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 to iPad Music Production and have a couple of questions
Hey Everyone,
I've been lurking on the forums here for a couple of weeks and decided I would sign up since I had some questions after messing around on my iPad Air 2 for a while.
First question. I have tried out and bought some iOS apps, so far Korg Gadget, Beathawk, KRFT, and Blocswave. I came across Auxy which no one ever seems to mention (I believe it's a bit older, but it's free) and I was incredibly impressed with how well the UI works for mobile, and how dead simple it is to sequence externally connected MIDI devices. I was wondering if there are other apps that I might have missed that are designed similarly (has a great UI, can easily control other devices, but has it's own sounds for sketching purposes). I tried out Cubasis LE but the UI seems very cumbersome, but the limitations that they put on LW with the half hour trial may have also kept me from seeing how powerful it could be. I've heard that a lot of people are waiting for the release of Beatmaker 3, does anyone have insight into if this might be what I am looking for?
My second question relates to app performance. I have noticed while using both Beathawk, and KRFT that sometimes I will experience what seems to be either high input latency or high audio latency. In both cases on screen buttons will stop responding or respond very slowly (When trying to play along with a song using the onscreen buttons in KRFT it always feels out of time). Is there anything I can do to fix this, or does it come down to the coding of the apps, combined with the processing power of my iPad (Air 2)? Would I possibly have better luck with an iPad Pro (expensive) or even the new iPad? Thanks.
Comments
That's a really good starting collection I'd say! i dunno much about sequencing external stuff but people seem to love Modstep and infinite looper for such purposes. Sounds like your iPad is slow or something but I could be wrong
I don't know if this applies in your case, but screen touch response has been seeming sluggish for me lately. Beathawk in particular, triggering seemed off, hard to play in time, sometimes getting double note triggers on a single tap, etc. Last night I just did the iOS update from 10.3 to 10.3.1, and things seem back to the way they were supposed to be. Everything seems perkier and more responsive. I now believe 10.3 may have introduced some touch screen response bugginess that has been fixed in 10.3.1.
Again, this may not apply in your case. What I was experiencing was something less severe than what I would call latency. But just general screen response (even typing) was off and now seems right again. Anyone else experience this?
I don't have KRFT but I do own an Air2 and it is still very fast (until ios 11!)
Do you launch them inside a host? I wonder about the buffer size, sometimes when you play a video or use bluetooth speakers the latency is high and apps start with non optimal audio buffer
Try turning off the quantize on the KRFT keyboard !
First answer:
Auxy actually has been much discussed here, just bear in mind there are two flavors. Auxy Classic which can send MIDI live, but is iPad only and probably won't see many updates as the devs have seemingly moved on to the supposedly more powerful Auxy Studio1 which does have more features and is universal (iPad AND iPhone), yet can't send MIDI live2
Regardless Auxy has made the shortlist for new to iOS audio app discussions that pop up here from time to time, and probably still would. See also Figure, iKaossilator, and Triqtraq.
As for apps that can do MIDI out:
ChordUp (dev also has an app in the works called ChordFlow)
Different Drummer
Elastic Drums
Fugue Machine
GeoShred
GuitarCapo+
Inifinite Looper
Orphion / orphinio (iPad / iPhone)
Oval Synth
Patterning / dot Melody (iPad / iPhone)
SoundPrism
Synthecaster
TC-Data / TC-11 (Data is controller only, 11 has built in synth but no MIDI out)
Thumbjam
Xynthesizr
KRFT will be getting MIDI out
As for what Beatmaker 3 will be able to do MIDI wise @Samu is the resident BM3 sage
Another thing to keep in mind is that some MIDI routings can be more of a pain than they should be. Audiobus 3 has just been released with its major new feature intent on simplifying this, but apps must be updated to use the AB3 MIDI SDK in order for users to benefit from it. In the mean time AUM can help with this.
You may also be interested in this forum thread:
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/17644/apps-that-represent-the-uniqueness-of-the-ios-platform
The Classic vs Studio designations didn't exist initially, so when searching the forum for Auxy you'll have to read between the lines which one is being discussed. ↩︎
You can export a MIDI track from Auxy Studio, so there's that. ↩︎
Second answer:
There is a small possibility that your screen just needs to be cleaned. If you finger your surfaces A LOT1 the screen can become so smudged that it causes input anomalies. However, the likely cause of the unexpected behavior is quantization. This will apply in one way or another to many apps, but I'll attempt to demonstrate with KRFT.
