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 iPhone app (if any) gives really great bass?
I'm talking low, low, feel it in your chest more than hear it bass..... Aside from basic low frequency sine-wave basses, are there any tricks to get that really powerful low bass? Cutoff filters? Compression? Mixing tips? Do any iPhone apps give really, really great sounding powerful bass? What about when combined with other apps/fx?
Comments
Yes, Animoog for iPhone!
I've got Animoog @Kaikoo, how do you go about creating a good bass with it? What are your tips/tricks?
I don't use phone for music playing. MidiSequencer can do sequencing for iPhone now.
Any Moog low end should come out godly. I recommend starting with a few different saws and triangles on the timbre page, then moving around on the home screen to find the sweet spot, then building around that with different-filtered timbres from the effects or IAP lists.
If you've never designed an Animoog patch before, I recommend it. It's easier than any other iPad synth in my opinion, and it's a pure joy when you get to something usable.
Could you try some NanoStudio free presets:
http://reusenoise.yolasite.com/nanostudio-refills.php
To add on, your lowpass (cutoff) filter will probably end up in the 10 o clock range, just to filter out some of the high frequencies of the sawtooth (a more 'open' filter will give you a really fat cutting sound, but at the sacrifice of a really low, powerful chest-thumping effect, i.e. where the bass is more a presence than a note.) A sine wave or two in the timbre mix should thicken it up as well. After all, using a cutoff filter is figuratively just reducing a sawtooth wave down into a sine wave as frequencies are removed.
What style of music is it for?
Caustic not bad too on iPhone
Sunrizer XS is really good for the iPhone as well.
2nd the Sunrizer XS recommendation, also recommend Magellan Jr
i have all the usual suspects, ifrettless, animoog, etc. I also like a good smooth wave of bsss (sometimes crunchy, but the point is the kick). I always seem to wind up doing what I learned in the early days. I use thumbjam. As just a stand alone app, its got as much control over the sound as you could possibly desire. The tilt controls offer awesome expression. From there I may or may not run it through an amp sim like tonestack. Most of the time I’ll incorporate a compressor like korvpressor to get to that steady backbone I’m looking for. My two cents anyway. There’s no wrong answer really. This is just one of the fifty different ways I’ll get there, but its a favorite of my own.
Nice mini-tute there.
Thanks everyone!! I'll try these things out. I'm not aiming at any particular genre, but I do love 80s, Post Punk, New Wave, alternative, industrial, goth, synth pop, etc., etc., to give you an idea of the directions I could go in musically. Basically these genre styles and sub styles between the 1980s to today. :-)
Lots can do it. +1 for Magellan Jr or his free mono synth. They both have Moogish sounding OSCs to me. I'd use Nanostudio.
Create a new Eden patch with a saw and a sine (also try the TRI, Bass 1 and EP1 waves... with the sine). Set the mix more on the sine side. If you're starting with the nanostudio default patch you may want to adjust or remove the filter envelope.
If you use the matrix to assign the aux envelope to OSC mix, you can use it to have a bit of one OSC in the sound for the start and then ride out on the sine wave. If the sine wave is in OSC slot two, set the amount in the matrix to -100. Then your Aux envelope sustain level is basically the OSC's mix knob when a note is held and the aux env's amount control is the initial mix. So with no attack and a shortish decay you can have a slightly bigger sound to start (brighter OSC 1) and then ride it out with mostly sine rumble. With a very short decay (and 0 attack, 10 amount) you can get it to almost pop the first part of the note. You can give it a little movement by assigning an lfo to aux env's sustain, maybe after a delay.
I also really love the feeling of deep deep bass that's a little bit out of tune (like how an upright isn't always the exact same D). You can set up a super slow and light sine lfo to mess the OSC pitch. You put it on a random shape or have it reset on keypress while you point another LFO at it so it starts at a different depth each time.
Then, to make sure you have to buy new speakers, go to the 5th Planet waveshaper thing on the last page of Eden and select EQ Only. Turn the knob to the left.
You can use a compressor (or 3) via the mixer to just smash it but might not really be needed.
To add 80's: detune the OSCs a tiny bit. And maybe add a chorus.
