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.
Garage Band
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After redownloading to use iSymphonic as AU, I'm caught in that conundrum again. To keep or not to keep Garage Band. On one hand, it's such a lovely program. So simple to use. So reliable. As we used to say about Apple stuff in general, it just works!
Then I remember my frustrations. Lacking this and that. So basic in some areas it hurts. Hates talking to the rest of iOS to the point of being rude 
So I beg....please please Apple. I beg you to give Garage Band for iOS just a little more teeth 
Comments
What's that whistling noise? Ah yes, it's the lack of interest from T. Cook and co. Apple knows best, and is utterly impervious to customer requests. Even when they have an app as brilliant as Garage Band for IOS, they'd still rather do it their way behind the wall, than acknowledge customers are actually using the thing and have good ideas.
I think you are probably right. I just had a venting moment
Not sure how much influence Tim C. has on Garageband, or who decides on feature lists. However, I know some of the people in Garageband iOS team. They have an EMagic/Logic background and are without question incredibly passionate about the product they're making - and very driven to make things like AU a success for as much as they can help it.
So even if the product has some questionable design decisions or inexplicable feature omissions (which it has), I doubt the people actually making the product are to blame and they're very knowledgeable about the state of the iOS music landscape.
But that doesn't help Fruitbat's conundrum in any way
I think from the developer perspective the GB-Team should be passionate enough to create a 'Reference AU-Host' where all features work as intended. This would make it easier for developers to test their future apps.
I'm personally looking forward to Phasemaker and create some patches with weird names.
/\/\uahahaha
The main annoyance I have with Garageband ios is in creating MIDI drum tracks. I like to perform the layers of a beat in successive passes of a, say, 2 bar loop (bass and snare on first pass, closed and open hats on the second pass, cymbals on the 3rd, etc). This is how I do it in Nanostudio, Caustic and Gadget. In GB ios there's no overdub recording in MIDI though, so I can't just set 2 bars looping and do this. My hats pass would delete my bass + snare foundation. I end up either having to have like three tracks of Ruismaker working together, or only doing one 'live layer and then piano rolling all the additional bits.
As more AU instruments become available I'm leaning towards a work flow of composing/arranging/editing in GB-iOS, freezing the instruments then saving the GB project to iCloud Drive.
It then appears on my iMac desktop where I can import into Logic for mixing.
I'm hoping to be able to finish stuff on iOS possibly in 2017. Depending on how all the iOS DAWS develop.
That's what I was sort of alluding to... there not being support for AU Effects, nor for AU Parameter automation is a confusing move of Apple (it would only make sense if they have a more pro-level Logic for iOS in the works).
As it stands Garageband sometimes feels like it can't choose what to be: a hyper-polished way for people to dip their toes into making music or a semi-serious self-contained music sequencing and arranging environment. Right now it's somewhere in the middle.
You mean: "What are you doing discussing this stuff? Get back to work, developer"
IMO you're describing the exact reason why GarageBand is at the same time so sophisticated, so limiting, and why it's free. It's meant as a gateway drug for Logic. To open it up in the way that we see as normal and sensible would be like introducing the kids to the rest of the neighborhood pushers.
I'm guessing the actual developers would love to expand it's possibilities, and would do a terrific job, but the marketing pukes won't allow it.
No sadness here. There are more than enough alternatives!
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Sorry could not resist that one, it's just too damned funny
(On the positive side, I think that's about it for now as I've been unable to find any additional issues).
There is, but annoyingly you have to enable it for every track.
Tap the 3-sliders-icon and enable "Merge Recordings". That's essentially your overdub feature!
OMG really? Wow! I thought that toggle was for merging audio tracks into one! Thank you so much.
Jon Lewis, seriously? I haven't delved into it as of yet but my way of programming drums is similar to yours, (drum machine style). It's impossible the way you described it , for me anyway. Thanks for the heads up!
No one blames or doubts those guys. It's da management. To them, Garage Band is a sales gimmick. I too know of someone in design at Apple, who wasn't even allowed to tell his own dad what he did for the company. Even vaguely, such as work on iPad design. So actually discussing things with real customers is about as likely as an honest politician.
I believe that the rise of IOS music making apps was almost entirely driven by chaps like you and Sebastian of AB. A few of the big hardware players also saw it as a marketing opportunity. Only one, Novation, seems really committed to developing its IOS apps speedily.
So, we have a brilliant playground, in many ways the new frontier for music makers, accessible globally and undivided by race, religion or age...which is not being let off the leash because Apple can't see what they have. Too busy trying to flog a few million more iPhones or that hideous watch. It's such a missed opportunity, as with a serious push Apple could be credited with launching a music making revolution. Something from which they could profit from with comparatively little effort, because developers like you and enthusiastic music makers like the folks here are doing the work for them.
Certainly true. I just wanted to make sure the guys doing the hard work get their due credit
And in many ways Garageband is a thing of beauty if you accept its limitations. It avoids some of the confusing idiosyncrasies and paradigms of modern music tools to make it more accessible to people who dive in without prior knowledge.
I guess its biggest problem is that by the time you discover what an AU is, or what AudioBus is, that you've basically already outgrown its target group...