Open KRFT, go to the shared surfaces with the 'network' icon (looks like a globe).
Open the surface called Eden which is currently listed in the 'Hot' section.
Start a beat by tapping the red solid diamond at the bottom of the top group of cells.
Then tap and hold the red outline diamond at the top of the bottom group of cells.
Notice that regardless of when you start holding it, the loop it plays will be in time with the beat from the first loop.
Ok, now enter Edit Mode with the 'pencil' icon at the top.
Then tap the same outline diamond to edit it.
Tap the edit icon in the bottom menu.
Go to the 'cog' icon section.
Set synchronization to 'Off'.
Tap the 'check' icon to save.
Then exit Edit Mode with the 'X' icon top right.
Now hold the outline diamond, and depending on when you do this, it will be in various ways out of time with the beat loop.
Ok now let's do an input quantization example.
Exit the Eden surface and reopen it from the network icon to get a fresh unmodified version.
Start that beat again.
Edit that same fill cell again (the outline diamond)
In the 'pads' section (four squares icon)
First clear the loop with the 'X' in the bottom left.
Then record a new loop into the cell by tapping the Record icon bottom right
and tap out something on the pads.
Stop recording with the 'check' icon bottom right.
If you look at the grid (tictactoe icon) section all the input will be aligned to the grid, regardless of what timing you used when tapping.
Now clear the loop again, and this time turn off input quantization by taping the quantize icon (just to the right of the clear icon) until it says 'Off'.
Record a new loop, and the grid will show the notes shifted slightly one way or the other on the grid depending on your timing with each tap.
Other things to note:
If you tap that fill cell ever so quickly you'll notice it light up, but you won't hear anything. This is because the fill stops playing when you release it and if it hasn't started making a sound before you release it then you won't hear anything. This effect will be more pronounced with synchronization turned on, because the fill won't even start until the right beat, much less get to the part of the loop that has a note. The cell lighting up though is one clue that the screen isn't the problem, the app is registering the tap.
When you start a loop with a solid diamond, it doesn't actually input the start until you let go of the cell. You can use this feature to tap on one loop and swipe across a few cells, then let go to get the input for all of them to be at the same time (tapping in quick succession will achieve the same result as long as it's all within the same beat, and you're using quantization)
I'm making a reference to @jakoB_haQ 's Youtube vidoes https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFPiLpzd4cKOsBS9CIu3xg where in he religiously wipes his screen ↩︎
@Alex fox
I may have tripped over a bug in making that quantization demo.
If I start with a fresh startup of KRFT and do the turn synchronization off in Eden bit, it works.
But if I exit Eden then reload it and then go straight through the turn synchronization off steps then I stumble on it.
Not sure if it's always reproducible, but much more likely if you start the beat and then quickly edit the fill without stopping the beat first and the first thing you do in edit mode is turn off synchronization. The sound will stop right then. Then when you exit edit mode you won't be able to make any sounds with the surface. If you try to exit the surface you'll get stuck on a screen with the KRFT logo and a message that says 'This is taking a little longer than expected...' and the Go Back button does nothing. Have to swipe up on the app to kill it.
Hm, yes this is a bug we're aware of but have found it difficult to reproduce reliably to fix. Does it happen every time for you in this scenario?
@Alex fox
Tried again, think there's a reliable sequence to reproduce:
Start KRFT
Then swipe up to kill
Start again (just to make sure we're dealing with a fresh start)
Network
Hot
Eden
Start loop bottom of top grouping
Edit Mode
Choose fill top of bottom grouping
Edit button
Cog
Synchronization Off
Check
Exit edit
Exit surface (tap upper left twice, once to stop, twice for menu, discard changes)
Now repeat from Network
When you tap Synchronization Off sound will stop
When you exit edit, it will be hosed, and you won't be able to exit surface.
iPhone 6s Plus iOS 9.3.5 with or without stock earbuds connected
Great thanks I'll take a look!
Helpful answers you offered, @srcer!