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.
New Positive Grid Drum App is Awesome
Positive Grid is advance marketing their upcoming drum app AI DRUMS for its artificial intelligence features. They are portraying it as a souped up version of Music Memos or Band Creator, where you play your guitar and it generates auto drum parts.
I got the Beta today, and I don't know if it's okay for me to talk about it, but I don't think Positive Grid will be upset if I say this has the potential to become one of the best drum apps in the store.
I haven't tested the AI very much yet, but you don't have to use that stuff. The app works and looks quite a bit like EZDRummer 2.
The beta comes with a lot of MIDI patterns in various genres.
Each genre is divided into patterns listed as Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Fill, and Ending. Find one you like and drag it into your timeline.
It comes with 4 drum sets, Jazz, Rock, Studio and Vintage. You can build customize them, by swapping drums, cymbals, and making various adjustments in tone, and EQ.
You can even customize the finish of the drums, fittings, and heads, as if you were outfitting a car in a game.
They say this thing will work completely from the cloud and you will be able to get access to countless MIDI patterns and drumsets shared by members of the community.
You can easily customize the MIDI mapping of all the drums.
When you're done you can output as an audio or MIDI file to the usual places (Dropbox, Audioshare)
This thing needs a lot of work, but for a Beta it's already pretty amazing. It doesn't have Audiobus/IAA/AUv3 yet, but it doesn't come out until next year. Hopefully it will by then.
If you want to learn more and/or sign up for the beta go here:
https://www.positivegrid.com/drumapp/
Comments
I guess it's safe to say you didn't have to sign an NDA?
Well they have a very slick website up that I've linked that shows pretty much all of this, just not as clearly.
https://www.positivegrid.com/drumapp/
And I think anybody who wants to can take part in the Beta.
There are 863 members in the Facebook Private Group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/pg.drum.explorer/?fref=nf
I purposely did not write anything negative. When the first AB forum post came up on this app it was all about the AI aspects and people snickered.
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/comment/291275/#Comment_291275
I'd like to see more people from this forum take part in the beta and have it become really good by the time it comes out.
Sounds good. That was a real question, obviously an NDA was not part of it. I still don't think I'll be going for this one but I hope they do well with it. I beta tested final touch but can't say that I enjoyed the experience, I'm not a good beta tester.
It doesn't seem as if you can build up a pattern on your own. It's on the Smart Drummer/Garageband model, yes?
Well I admit I haven't read everything in Testflight agreement.
I have beta tested other apps and never mentioned them here once. I felt it was okay because they are way out there with their marketing.
They seem to believe that an AI drum program is better for the mass market. But an EZDrummer type app is better for people on this forum.
@ExAsperis99 I think this remains to be seen. It's so early. It is clear that you can share MIDI patterns with others, so where do they come from? I suppose they could do it in another program.
I imagine that this program will follow all the other music apps and be released in a 1.0 that has a certain functionality and will add more features over time.
I think it looks very cool. Even if there's no way to program your own patterns (but I bet you can import them) - nothing wrong about that because this app is for guitarists, not drummers.
To clarify: It's for guitarists who really want nothing to do with drummers anymore.
Wouldn't that be all guitarists?
When you have a good drummer though it is magic. I'm lucky to work with some very good ones. I also work with some other drummers at times.
Yeh but drum machines apps don't try to sleep with your girlfriend.
Not yet.
Wait for SiriDrummer, more bongo for your buck!
Depending on the girlfriend that is a +1 for real drummer...
Ha! Take my wife...please.
If it's completely cloud based will it work at all when offline or do you need internet to use it?
I say I say I say. My wife's gone to Jamaica.
D'yer make 'er
No, she went of her own accord, to visit her family.
Roy once said 'it's not an easy thing to meet Jamaica'
@studioAB You can download stuff to your iPad.
I'm not sure, but if I understand correctly, this is about the AI feature. Presumably you could play your guitar into this thing and it would suggest drum beats to accompany your song that you don't actually own.
But I assume you can also put lots of MIDI patterns in that you get from the community, your personal MIDI collection, and IAP.
By the way @AndyPlankton wrote me and apparently you can't sign up for the Beta anymore. The link just puts you on a mailing list for notifications.
Would you have to pay royalties to use the drum patterns in a commercial production?
Are there any iOS competitors for this (without the AI features which are kinda unique) ?
I'm not a guitarist, not interested in finding a matching groove. Almost all the drum machines I have are project-based (you create some patterns, combine them into a song and save it all as a project) and I just want something like a global database of stock and my own custom patterns split into genres, tagged, etc.
Well, there's now Drum Session, which looks like exactly what I need, and there will be this, but is there any other competition?
You are a funny man.
You kind of spoiled this joke....
Should have been
I say I say I say, my wife's gone to the West Indies
Jamaica?
No she went of her own accord.....
But it's not a joke. She really has gone to Jamaica. To see her family. My wife is Jamaican. She's there now, while I'm back here fending for myself. I've got the Arp 2600 down and in the living room, and about to dismantle it. An opportunity only available when my wife goes back to Jamaica to visit (can't have big ugly dusty synths around while she's around, makes the place look untidy).
Ah sorry....
Have you got your burt bacharach records cigar and a nice curry too. (Shades of the good life)
Made a pizza last night (well, two at the same time). Brown bread flour dough, yeast was a bit slow, and the tomato puree was the last two big beef tomatoes of the season from the garden, blended and simmered. I'm rubbish at cooking but quite like making bread things. Very low cost, too. Didn't realise that 'non-stick' pizza pans actually meant 'will interminably weld your pizza to the pan', though. Need to grease the pans first next time.
Then was the pizza down with a couple of cold Red Stripe beers.....
@yug I think that Drum Session and this one are the apps that are closest to EZDrummer so far.
Ok, thanks. I have no experience with EZDrummer, so when people started comparing these 2 apps to it, it didn't really tell me anything and I had to use my own words to describe what I'm after