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.
Ampkit vs ToneStack
Hi,
I bought TonaStack on sale (could not resist!) and I already have Ampkit . IMO Ampkit sounds more natural but I don't have any expansions on both apps.
So my question (for people NOT playing metal and have both apps with every IAP ) is:
Buy Motherload expansion (which is now on sale) or Ampkit bundle ?
Comments
I'm not in the know enough to compare them sound wise. I have them, but use them for keyboards to go through.
ToneStack seems to get a little more love on the update front as far as working with Audiobus and iOS goes. Hopefully that is fair to say and not some weird lurking bias haha.
Both cool apps though. Hopefully someone with better knowledge will come along.
Always seems unfair saying VS with apps, unless its to fulfill a certain purpose.
Well, I am looking for natural sounding ,plus fx quantity!
I used to use amp kit before ts came out. When it came out I haven't touched ampkit again. Don't know the reasons but this is what happened.
I'm into clean/crunch sounds. There's some cool sounds in ts expansions like blue fuzz with infinite sustain etc. The only thing I'm underwhelmed by is the auto wah/envelop filters. Other than that reverbs, tape delays, modulation effects are good quality IMO. Just be aware that TS is more cpu intensive than ampkit.
In my opinion for non-metal playing Ampkit is by far more preferable.
You can download some clean presets from the online sites that host Ampkit settings etc.
Ampkit loads on my daughter's old iPod, which only goes up to ios6. Or at least it did. But, the bass expansions (I'm a bassist) are expensive and the constant advertising with moving prices when you open the app makes me not a fan. I was a diehard jamup user for a long time, but when tonestack came out with the bass expansions I got them. Initially I didn't like it but now I'm integrating ios into my live bass rig and tonestack has been awesome.
I'd get the bundle for which ever sim I think sounds the best. Everyone will have different opinions so just go with what works for you.
How much is the Motherlode now? I think I got it on sale ages back for about $10 - been happy with it.
I have both. Actually I have pretty much all of them because I liked playing with guitar apps or because I'm a gullible tool. I don't know. So I paid the original $49 Motherload price or whatever, then watched them do a 1/2 off sale probably a month after that. Oh well. I probably havevn't "justified" the price yet, but at the same time, the whole thing was about the price of a mid-range guitar pedal, so it's all relative.
$18.99 for the entire Motherload package is a much better deal. I think that ToneStack pushes the CPU a little harder than AmpKit and some of the other apps, but it's clearly more capable in terms of the variety and placement of effects. In fact, I see a lot of people on here who have little interest in guitar, but use ToneStack to layer FX on synths or whatever.
AmpKit - Older; good variety of amps including some first-party licensed stuff (Peavey, especially); some decent representations of clean and distorted amps; knob settings in the app don't really correspond to what you'd do in real life, which always bothered me, but the app definitely works; FX pedals are fairly hit or miss.
ToneStack - One of the newer options on the block; Yonac had a strong background in synth apps and did a pretty good job with amp modeling and FX; many of the Fender-based amps stay cleaner in ToneStack than they do in other apps; on the negative side, I've always felt like too many of their clean tones lack low end presence - they purportedly enhanced this with updates, and there are tons ways you can improve it with amp models and EQ, but it did bother me about ToneStack; FX offerings are top-notch and they innovated with the ability to drop IAA FX apps into a signal chain, which was a brilliant advantage an iOS system can offer.
I would certainly recommend ToneStack at the sale price, but only if you have one of the devices from probably 2014 or newer that can handle it. I had it on my previous iPad2 (2011) and it basically wasn't worth the hassle. Helped that they made it universal, as it did run on iPhone 6s a little better.
I found the TS presets decidedly lacking but I have gotten great results with some tweaking. I think BIAS amp sounds great for cleans but I couldn't deal with the instability in my live rig.
Bias FX and Amps for the win. This sounds the most natural for my ears.
Tonestack is pretty awesome too, it just sounds waaaay too digital for my tastes when I play rock and metal.
The FX are cooool though
Agree with that. The presets did not excite me. Always start from scratch or own chains I've built.
Thank you all
,
I have to decide soon, because TS sale will end...soon.
Maybe I'll go for TS Motherload since I mainly play bass (but I also like jamming with guitar) and seems to have more gear bundled ,for messing with synths
I wound up buying the metal and live fx packs today, don't really need the motherload, but I wanted the harmonizers for playing something an octave up. We did "for once in my life" the other day and I usually play the little guitar lick at the top, but my new 22" scale bass makes it too hard to play it up that high so this will let me play it an octave down.
