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.
Video from Doog..Phasemaker NEW FM AU Synth Coming soon for the iPad
Here is a quick peak at a new FM Synth called Phasemaker, from Ruismaker dev Bram Bos, its very tasty.
I have no real idea when this will be out.
Comments
Teach me how to, Dougie. Or is it Doogie?
Lovely preview video, Doug! Great stuff! And since it's a pre-beta version I'm relieved you didn't hit any weird bugs
Sounds good. Didn't see if you could save your own sounds as an export. Hope so
Hehe, keeping the code clean and structured minimises the risk of bugs and other issues but you can never know for sure until the crazy user(s) get their hands on it
I was actually surprised at myself since I did not find anything in Ruismaker FM, hope I'll be able to do 'better' this time and find at least something to report back heheh...
The bug detectives of AudioBus will be on the case
Wow, I love this thing. Instant buy. Please brambos, put some tutorials in the manual again. I'm not good with FM.
I had to make my own AUv3 preset manager (because Apple aren't delivering the goods) which means that any user-presets you create carry over into every AU host you're using the synth with, both as standalone and as a plugin. Preset exchange between devices is possible through iTunes.
Arrrrgh not iTunes
Can we save them to an email to send to Dropbox etc?
Using 'Open In...' to send the preset/file 'anywhere'(AudioShare, DropBox, AirDrop etc.) could be a viable solution and the 'main app' could then accept files that are sent to it using 'Open In...' and add them to the user-bank.
I do not know how much an AUv3 is allowed to do inside the 'sandbox' but the stand-alone app should be able to do it.
I hear the didgitaldoo preset managed to overdrive the reverb unit in a bizarre way. Let's fix that!
Yes.. that'll take a bit of research for sure... as Audio Units run inside a sandbox of their own and even communicating with the filesystem of their container app is an inconvenience in the posterior (there's no direct access possible between the two, all file-sharing needs to happen via a shared 'secure' Apple-sanctioned file-system - like exchanging spies on a bridge and both parties nervously waiting for the other to hand over their goods first, etc.).
Really, what needs to happen is Apple to step up (as they have sort of promised) and fix AU preset management on a system level.
Leave it! Sounds like my kind of patch
Sounds good ! When is soon ?
I'm aiming for an October release, if the demolition beta crew doesn't run into massive issues.
Oh, man. Santa Claus always goes to your home December 24th.
Thanks for the heads up and sharing.
It's totally FM season here. Have been making presets for the Korg Minilogue for a while, it is obviously a analog subtractive synth. but the oscillator section offers up a lot in terms of how you can shape the oscillators before moving on with the rest (envelopes, filter, lfo etc). With the cross mod, ring mod, sync and wave shaping (configured in any way you want), you can quickly kinda end up in FM territory, getting those chimes, bells, out-there "glassy" pads, those FM-y rough/cold/harsh sounds and so on. So I'm a total sucker for FM, but I've never even attempted programing a proper FM synth from scratch, and I probably never will lol. Anyway, having things like a "quick parameter" section is a huge plus here, and the design of the whole thing just looks great from a user perspective. Looking forward to this one! :-)
Doug, what's happened to your splendid 'how to' style of demo videos? The kind where you really explore what an app can do. Love watching those. These run throughs of sounds are fine and dandy, but don't really show the app in action.
I'm looking forward to this and using it in Cubasis.
This was just a pre-beta preview. I'll make sure Doug gets a fully polished release copy as well, obviously. Besides, FM is not the most straightforward synthesis model and I still need to write the manual...
It should be enough to explain basic 2OP FM, since the complexity multiplies by more operators and different routings. 6 parallel OPs can be seen as a 'drawbar organ'
Just to add - this sounds awesome
My eyesight isn't very good anymore, I have Wet Macula Degenaration, not a lot they can do apart from injections into my eyes, it doesn't cure it, just slows it down, ha basically I'm falling to bits, I'm OK though, just can't really see well enough anymore to really dig deep, it's actually really funny to watch me trying to do a demo now
Just to add - Doug you're awesome
How do you Know i like budgie ? Spying on me ?
@doug i have a WMD to an eye too ,bad illness, sorry to hear that ,but Im sure new gadget glasses for blindness are coming..What happens to the STR ,this website was my bible...Are you creating a new website or just keeping the YouTube channels ?
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Ah, sorry to hear that, Doug. I was under the impression that you'd been fixed up. I wonder, is there a possibility of mirroring your iPad to a bigger screen, such as your TV so you can see more of what's going on?
Indeed, and the 'Quick Edit' screen is actually a nice way to quickly set up the basics of a 6-operator sound (which can then be fine-tuned by diving into the individual operators). So I'll explain this particular beginner-friendly workflow in detail in the manual.
For example:
(1) start by choosing your algorithm. The main question you need to ask is: how many layers do I want my sound to have? In the example above there are three layers ('carriers'): [1] could be a simple sub-bass layer, [2] could be the meat of your sound, [4] could be a complex sound to make the attack part of your patch interesting.
There are 42 different algorithm layouts, so that should be plenty for a bit of variety.
(2) quickly set up the envelope of the carriers. This is comparable to the AMP envelopes on regular VA synths. The knob lets you quickly change the EG for all carriers simultaneously and ranges from percussive to bass to lead to pad/drone. (obviously all aspects of all individual envelopes can be edited in detail later on, this is just for quick set up)
(3) decide how you want the sound to change over time by selecting the EG and the ratios of the modulators. It's best to play with it while listening, but it can sort of be compared to how a lowpass filter behaves on an analog synth - except FM can go much wilder and do more interesting things.
Next steps? Dive into the individual operators (the 1-6 buttons) and change the overall program/LFO+effects settings in their respective editing screens.
hello, this is my first post. i've been lurking here for a little while, enjoying the read, and looking into what's available (and possible) on that most wonderful of instruments -- the ipad! (finally technology has caught up with my musical ineptitude!
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i felt i had to register and post this comment to thank Doug for all his previous work and videos at the sound test room -- before taking the plunge (or otherwise) with any app, i always try to see if one of Doug's videos are available, and check it out.
thanks Doug
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Quick 'stupid' question...
Are the quick-edit knobs 'absolute' or 'relative' ?
(I suspect 'relative' as it would otherwise mess with the fine-tuning done on the individual operators).
They are - in fact - absolute. They simply override all other settings so you can take a factory sound as a template and quickly transform it into something else.
I considered relative knobs, but that would turn into a conceptual mess quite quickly. FM is already hard to understand, so adding another confusing layer of relative settings on top of absolute settings would just cause total discombobulation.