bread and butter type deal, compared to Nave in the sense of full range of really detailed possibilities. Wavegenerator is probably more in this category too. I'm sure there are folks that can program any of the options and get any sound they want. I dig Nave because it gets me to a certain sound I'm looking for faster. I dig Z3ta definitely because of the "it can do stuff I want" thing, but it's more like it can do stuff I didn't know I wanted
Any good videos out there that show off what each app has to offer? I know Soundtestroom covers Wavemapper, and I'm not sure what the difference is between Wavemapper and WaveGenerator. STR didn't cover WaveGenerator nor Nave.
@jwmmakerofmusic
Get the wavegenerator first if you like PPG, otherwise pick Nave. You are looking for wavetable, don't do anything with mapper at this stage.
i just re-bought Nave after returning it for technical problems cuz I missed it and I need to get the speech synthesis right. also i saw the dev mention a looming update on twitter so i have hope that it'll run a little smoother.
Did you ever really nail the speech thingie? I've been back to it a few times but never come away with any robot I'd be friends with etc.
I just bought Plogue's Chipspeech and it's going a lot less smooth than I had anticipated. I no longer fear the supposedly phenomenal intelligence of robots.
Regarding making useable 'speech' (without a looping wavetable) with 'Nave' it's pretty easy to use the FreeEnv to modulate the wave offset, set the FreeEnv to desired attack speed(control speed of speech), decay to 0 and Sustain to 1.00, the amount knob controls the 'last' step of the wavetable (i usually set this to 0.98-0.99 to avoid nasty sustain tone as the last step of the wavetable does not seem to be 'zeroed' causing for me undesirable sustain tone, it can be 'cleaned' using the wave editor).
I do wish there was a 'one shot' LFO-Wave in nave as the LFOs can be tempo-synced, and well another regular oscillator for Sync and FM-Type sounds...
This is definitely not the only way or best as nave is a pretty deep synth and one of my Favourite iOS synths...
Needless to say I'm very tempted by the forthcoming Waldorf iOS Attack...
While playing around with Nave i stumbled across a 'bug' that i haven't noticed before...
If the keyboard is set to 'mono'(mod & keys page) activating / deactivating the arpeggiator will change the keyboard to 'poly' even if the screen still indicates 'mono' without 'mono mode it's not possible to do mono/legato/glide arpeggios...
To stay on topic, regarding Nave vs Wave Generator, they both have their own strengths, the Arpeggiator in WaveGenerator can play/record notes, but has no 'rests', Nave has preset patterns.
The learning curve of Wave Generator is far steeper than it is for Nave, I particularly like the wave-drawing feature of Wave Generator (ie. recording the 'drawing of a wave' wave as it's drawn).
One feature in WaveGenerator that really annoys me is that not everything is saved when you save a patch, meaning if you make a custom wave it has to be saved separately, it's not saved with the patch. (This is partly due to the fact that patches can share waves and the waves are treated as separate objects).
Both apps are able to create some creepy madness
Yeah I played around with it last night and made a fairly legible phrase concerning Lou Reed.
I was debating whether to get the WG/WM stuff instead last night but the ugliness of the interfaces really put me off on it. Makes it seem twenty years older than Nave.
Son, are you judge thier capabilities by thier looking? So then why you make this topic? Just straight to Nave. That is the one you wish to Fxxx. No offense.
If I can't stand the way something looks and operates, I'm not going to use it, especially when there is an alternative.
This is my default for people at this point also....
Ha! Call me a churl but this makes me want to get WG.
Do it brother, its a very special synth
If i was @jwmmakerofmusic, i'd get both..And whichever one first, wont disappoint.
Eventually mate.
I just don't know which one first.
I guess I should explain the functions I'm looking for. I'm looking for something that can cycle through a wav file via Midi CC automation in real time. Unless I'm misunderstanding how these particular synthesizers work? I'm basing this on how I've worked with Massive. I would hook up the "Wt-Position" knob to one of its macro controls, and magic. The difference is WG and Nave seem to offer a LOT more in terms of depth, custom wav file import, etc.
I'm also looking for a wavetable synth that can import my .wav samples from dropbox rather than requiring me to hook up the iPad to the computer, or can even import from audioshare or audiocopy/paste. Can both WG and Nave do these functions?
I'm about to jump into the Wave generator pool too, great sounds from the demo, tempted by Tera as it's on sale but I think I'll use this more for now. I have Nave and love it but this WG seems more experimental to me.
I would say both are great, Wavegenerator a little harder to program, but in ways deeper, as to which to buy first, well if Nave is on offer, it is from time to time, get that, Wavegenerator has never been on 'Sale' so any time you could buy it. Lastly Z3ta+ Is a superb synth, based on wave manipulation too and with lots of free presets, some built in and with loads of freebies around the web.
You are not allowed to import wavetable to Ppg Wg. You can only import image file. Cc number is on the wavemapper pdf manual page. You will not find Cc number on Wg manual. As far as I know, It is not that simple regarding to wavetable positioning., I think copy/paste things you can do on Nave is easy, but you do not have direct CC control on Nave wavetable. PPG sounds very different to Nave and operation is very differnt. You call both od them wavetable synths but just total different taste! Nave functions are more like your Massive. So choose Nave is good to you.
You can import audio files into Wavemapper (generator's sister-app). Gotten some very interesting results doing so..
Ah ha. Thank you mate. Thanks to all of you. I think Nave will be the one I snag first. I also read that Nave has a speech synthesizer. Sold.
There is a free version of wave generator and a mini version of wave mapper for iPhone that's pretty cheap. That might give you an idea of whether it would do what you'd like. I wish I could give you nave, I reinstalled the other day thinking I should give it another look (this is the 3rd or 4th look I think) and it still doesn't do it for me.
I'm very tempted by Tera being on sale, but trying to curb the app spending for now except for auria pro.
Anyway , perhaps something in my words was remotely helpful!