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.
Managing multiple apps (CPU, memory, etc)
What impact do apps running in the background have on CPU usage, memory, etc?
I run BIAS amp for guitar and MIDI Guitar 2 controlling ThumbJam in my live setup. I switch between the two by soloing channels in MiMix. Sometimes MIDI Guitar/TJ gets twitchy and I suspect it's because BIAS is running in the background. If I swipe BIAS away, the twitchiness does seem to go away. Is this a logical assumption? Is there any way to manage device resources in this setup without having to shut down an app?
Comments
A lot depends on the app, how it was written, and how it handles backgrounding. You can write an app to go to sleep when it's backgrounded, in which case it takes up minimal CPU, and only enough memory to hold current state. Or you can have it running and processing. The best thing to do is get some CPU and memory monitor going, run multiple things, kill things, and see what happen.
@lukesleepwalker
What is the hardware you are using? Have you got any other background tasks working or have you switched off everything in iOS settings? Have you tried starting from a fresh restart for the device? Check battery usage for any apps running high background use.
I don't own Midi Guitar 2, but I'm guessing it's fairly CPU intensive (can anyone verify?). BIAS also seems to require some additional overhead - so it would make sense to me if those 2 don't cooperate. I moved to ToneStack as it's been much more stable with other apps running for me - and I happen to like the sound of it better, personally. If nothing else, give it a shot to see if it smooths out the glitching.
I use several apps on several IOS devices live, and my rule is generally that if I start seeing glitchiness while using a certain combination of apps together, I can't trust them live and look for more efficient apps, or distribute differently on my IOS devices.
If you get to the point where you can't get everything to cooperate on a single device, is there any possibility of using something like an iPod touch running MG2 only? Obviously, it means coming up with a second audio and midi path for the new IOS device. Just an idea.
Thanks @rickwaugh, @Fruitbat1919, @rad3d. I am using an iRig Pro to bring my signal in and it works fine. But, because of the way I have it routed in MiMix, I can watch in Bias Amp as it chews on the signal while I'm playing MIDI Guitar 2 in the foreground. I've tried to figure out how to split the system audio before it hits either app (so that they can both "rest" when the other is active), but I can't really figure it out from a routing perspective.
I'm very near the end of my rope with Bias Amp. I like the way it sounds, but it's such a pain in my setup. I think I'll try Tonestack and see how it goes.
I got the same way with Bias Amp. I've only just put it back on my iPad due to an update. Think I will stick to ToneStack though.
Surely there is a way to mute the input to BIAS while using MIDI guitar ? Even a workaround like putting a dry AUFX app in front of Bias would do the trick.
Ah, from the sounds of it, nothing can be done with that. As everything that is causing a problem is part of the actual signal chain, there's no resting - everything has to be chewing away to get it's job done.
I don't own bias amp, I have been using bias fx, and while I got midi guitar, I found it a disappointment in its initial version, and didn't want to spend the money on the upgrade to get better note accuracy. But it may be that there are options you are using in there that are particularly intensive. WIth Auria/Auria Pro, the plugins are full desktop plugins, and if you get the synths, or Saturn going with multiple modulations, they will devour CPU and memory like it's no tomorrow. With Auria, you freeze tracks that are not being worked on, which essentially does a temporary bounce in place to create an audio track with all the effects applied. This frees up a ton of memory for each track. So, don't know what you're trying to do in this situation, but maybe there are other things you can do not directly related to what you are in the process of laying down, to free up resources from other areas of your project.
Also, it's an excellent idea, before starting recording, to kill every app, and reboot the iOS device. A lot of apps leave pieces of themselves lying about.
Hmmm. But how to fork the system audio signal in the first place?
Try using MiMix's send/return capability to send your dry guitar input (from the iRig Pro) to Bias and to MIDI Guitar. Then mute the MiMix send to the app you want to "mute" (I don't have it in front of me but I think you can midi map the sends in MiMix). As a bonus, when you "mute" Bias, you'll still get the tails of whatever you were playing just before you muted. Bias will still be running, but shouldn't eat as much CPU with no signal input.
Haven't tried it, but you should be able to have MIDI Guitar receive channel 1 and also have AUFX:PeakQ receive channel 1 simultaneously. I know AUFX can mute input output via MIDI command. What about MIDI Guitar2 ?
Yeah, so you guys are thinking along the same lines I was. The problem is that I can't route a MiMix port more than once (it's grayed out after I stick it in a single AudioBus route). On top of that, MIDI Guitar is not on the Bus, yet. So that makes it hard to route a signal to MIDI guitar...
On the plus side, I downloaded Tonestack and first impressions are good. I'll play with it some more.
I finally wrapped my head around how to make this work by using AUFX to mute the signal going into MIDI Guitar 2. The only issue I have is that I can send a MIDI command to cut the Output Gain to zero in AUFX but how do I reset it when I want to switch back?
cool! sorry I'm not very verbose, I could have explained better.
Use a MIDI app like MIDI Designer Pro to receive a single cc on/off footswitch (or just a button in the MIDI Designer Pro layout) and route it to send cc0 for off and cc98 (or something like that) for on. That way when you toggle the switch -on- it will bring the output volume back close to 0db.
Ah, yes, OK. I have MIDI Designer, but I haven't figured out how to send different CC values when toggling on/off. Is that possible? Or do I have to set up a supercontrol relationship?
I Think you can just change the button's message type to cc, then set min and max.
Now it's my turn to be more verbose... Yes, it's easy to set a button with a min/max CC value. But I want to simultaneously mute tracks in MiMix with one external footswitch. So, I guess I need to figure out how to receive one CC message to send out multiple CC messages?
Got it, yep "super controls" are your friend. The super receives the data from foot switch and sends two different messages to sub-controls.
Then one of the subs will need to be switched. Off=98 and on= 0
Is it possible to use one foot switch to go between the two states? On = one track in MiMix + gain in aufx, off= second track in MiMix + zero gain in aufx?
Totally possible. Set the super control as a toggle switch. Send three sub -controls to
I was just trying to set up something similar for my vocals in Loopy. I'll let you know if I discover any other important steps.
That works like a charm. Thanks for your patience--this has really helped me gain a better understanding of MIDI Designer.
Just FYI, in order to get the single footswitch working to alternate between on/off for my super control, I had to enable the "Force Toggle Reacts to Momentary Hardware" button, which is buried under "Options as Super". But it works great now that I found it!
sweeeeet!! yes, also you may want to turn off "super control sends own value" so that there isn't a fourth message going out with each foot switch press.
OK, yes, got it.
I've now remembered why I became disenchanted with MIDI Designer when I first bought it: I have found that it's kinda flaky with the MIDI connections. I had my setup working flawlessly and then put the iPad away. When I came back, none of the buttons were working, either in or out. I even hooked up a hardware controller and I couldn't get the buttons to work with the controller.
So I rebooted my iPad and reinstalled the app, starting a few setup and rebuilding from scratch. Again, it worked fine, with messages going in and out as expected. And then, all of a sudden, for whatever reason, I couldn't get messages in or out again.
I figure there must be a setting somewhere that I'm missing, but it's aggravating to get this far and then not be able to get something to work reliably.
Maybe I should try MIDI Flow or something...
Hmm... Make sure config>MIDI> "stay alive in background" is on.
Make sure config>options> "iPad should not sleep" is on
I have not had that kind of issue recently, make sure you have the latest revision up-to-date