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.
Keeping frequency bands separate-an issue for you?
I have a mental block when using a lot of ios tools. Here's the basic "problem":
*I try to anticipate the mixdown process by limiting tracks tracks to rough frequency bands. For example, I rarely create drum loops that mix together kicks, snares and hats because I want to eq those voices separately when mixing
*But this strategy breaks down when an app doesn't have multiple outs. It seems like a lot of the best ios tools really excel when you use a wide range of voices (percussion, vox, synth, ambient noises). But if you do this you end up with an audio clip/stem that covers a broad frequency spectrum. Blocs Wave and KRFT are examples that come to mind. I want to use them a lot, but then wonder what I'm going to do with a single audio track that combines bass, synths, and percussion.
I know a lot of the tricks for separating audio out such as muting then capturing audio in multiple runs. But I'm curious to hear whether others experience this issue and what you do about it. For example, in the past when I've used whole drum loops (kick, snare hats), I've worked around this issue by duplicating the channel with the "combined" audio content then equing the multiple channels separately.
I suspect that part of the problem is that I'm being too rigid at the production stage and that part of the answer is to just let it fly in production and deal with the fall out at mixdown.
Comments
For drum loops or tracks I use Pro-MB in Auria to do some dynamic EQuing, it's a great way to (for example) give the kick a bit of extra ommph without also making the snare and toms boxy (because it only happens when the kick is playing). You can also fine-tune the hats and cymbals pretty effectively that way.
However, generally there just isn't the need to EQ every track in a mix, particularly when you are exporting out of apps that already sound good in of themselves. Sure you can do a bit of HPF/LPF cleanup if you need to, but I think excessive processing can make the track sound sterile and you also risk losing the tone of the original instruments. I tend to only EQ where there is an obvious problem or I have a specific thing in mind (like giving more ommph to the kick). Otherwise I leave it alone, especially if a lot of work went into getting that tone in the first place, either by me or by a preset maker/sample library etc....
Also, if you don't have Auria and/or Pro MB Pressit by Klevgrand should be able to perform a similar job.
KRFT dev here. A featured we're planning that's fairly high on the list is "stem export", where you'd be able to get an audio clip per channel rather than a single mixdown. I think this would help a lot in terms of final mixing/mastering, but also being able to edit the channels in a proper DAW.
J
That would be amazing and instantly propel this fantastic app way beyond most.
This is great advice regarding a conventional audio track with one voice (e.g. a guitar). But I'm talking about audio that contains a broad frequency range like bass, keyboard, pad, kick, snare hat in the same track.
@w3epy that's great news.
What stops you from making sure they sound good from the source then? That is what you should fix. Anything else would be fixing the wrong problem. Had not @richardyot written his reply I would have written exactly what he wrote.
Edit: well, I would have attempted to write something with the same gist as richardyot though I might have come out with a swedish twang on it all.
Export stems from blocs wave and then do rest in a daw. If you want to play the loops live, import them to insert the app you want to play these live in after you eq'ed(etc) the loops in a daw.
Yea doing stuff like this is more hassle than using a computer. Thats why i just export loops to ableton from blocs and do the rest there.
Good point here. I recently used Funk Drummer on a piece, but limited myself to a few channel strip EQ moves to ever-so slightly enhance the track - because the default sounds in Funk Drummer already sound terrific!
Don't get me wrong, I do loves me some stems for total control of the mixing "space," - see my above response to KRFT's post about exporting stems - but some of the tools in our toolkit already sound awesome. Know your apps, choose the best tool for you to tackle the job, and if you're using an all-in-one type of tool, know that it probably already sounds great - and the place to ensure that, as @hellquist said, is within that app itself.
Hope that's helpful
Wonders if Swedish Tang is really a horrible powdered orange drink served with little candy fish swimming around the glass ...
In my experience multiband compression is the best way to deal with that, as per my earlier post. It certainly works well on drum loops, so if you have Auria then Pro-MB is worth a look, if not then Klevgrand Pressit works as an AU and should be able to help.
FWIW I almost always use Pro-MB on loops from Soft Drummer, Funk Drummer, or the Garageband drummers. It really helps to shape the tonality of the drum tracks so that they sit with the bass and the rest of the mix.
Thanks @richardyot . I use ozone on the computer to master and it has a nice multiband compressor. Will explore for this application
BTW, the way I like to use the Luis Martinez drum app family is A) build my arrangement inside the app (takes a while, but the tools do do so are dead easy to use, and it's worth it to take the time),
record in AUM using a 10% mid/side shift to the sides (much more and I start to lose the strength of the snare and kick in the center) and AUM's limiter set to -1db (just in case) into Audioshare. From Audioshare, I can take the track to any DAW, where there are plenty of tools to nudge frequencies, whether it's some form of EQ, or Multiband Compression – as @richardyot has mentioned.
I mix my kits in those drum apps with hard panning for hats, rides and toms. I find that little nudge in AUM to bring up the sides really helps create a sense of space that the uninformed would probably not be able to distinguish from a fully mixed, stem by stem kit.
As a rule, I normally wouldn't include any synths or non-percussion melodic tracks with a stereo drum track. I would either do it all in the source app, or at least make a few passes to keep melodic and percussive tracks separate.
Personal preference related to speed of workflow.
Sometimes I don't know how a piece of audio is going to be used when it's created. I wish I were that good at pre-planning. Many of these tools (KRFT, Figure, Skram) lend themselves to live experimentation and capturing audio on the fly. But yes, I agree that pre-planning is a good thing.
Thanks for sharing your workflow @eustressor
I hear you. I really tried to make a go with Skram, but that very limitation pretty much killed it for me. I WANTED to like it and use it ... but ...
I find if I keep the number of voices I use in Auxy to five or less, I can usually manage to get my synths and drums out separately. Auxy sounds sooo good, to not be able to use it in a larger project would be a crime
I never figured out Figure and have yet to dive into KRFT, but hey, at least KRFT has already announced stems are coming!
That's great news for a fantastic app. I'll probably be in the minority here, but I'd rather see IAA/Audiobus multi-out than stem export if forced to choose. One can always record the stems in the tool of choice then without sacrificing playability and tweakability. I know it's a workflow thing, and a lot of people jump right to stems, but I find it results in way too many space consuming and hard to organize wav files laying around. I'd rather grab them just before serious mix down instead. But that's just me.