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.
Original iPad Mini
The missus may need to give up her original iPad Mini and there is some question as to the immediate-future usefulness of this device where it comes to music production. Any comments? And what might be the ways to workflow with both the Mini & my iPhone, besides access to more apps?
Comments
I mean, my mini 1 is basically completely obsolete now. I was gonna use it as an AB remote, or a sync source for Volcas but honestly just navigating the damn thing is so painfully slow. Even the App Store doesn't work any more so good luck even downloading apps!
I use mine for Nanstudio and other 32 bit apps that won't get updated.
Modstep and cubasis work fine as midi sequencers. Sunrizer, nanostudio, rebirth, thumbjam, samplr, baseline, all the good ol boys. And of course sunvox. Horray for sunvox
And audioshare and lemur wow! I agree though, since ios 8 web browsing is desperately poor
Appstore should still work, it just won't show iOS 10 apps. It runs 9.x and cpu-light apps should run fine. Synths that were made when the Mini 1 was current should not be an issue as the cpu did not get slower over time.
Touchable if u got Ableton is indispensable, bought 2 ipad 1's just to run this app
Yeah I dunno man, it's just slow! Restored the OS, turned off visual effects and pretty much everything else and the App Store home screen is just white for ages (or forever). If I can search for an app typing is laggy. It's pretty much ready for the bin
bit sad!!
I sometimes use it as a dedicated controller for an Eventide H9, but even then it's a little clunky.
It feels as speedy as an iPad 2.
I think it was slightly lower specced than the iPad 3, but faster than the iPad 2. Mine used to run Cubasis and Lemur and such apps very nicely. My 4yo son inherited mine and still uses it for many hours every day for gaming/drawing/netflix/youtube duties
Agreed, fine for Netflix, YouTube (even if the app its painfully slow to rotate orientation on old devices) games...That display on the other hand... awful, even worst it's that since iOS 7 everything that's made to look great on Retina displays looks awful on these.
My Mini 1 still gets a lot of use, mostly as an effects processor. SampIr also still runs great and I have no problems using two or three Amazing Noises or apeSoft apps hosted in AUM; mostly iPulsaret, iDensity, Gliderverb and apeDelay, sometimes alongside AUFX Space. Flux:Fx also works great if you don't overdo it in the effects slots. There's still a lot of mileage left in the old Mini 1 yet. I will probably get the new iPad 2017 soon, but I'll be keeping the Mini 1 for Samvada, Samplr and Flux:FX and the any other of the 32 bit apps that might soon disappear if they are not upgraded.
I'm pretty shure that smart apps like those from Apesoft/Amazing Noises will scale down their calculation resolution (audio quality) if they detect they run on such a device.
Those apps a serious CPU hogs when running in full res (and oversampling, which they almost certainly do).
samplr is 64 bit compatible. If you can check on iOS 10.3 there's a list within the settings app that shows you which of your apps aren't updated yet.
I keep an iPad 1 I first got in 2010, and have many older favorites installed there (FLM 2, iSequence, Thumbjam, Electrify) items that export via AudioCopy paste (Sonoma or intua) as AudioShare and Dropbox (and other stuff) can be downloaded as earlier versions on older hardware, as old as iOS 6...I guess given the coming changes to AppStore, put it on there sooner, rather than later.
One nice side benefit to loading older iOS versions of apps on an older device is that iMagix or iFunbox can crack open the dev files, allowing you to rip samples from packages in say iMaschine, FunkBox, TriqTraq, iSequence, miniDrum, iSynPoly, Modstep
Certainly true, but for the kind of sound mangling that I want to perform on my electrics, it still runs perfectly. I can use iPulsaret at 48kHz with a buffer of 256 and it works fine, no crackles on 9.3.5, very acceptable latency and anything but lo-fi if I need it to be. Actually, I usually run it at 44.1kHz, which allows me to use one or two extra apps in AUM... or not. I often have iPulsaret, apeDelay and AUFX Space running in AUM with no problems. My Mini 1 still has loads of life in it; the battery life still seems to be as good as when I first bought it. It's surely about expectations and understanding the limitations of your device? Once a device fails to meet your expectations of it, then it is probably time to upgrade. I have reached a few limits with certain combinations of apps, but surprisingly few.
Thanks Lacm1993, good to know that Samplr will continue to work when 32 bit app support finally disappears. I hope Samvada isn't going to be abandoned...
Certainly true, but for the kind of sound mangling I like to use on my electrics, it works perfectly. I can still run iPulsaret at 48kHz with a buffer of 256; very acceptable latency, no crackles and the sound, if I need it to be, is anything but lo-fi. Actually I run it at 44.1kHz most of the time, which allows me to use another app or two for multipatches, either inside of AUM or not. My Mini 1 has loads of life left in it yet; the battery seems to be just as good as when I bought it. It's all about expectations and knowing the limits of your device. Once it starts to consistently fail in meeting your expectations then you probably need to upgrade. I have reached some limits while attempting to run certain combinations of apps, but surprisingly few. Good to know that Samplr will still work on newer devices after 32bit support disappears, even if the update never arrives. I hope Samvada will not be abandoned.