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.
Space Exploration: When to REMOVE APPS from device?
Housecleaning OLD and UNUSED apps off devices. What seems like a fairly simple task often leaves people riddled with anxiety and doubt.
What is your criteria for removing apps off a device to free up space or just because? For instance, I noticed the dent I put in my memory of one IPAD AIR2. I now want to free up some space to satisfy my OCD.
How do you decide when to remove an app?
Is there a time period of non usage?
By price point?
What other criteria is there?
How do you organize your apps on your device anyway?
I appreciate hearing your ways of tending to this rather benign process.
Comments
When there's not enough space to install a new app
There was a similar thread the other week.
Every once in a while I just delete apps I don't use anymore.
Price point doesn't come into it ... It's not as though you can't just re download the app ( for free) if necessary.
Best exercise for me has been buying a new ipad!!
Start from scratch with a new iOS install and then only add the apps I must have one by one. Course eventually it grows and grows and then while at the beginning I have 10gigs free and all the apps I need, I will end up with a 1/2GB free and all the apps I need.
I get nervous when I get close to 1.5GB free though.
Personally just go through my app list from largest to smallest and start knocking the ones off the top that I don't use often or could do without. It's never easy!
Sometimes the little guys get to stick around a lot longer than their usefulness as they're good at sitting and keeping quiet.
I have my apps in four loose categories: Sound, FX, Studio and Beats. All these are in folders.
I have six apps not in folders that I change depending on what I'm making sounds with the most.
Every now and then I just delete what I find I don't use much. I recently deleted two apps for the first time: Cubasis and BeatMaker2. I just find myself reaching for Auria.
I try to leave around 10gb free on my 64gb iPad, as getting close to 5gb seems to cause some issues with smooth running.
I only delete FX apps if they have major Audiobus problems or they don't seem to play nice with others.
Sound apps usually fit into two categories as far as use. Most the big name synth apps will just stay on forever. You know the ones. However some more experimental sound apps don't last long.
I've deleted more Beat / Drum apps than I can remember, but have more than I need, as I find them so much fun
I’ve been getting rid of apps lately, although as a top of the line 3G 64GB iPad 2, I can actually fit almost all of what I have on there if I felt inclined.
My first filtering approach was to get rid of the ones with ugly or pointlessly ill thought out typography in the icons. Then went the ugly icons. Then went the apps that are ugly when you open them. But then, I really didn’t need so many drum apps.
Then I got rid of the ones that are upside down when I open them.
Then I got rid of the ones I couldn’t remember what they look like if I were to open them (this of course included stuff I bought but never opened).
Then I got rid of the ones with unpronounceable names.
Then the ones which purported to teach me something, or run me through some form of exercise (they of course fit into the category of never before opened, too).
Then I got rid of the yellow ones.
Then I got rid of anything that was an effect. All effects. Except for one multi-effect.
That’s where I am so far.
You kept the green ones?
Yeah, I put Quincy back yesterday, and Animoog never went away.
Nativist.......................
kidding.
Bianca - I think that is pretty obvious. LOL
And that point which ones go?
I asked about price due to 2 or 3 apps.
3 of them are DAWs that I did all the IAPS for and everything. For whatever reason just never got into them. If I have to divide time, learning a new DAW doesn't usually take precedent.
I also have some that people "rave mad" about and keep saying there is something here I am missing. Maybe I will figure out mystery of why it's popular.
I really don't use many apps. Same couple all the time.l
FOR THOSE WHO ANSWERED, HOW ABOUT THIS.
WHAT APPS ARE YOUR BREAD AND BUTTER THAT NO MATTER WHAT IF YOU HAD 10 APPS FOR IPAD AND IPHONE. WHICH 10 WOULD BE YOURS?
Errrr what happened to the numbers......
Hmmmmm. Music Studio. A first girlfriend but long ago left behind (or maybe she left me?). So, worth another look, eh?
If you fully grok Auria maybe not. But otherwise yes
Pop MS in both ends of Audiobus with a side order of Bismarck and your choice of effects in the middle and there's really not a lot you can't do. But I guess it's just familiarity for me I dont really have to think about it.
Thanks. I will try that for the fun of it
I dumped Auria before christmas. I like the idea of it in theory and I’m all for it, but it’s not possible to run alone, let alone while something else is running, so I’ve never got it to do anything. I’ll come back to it later maybe.
