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.
CPU hungry synths
I'm currently having lots of fun using Fugue Machine with its 4 playheads to trigger 4 different synths. I have a Air1 on 9.2.1. I'm also using Ableton Link, through Audiobus, to sync DrumPerfect Pro and Patterning. Then to Mimix, which has midi learn, so allows me to use a Korg NanoKontrol2 to control volume, pan, solo and mute for each synth. SO MUCH FUN..... My Air1 usually handles it OK. But can splutter and glitch a bit depending on what synths I use. I'm generally running Animoog, iSem, iMini and Thor. But Thor seems to push my Air1 over the edge. I seem to recall reading that Thor was a bit CPU hungry. Is that correct?
What would be great is a list of synth apps that play nicely together. Maybe this has already been covered but I couldn't find anything in a search. Another option would be for me to run DrumPerfect Pro and Patterning on a second iPad via Link (wifi). That way CPU usage is spread across 2 units. I realise that I'm pushing my Air1 to the limit. I think that's the solution in the long run. But it would still be good to know what synths are CPU hungry. Thanks for any help.
Comments
I have had glitches, or crackling breakup on my iPad Pro using the MIDI Out function of Animoog, driving synths like Noise 5D; just certain patches. There doesn't seem to be a way to turn off internal sounds of Animoog, when using MIDI Out, except to turn the volume down of Animoog. It still seems to process the Animoog sound in the background, adding to the CPU usage.
Noise 5D itself, seems to be somewhat CPU intensive. I have had crackling with other synth combinations. I just have to stay away from using them, unfortunately.
Yes, the Noise 5D app is very cpu intense (as Equator on my mac too). But it has to handle lots of live modulations.
Alchemy, Animoog, Thor, Nave, iSem, Mitosynth etc. can all be huge on CPU. But it mostly depends of course on patches with huge reverb, long release times and high polyphony.
If there was a price for sound while using less cpu it would go to Sunrizer for sure. Eden is great too. I often prefer these days (on iOS and OSX) to use simpler synths, layer them with other synths and external FX to get the best results and save that as single "instrument". With AUM this is finally possible in an easy way (with limits) on iOS too.
Thanks chaps. Disappointing to hear that 3 of the 4 synths that I'm running can be CPU intensive. I'll keep an eye on what FX are running in my chosen patches. I'll also try Sunrizer and Eden. That's just the kind of info I was looking for. So thanks folks.
Synthmaster is another that can be a glutton for CPUs.
Yes I'd heard that about Synthmaster too. Shame, as I love that app for the presets alone.
Cyclops is a bit of a beast as well. On iPad 4 it starts up when it feels in the mood. I kinda like that though as it's got a personality. Give the internal cogs a good oiling up before getting the starter handle out.
It does have some lovely presets that make it worth the aggravation.
What about Viking and NS1? Does the fact that they are AU plugins have any positive impact on CPU utilization?
Cpu hungry fx apps,
Echo pad unusable in AUM. Always been a hog. Running 9.3 on mini2. No problems with any others so far.
Great thing about Eden is that you can run 4 instances (or more) at a time without your CPU breaking a sweat. If you can get by with it for at least a couple of your tracks, you can save CPU cycles for your more hoggish synths.
I think your comment finally made something click in my head ... I'm one of the three members of this forum who has yet to grab AUM.
Totally agree. Synthmaster's presets are well worth the CPU spikes
Was gonna say basically this. You can put effects on them too! You can also set more than one to the same midi channel to stack. Eden will not sound like the powerhouse (hungry) synths you have in your setup but it can do an awful lot with little to no impact on the CPU.
And +1 to Sunrizer. Depending on what you're doing with "iSem, iMini and Thor", you might be able to get Eden or Sunrizer to do it for a lot cheaper.
Also also, Argon is a really bad ass little mono and NLog MIDI doesn't get nearly the public glory it deserves. Both are older apps and very cpu friendly. NLog can be kind of pain to program but sounds great.
I've actually sampled a few ISEM sounds into Eden pretty convincingly (just so I could have MIDI PC control over a few ISEM patches), so there's always that, as well.
makes note in his file
Samesies. Good point and good fun. Can't do it directly anymore as of iOS 9 but can still make it happen pretty quickly by sampling into Audioshare and pasting to NS.
id say zmors modular is very resource hungry. specially if you are dummy like me with modulars, doing the wrong thing has the cpu meter reach 100% and explodes to da max. hehe.
Yeah vote for eden for president & sunrizer, are very well sounded for the cpu-price you pay .and again even its no synth: thumbjam
Animoog couldnt be so much cpu intensiv it runs still very well on my ipad1
So, what are the 3 most powerful YET LEAST CPU hungry synth apps?
I forgot to add this obvious fact.
That is what f/x are for.
The right fx app can change the paradigm and essence of a synth app.
Is Eden synth only available inside Nanostudio?
Yes - I heard the developer was considering releasing Eden2 someday as a standalone synth app but who knows when/if.
I've been tempted by Zmors Modular but notice that, in YouTube clips, the CPU meter is always very high, even with simple patches. This, and the fact I've not yet heard any particularly impressive demos, puts me off a bit.
I am, of course, hoping that somebody here convinces me it's a must-buy....
Of course it all depends on what you are doing within those synths, and I find the inversion of the question more interesting (I.e. what are the least resource hungry apps you use that still sound good?), I even tried starting a thread on the topic once, but it received zero replies so figured I was the only one interested in it.
Anyways, I often find myself running Sunrizer along with Viking Synth, the Ice Gear synths (Laplace/Lorentz/Mersenne) without problems. As noted above, it is now also easy to layer synths in AUM, even the monophonic ones can start sounding polyphonic, or you can layer deep strings with plucking vibes etc, and finally just add a reverb to the collection of your layers, to further keep the resource demands down.
Not really sure why I care so much about the resource efficiency, I actually have an iPad Pro and have only anecdotally hits CPU spikes that can be heard, but still, I'm thinking it is always good to know of the small efficient alternatives, as you then can add more of them!
One would think a synth is typically going to require more resources due to the continuous and calculating nature of synthesising sound. However, would it be true to say that? Are there cases where sequencers (that make no sound themselves) are more of a continual resource drain? Or can drum machines in general (which only have to fire off a handful of one-shot samples) hog the system?
What about things like bluetooth and wifi, once an irrelevance to music, but now integrated into the potential to make the iPad a wider thing — does running them make a difference?
One of them would surely be FF One, which is far more CPU-friendly than the big brother the Twin.
Magellan is pretty low on cpu usage.