You might also want to play with turning the filter way down and the resonance all the way up. Set it to 24db and experiment with key tracking on or off depending on the sound you're going for. You might try Filtatron for this (or along with Eden).
Sidebar: that Eden aux envelope OSC mix trick is really fun with the OSC sync and mod modes. Can start with or without ring modulation. Hopefully envelope delay is in NS2!
For me the most power in the sub bass area on iOS are the Virsyn synths. They have those creeping under your skin feeling if you do it right. I remember that Nave can go very deep too. But for me Addictive synth is still the king.
Edit: For iPhone of course Addictive Micro is the king too (for me at least and i love to be in the sub area).
Sunrizer sx will give you some decent thump
Yep, agree with you on this one for sure. Surprised to see Animoog thrown out, have always found that filter surprisingly meh for a moog product (not saying it has to compete with my minitaur, and its a cool synth, but def not a go to bass source for me).
Virsyn synths often have a really nice combination of rich oscillators and musical/non-abrasive drive options which = deep bass fast. Addictive is very good at summoning up heart palpitating sub basses, but I'd recommend Tera over any other option bass-wise. It's got one of the best sounding/most harmonically rich saw wave oscillators in iOS land - load up the init patch, go over to the filter setting, put the drive at about 25%, and lower the cutoff way down until things start shaking.
Then flavor to taste with extra oscillators, detune, noise, FM, etc. It's the only iOS synth that competes with my hardware stuff bass-wise (at least in my possibly faulty perception).
EDIT: oops, just realized you were asking about IPHONE apps, which I don't use... sorry for the tangent!
For some weird reason The low fi apps have sick bass. And u dont need to sound chip tuney. Square synth kills it for me. and yea compress the bass like mad, just not the whole mix. the acid basses can be sub sonicy too ha. Like even rebirth is great if unuse their built in comp and fx, then post process it and ace subs
@jakoB_haQ
Prodigy for iPhone gets one into these many eras via fm, gets subby and dirty too. Matrix programming has the detail to craft some jagged thump
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/prodigy/id817912291?mt=8
Prodigy for iPhone??? I had never even heard of this one!!! It looks like a lot of math though.....I'm not far enough along in my music skills (or math skills for that matter) to express sounds with math. :-( I sure would like to see more full-blown quality iPhone apps!! :-)
Nice tips! Thanks!!
Thanks everyone for your input!! It's really appreciated!! :-)
@Littlewoodg any chance you could throw up a video or soundcloud set of Prodigy in action. I looked for examples for how it sounds, but found none and the "website" is useless as far as information.
Anytime. I love that we have a place where we can ask a question and know we're getting solid advice from tried and tested results of our peers. That's magic, and I tip my hat to the AB Boys every time I think of it. Long after iOS moves beyond AudioBus, this forums purity will remain as a symbol for what's possible when you bring like minded people together to help each other on the Internet. I'd attribute almost half of my musical knowledge to these and Auria' forums. If the AudioBus forum is the community college, the Auria forum is Graduate school. Between Anthony and several others over there, it's honestly better than any manual or tutorial you'll over find.
Agreed!! @boone51
@boone51 Community college, eh? Better hit the books I guess...
Indeed, there is also Mitosynth and Nlog for iPhone which can play the deep stuff well too!
Oh, and i forgot MIniMapper!
Particularly for deep bass, a lot will also depend on what speakers you are listening on, an iPhone's built-in speakers won't cut it. Sorry if this is obvious, but as nobody seemed to have mentioned it, I thought I would.
@PhilW No worries! It is important for people to remember this. For me, I'm more interested in the source (synth), because I already have nearfield monitors and nice headphones. I do most things "In The Box" so the quality of the sound source is most important for me right now. I want great sound at low frequencies (garbage in - garbage out). That's why I was asking about synths on iPhones. I'm looking for something that really shines in the low freq arena. I have a lot of synths, but there may be something that really stands out in this aspect, and if so, I want to learn what it may be. :-)
Starting on a 'natural' organ, cello, upright bass, even soundfonts in the low register, maybe with a comp fx in ab reveals the quality of ios instruments/presets, layering with a sub and low deep base drum, yes eq.