And I definitely agree that the tonestack presets are lackluster, that may be whaly it took me a long time to get into it, but starting from scratch theres some great tones in there.
As someone's alread said, horses for courses. I'm a bread and butter bass player and had my bass going through my clean guitar amp sim presets with decent results.
Also, I can't remember ampkit but ts has an extensive midi implementation with everything midi learneable including preset switching via generic midi controller gear.
If you don't have the tone stack bass packs, I highly recommend them. Bread and butter for sure. The bass compressor especially is quite nice.
I've been using AmpKit since it first came out. I've got a bunch of presets I made that I continue to use when I need them. To my ears, it really sounds great on single coils. The interface is a little clunky and the ads are annoying. There's one expansion pack I didn't buy, and I continue to get the ads for the bundle, which would cost more than the pack. I suppose if you bought the whole bundle, you wouldn't get the ads.
I got ToneStack and the mother load upon release was crazy about it. Excellent clean tones, but I find it difficult to dial in a low overdrive with the kind of sustain I want, even with my Les Paul. The interface is great, and its modulation effects probably edge out AmpKit's. I do have a few presets in there that I really like and continue to use.
If I had to pick between the two, I'd go with AmpKit because I think the amps are more responsive to my fingers and picking. To my ears, they sound more authentic. I don't use too many effects other than reverb, compresser, and delay, and those effects are abundant and sound very good in AmpKit.
Tough choice, though!
Get one now and the other one later.
Thanks @supanorton
It was really tough decision. I finally went for TS &Motherload2 mainly because of the huge sale and found the interface easier. Still I find Ampkit sound better , especially on capturing the guitar dynamics and the dev made great job on speaker's cab character ,but the advertising system for the IAPs is more than annoying.
Enjoy; ToneStack is s great app.
AmpKit is my fav amp sim on iOS, and seriously rivals with Guitar Rig in tone quality.
I'm a bass player and I've been a JamUp, Ampkit guy from the beginning. Mostly JamUp due to Ampkit periodically not responding. Which is what it's doing right now.
Bought the Bass 2 Bundle with the sale and liked it so much I went back to get the Bass 1 Bundle. Alas, day late 7 dollars short. Sale ended. Likely will buy it anyway. It's very good.
we need more audio testing these comparisons
This is a good point. Tonal quality is purely subjective after all...
I've seen folks who play with shimmering cleans argue with the high gain crowd quite earnestly.
Agree with you gentlemen. Again my opinion comes strictly from a bass players point of view. It seemed like I was always spending a lot of time trying to ferret out offensive frequencies especially playing high up the E string.
Your sound is easier to sculpt here. The 6 band bass eq is very responsive. Find the culprit and pull it out of there. Will most certainly be buying the 10 band as well. There are a couple of envelope filters that are nice and the octave divider pedal is one of the best I've heard.
Each amp/cab has a unique voice and when you change mic placement it actually works! Who knew.
I'm all into the Fender Precision Bass...
Unless it's about the Ampeg SVT thing with 8x10" fridge no need for any bass amp.
(usually I don't even compress, because it comes just right off the strings)
Favourites are the Acoustic 360 from JamUp or the Bassman, occasionally for fun the Peavey 5153 high gain emulation.
But I consider none of them essential, they just add to the tonal palette.
Unfortunately (imho) the Ampeg wannabe SVT from BIAS/JamUp is their weakest model.
Of course the above applies to recording only, not playing live...
I already have them. I was just pointing out that with a bit of eq even the guitar amps and cabs models are good for bass. Cheers
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Yep, that's the one. ToneStack is Padres for AB much more frequently than AmpKit, and has some brilliant combos when you have 'em all.
Gotcha. What guitar amps do you like on bass in tonestack? I haven't explored them too much.
On bass in my live rig, I have a high pass filter set to 30hz, then a setup of pedals that I use very sparingly, including an octave, some uzz pedals using the splitter so I can blend the dry signal in, the bass big muff, a chorus, and an envelope filter, going into the bass compressor, then a b15 on one preset, gk on another. I just switch the effects on and off by hand on the rare occasion I need them. It sounds like a lot but I did that instead of making different presets so I can keep consistency through the gig.
Anyway, I'm very much digging tonestack these days and something really compelling will have to come out to have me looking again.