Like she said, but it in both ends.
An easy way to sweep a whole load off the table in one go is to get rid of everything that is not Link enabled! There you go.
hmmm....
in no particular order....
Cubasis
sunrizer
boom 808
iMini
FunkBox
Audiobus
Multitrack DAW
iSem
boom 909
@BiancaNeve Well, I had put aside two hours tonight for concentrated B-Step study, but ended up downloading Music Studio again and the time flew by. Mostly because of the utter ease of bringing in Midi (well, opening-in Midi) into Auria.
I was a little rusty with editing to start with in MS, but picked up on that again (mostly) fairly quickly. It's a little different and I remember now that the look 'n' feel of the app was the thing that helped put me off it. Silly really, because the feel is fine and in truth it just looks a bit too basic. Don't even know why really.
Anyway, it's a lot further along than when I last worked in it. And some of the features are now far more valuable to me than they once might have been (I love the simple duplicate track for example, so straightforward).
I have a feeling that for writing melodies etc, this, with the the recent addition of midi tracks to Auria, is going to be a major new flow etc. So, anyway; thank you
what you call basic I call simple and uncluttered and good for use on the iPhones tiny screen
Usually for me the criteria is how long since I've last used the app, if at all. Sometimes I'll download an app that sounds good on paper, but once I use it for a bit I realize that I don't really need it. Or maybe I've just moved on to better/different apps for common use.
The good part is that at least we can always redownload any app from the App Store easy enough, so I don't really stress too much about it.
be sure to put a dot after each number.
Lack of use. I decide it's time to remove apps whenever I can't think of what I'd like to open.
By 'type'. I have a 'most used' folder on my doc with 9 apps in it. Then I have a music page with folders like synths, drum things, 'acoustic' instruments, DAWs/'full' sequencers, pattern sequencers, all-in-ones, effects, utilities... Fairly confident this leads to me ignoring apps. Since I mostly use Spotlight when I want to find something I guess it's really just some amount of OCD. I should probably remove all the folders.
I wouldn't use the word 'just' there. Familiarity and not having to 'think about it', particularly when it comes to creativity+technology is a big deal and worth pursuing if'n you ask me. I've noticed (again?) recently that when I'm playing music with other people I can coax way way way more out of my old considerably less specified instruments than I can with new ones (sonically and musically). This isn't to say I don't think there's value in exploring new things (not that old yet) but yeah, knowing something to the point where you don't need to think in the moment you're aiming to create is good shit!
Sort of my mindset as I made this thread.
I am at a crossroads of my internal guide to clear the decks because I know what I really need.
However, my A.D.D. and consumer driven mindset pushes me to have all the goodies at all times.
That is why I followed with the question about the 10 apps.
Because- I really only use a handful or apps to make my music.
The rest just waste my time.
Generally speaking of course.
@syrupcore @BiancaNeve @RustiK
All good. This latest is a pertinent example of the circles of software however. I used MS a thousand years ago, found it overtaken (in my own stuttering flow) by NS and then Auria. With the addition of Auria Pro and midi I have now been nudged to produce midi material easily and cleanly (at a certain level of utility also) and MS -for me- now seems like one of the best options. Glad that that HE bought it back then so this ME could rediscover it....
@Rustik -- I have three iOS devices (which is a luxury, I know) so it's a bit of a game trying to keep enough space and apps on one particular device. With varying memory sizes and processor speeds, I base the keeping of apps on current project needs, app size, and app overhead (performance).
Apps in common across all devices are: AudioBus (and AB remote), AudioShare and the Aufx series of EFX apps. Also in common are Animoog, SynthMaster, and Drumjam. Following that it varies quite a bit.
@JohnnyGoodyear -- happy to hear you are giving and getting some MusicStudio love. It's been a good app for me, it's quite capable and it's the only "full" DAW if have for iPhone so it still gets some use.
One other consideration for me is the degree of difficulty to restore an app that I might be considering blowing away. In the case of Auria, fe, I would have to reinstall Auria LE, restore purchases to get to Auria, restore purchases to get to Auria Pro, and then restore all the IAPs. Not that I'm considering removing Auria anytime soon, but that is certain to keep it locked in place.
3? That's not a luxury
Coz I can never part with anything I have
Kicking about. Eeeeeeeeeep!!!!!!!
Holy crap....but I must admit I still have an old iPod touch...