Certainly to some degree. It's that middle ground I'm interested in. GB makes certain use scenarios easier for all, but then frustratingly leaves you hanging when wanting just that bit more. Yes, there are alternatives that give you more. There seems to be a jump though from the clean design of GB and the jump up. I find this jump frustrating. I want simple for some uses. I want to keep what GB has in superb design, but with just a tad more in usage.
The other options give more, but lose some of that area where GB shines in design. Now I know some of that design could be taken a step or two further without:
a) changing the basic concept and design paradigm.
b) overstepping the idea of it being a 'stepping stone' to the next level.
c) taking the ease of use for newcomers away.
I really have no doubts Apple have the skilled workforce and finances to achieve this. I also believe that this approach would be financially viable as they could as mentioned use it as a showcase for music making on iOS. They may already believe they are doing this, I just believe they have set the level too low. Even really basic young newbie dabblers grow out of GB quickly. What do they do then? Well the next bunch of apps is a jarring change and a choice to be made (imo). Gain the extra features you desire, or lose that lovely elequence of design of GB.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not having a go at other devs efforts in the design area I feel GB excels at, it's just, they don't really have the manpower, financial resources and insider knowledge of Apple employees to really compete on the same level. Where these other devs excel is in making the unique and adventurous apps that a large company like Apple struggle due to the red tape of design briefs and section funding.
With other Apple apps, they work in splendid isolation, but in recent decades, have made some headway to trumpeting how they can at least import and export to the rest of the world in order to maintain some form of usefulness for people who are more than one person. Pages, for example, which is easily the best word processor (well, other than Vim (and not Emacs)) has, as a 'feature', which no doubt appeals to potential customers, the ability to import and export from Mircosoft Wrod, another fairly highly featured word processor. Numbers can almost work with other well known sheets of spread. Keynote, far superior to other similar programmes, can go some way to working with lesser though more widespread sleep inducers.
I'd have thought it'd be an obvious 'feature' for GarageBand (without having to go and buy Logic) to be able to fully import and export from competing, similar, and complementary programmes, in the form of proper midi and audio conveyance in a way that anyone capable would be able to make use of and gain value from.
I agree with a lot of this, but for those of us with focus problems, using iSymph AU on a number of tracks in GB really helps work on composing in a (for me) easier way than, say, Notion, which I love, but get confused with/by....and, YES, of course, it's all workarounds, why CAN'T I export stems etc, but can still get the job done. All in all it's been a good example of how AU can be symbiotic as regards increased use (in this case iSymph and GB).
I'll be the first to admit I've been spending way too much time having fun with a bunch of AUs in the LiveLoops (clip launcher) view of Garageband. Its simplicity is definitely a huge strength. Just hit play and go!
There's no denying in that Garageband is fun to play around with
And it also keeps me on the edge when testing stuff...
LOVE the clip launcher! I would use it all the time if GB only had decent output options.
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Pages for Mac. Pages for IOS is abysmal. So is MS Word. But they're both secondary apps for me, since I discovered Scrivener for IOS and Mac. Now that is how to 'do' a WP for the modern age.
I have been nibbling from the fence about Scrivener for a long while. I don't use a Mac on the desktop so wondered if the prime advantages of using it in both places would be wasted, however folks DO really seem to like the iOS app.....your note suggest you are of a similar mind. Would you recommend it, as a stand alone?
As it stands, GB is not a gateway to Logic, but to the likes of Cubasis and Auria. Surely not really what Apple would ideally want (although they take their cut anyway). Now if there was a Logic for IOS...
Considering how well the UI of Logic Remote works we can only hope.
Full install of Logic Pro X is quite big if everything is installed so if or when a iOS Logic comes it will most likely be quite severely cut-down version and 'improve' over time just like Cubasis is doing...
A full Garageband for iOS would already be a serious competitor for MTS, Cubasis and even Auria Pro. The iOS version is oversimplified IMHO - probably a consequence of they having to support limited hardware such as the iPad2, which wasn't discontinued until a couple of years ago - and trails behind the Desktop counterpart in about everything but the clip launcher, a cool iOS-exclusive (for now!) feature.
I really doubt they will bring Logic to the iPad until they bring macOS to iPad, and I doubt this is happening soon (worth noting, though, that the open-source Sierra XNU kernel released by apple can compile on ARM, meaning definitely there are tests ongoing). So what I say is: bring full Garageband to iOS. Let it truly become a gateway drug to the real thing (Logic) instead of to another gateway drug (Garageband for Mac).
See, this makes sense to me. Even two tier it. Have GB basic as it is now. Have GB Pro extended to the MAC version level. Another reason for some to update their iPads to encourage Apple behind the project and to show that their iPads are serious as laptop replacements (their own perspective not mine).
Does anyone else have iSEM AU crashing GB?
Here it works. But I'm iOS9. Another good reason to stay put.
Yeah I'm finding the odd cracks now with iOS 10. Not house falling down cracks, but some cracks none the less
Humm ... Come to think of it I doubt they care which way it works. They get 30% of the revenue for basically no extra overhead for every app sold. If I were Apple, I'd almost be tempted to deliberately hobble my apps so that others could invest their sweat and tears into providing me my 30% for nothin'.