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.
i like sliders more than knobs
that's it really. so much nicer to slide the cutoff on the oddysei than grabbing a knob just right. wish more ios synths implemented this. obviously a visual recreation like the model 15 wants to remain as close to original, but ....
same goes for fx. i love how ipad ready crystalline and others are. sure, ddmf is prettier, but not as precise or accessible.
Comments
Me too, though some devs implement knobs better than others - Korg's knobs are a pain to use, in some of their apps. I find the Moog knobs pleasant enough to twist though.
...doo dah, doo dah...
You can usually midi map knobs to sliders. And vice versa.....
I like both. Like in Thor.
I do like the Moog knobs and I do like the way Korg knobs increment when flicked up or down. Wish all knobs had this incremental one notch flick gesture and all had the double tap recenter.
well yeah, but in actual hardware i do prefer knobs. i mean just screen workings.
yeah moog has the best knobs, and it looks so cool. and in keeping with history. but synths like poison (which has a fair amount of sliders) should be all sliders.
If an app allows me to, i always set it to linear instead of rotary
As long as there are settings for circular and linear modes for the 'controllers' it really doesn't matter if the graphis are rectangular or circular.
Personally I prefer small controllers with linear adjustment (up/down for +/- 10 and left/right for +/- 1 as an example and then use the 'speed' of the drag for larger increments).
me too, knobs for filter cutoff and resonance and sliders for ADSR.
Sliders? Knobs? Bah! Real musicians use hexadecimal.
Elastic Drums: best knobs on iOS. Moog a very close second. Take note
Except those things on the bottom left are sliders.. @wim
But if you want to automate them you get to use Hex.
I prefer sliders, too. Knobs on a touch screen don't make a whole lot of sense from a usability standpoint.
If i recall correctly the 'automation' can be drawn and recorded too
I'm pro sliders, in hardware and software. Can more easily see exactly where you're at. I started with the SH-101 and a Juno-106 though so I'm prolly biased.
All true
For me a 'valuebox' with tap'n'drag to change value is a good 'slider compromise' with added double-tap for entering a value. I've got a Juno-106 too
Not only this but when needed you can go from 0-127 much faster with a physical fader than a knob, and if your moving all in the same direction, and they are close together you can move 4 or 5 together with one hand.
You can also put a bit of gaffer across the slider track to create a 'memory point' or Min/Max position other than full up/down
Oh the tricks we used to play
Exactly. I like knobs that are controlled with a slider gesture.
IRL, I like whichever allows very subtle adjustments.
Good point. Also, sliders offer more visual feedback.
For the subtle I like the volume knob in Heavy Brass, touch and hold and it fills most of the screen, very good control level with that.
It is no different to having a small increment on a much smaller knob, but because it gets big, it feels like you've got more control.
sliders offer more visual feedback.
The best example of this is a graphic EQ - you literally draw your curve with the sliders, I guess the clue is in the name
I prefer knobs to sliders. This is because when you touch a knob and move up or down it's just like using a slider but it is a more effective use of screen real estate.
So basically: it's all in your head!
Korg have gone all grand with odyssey but it also has 3 pages full of controls. I'd rather have less pages than sliders.
Agree with all here. Though, for ADSR's, EQ's and and the like, sliders do help a bit to visualize the shape.
I like the way Phasemaker has interactive envelopes but provides the knobs too. For some reason I'll prefer one over the other for certain tweaks.
The only thing I really can't deal with is knobs that require a rotary touch. Gadget's knobs are fiddly too for some reason, but manageable.
Mmmm, tapping/typing values... drool
i currently have gadget on circular, because it let's me fine tune , but still clunky. gonna try linear again. even though it's the same movement as a slider it's throw is a guessing game. where it starts, where it ends, etc.
I find knobs easier, and more accurate on hardware, but the opposite on a touch screen....e.g. MS20 vs iMS20
aw yeah, give me a nice bigg moogish knob for filters etc on a real synth any day,...it' just finding that start and end on glass...
still, minor griping. love ios. just throwing it out there in case designers want to cater to me.
Touchscreen knobs aren't great, because when you go to adjust a control, you have no idea how far you drag your finger to go all the way to an extreme on the knob. How is moving your finger an inch (or cm) or three going to affect a knob? Who knows? Add to that, your finger is covering the knob, so you can't see it either, for little adjustments. Did it even read your touch? Can't tell, because your finger is covering it.
The faders are much better on a touch screen, if only because you know how far you need to move your finger to get to the setting you want.
The space is the only problem. Lots of tiny faders aren't good. I liked propellerheads Thor's solution: when you touch a knob, it pops up a temporary fader to the side of your finger and you can see how far you need to drag your finger to get to where you want to go.
I've been dismayed with the ios synths, taking it out of the house, trying to play music on it with people in a band type situation, and tweak a knob while playing, like you want to do with synths, but the disconnect between what your hand is doing and what the software is doing is too much of a gulf.
To have a confidence inspiring knob on a touch screen, it needs to give you a) a sign it is reading your touch, and b) an indication of how far you need to move your finger.