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.
Comments
Have you tried KRFT?
Using my iPad in lieu of amps and pedals still feels like some kind of dream, especially in a live setting.
I get excited every time I fire up my live rig! It is all Ios based and no amount of hardware would allow me this much power, flexibility and portability.
Do I get excited about new releases?
Mildly.
This is only because I know that generally on Ios it is more 'evolution' than 'revolution'.
Yepp!
According to previous threads & polls the usual suspects who frequent the forum skew older. Not ancient, but 30's, 40's and up. I believe with age comes perspective and along with hindsight sparks off gratitude amongst those with a conscience.
I don't know if you're a young cat @Love3quency but your threads usually are quite philosophical, asking how the members percieve the professionalism of iOS, which apps define the platform and this one. Whether older or younger you have a viewpoint & a curiosity that I appreciate.
On this subject I disagree. From MY perspective, coming from starting songwriting & production when home recording options were either cassette PortaStudios or a $25,000 plus investment for an analog reel to reel and recording mixer. The tools we have today are incredible and I believe are too often taken for granted.
We have Abbey Road, The Hit Factory & Sunset Sound in our pockets & backpacks, complete with grand pianos, racks of analog synths, boutique guitar amplifiers and drum machines & drum sets!
I realize new apps with groundbreaking sounds & GUI's can spark creativity, but to me the brilliance of a Auria Pro or a Patterning NEVER gets passé. They're fully professional tools that are capable of incredible work.
So yeah, I am always excited about iOS music production apps and I'm excited about our community growing. More developers will be attracted to the format and will create new apps and bring us even more tools to create with. iOS music is for real, not a gimmick or a toy.
I'm quite old lol...I agree with your points, it's just that the thrill has gone really. I still use the apps I love regularly ( GB, Gadget etc..) and am revisiting older ones to see how they could interact with the two already mentioned.
And I do love KRFT
I guess I'm just not surprised anymore. When new apps came out in "the good old days", there was an element of surprise lol, like "wow, I can now do this on my touchscreen ", in those days it meant iPod touch or iPhone and then th ipad1. But yeah, we can pretty much do it all now and then some.
It just feels like the experimental edge has gone and its all about trying to mimic desktop too much lol
I get it. It could be the law of diminishing returns, you know how much new stuff CAN they do, but I still feel Apple is in heavy R&D for a bunch of different advances.
They've tipped the hat with the 360 touch screen, so for us the ability to do true velocity/pressure sensitive playing on the glass could be huge. I think they're going to the flexible LCD's eventually, better speakers, etc. Yes this is all speculation about hardware, but I think the hardware will spawn the newer apps with more radical ideas behind them.
I'll tell you, I'd be happy as a bearded clam if Apple could crack the mysterious challenge of an onboard SD card slot for future iPads! I know they cling to their "flash memory" being superior and the fact they market iPads by GB size, but it's 2017! Some apps for us music cats are seriously stout, but for "normal use" I'm sure an HD movie has to be multiple GB's.
Give us SD cards!
In desktop there aren't so many live looping apps like iOS. Also sample manipulation with touchscreen, even sometimes cheese, usually is exciting than mouse... I only miss from desktop Mainstage (less and less) and Traktor full fledge (less and less too since djing has lost fun factor to me lately).
In the opposite I have cheap and powerfull apps making good use of the interface and being friendly with my external gear. No drivers mesh, no piracy need, not worried about desktop problems... just make music (more and more) and forum chat (less and less)
I'm start considering the idea of spring behaviour disease. Did you get so heartbroke too often? No jokes. I'm feeling this lately and there is no true change outside than my own wishes...
I’m excited by the ones I have. There are infinite possibilities already and not enough time or energy to get nearly as far as I like. New apps will probably come along that are also exciting. I’m interested in more expressive playability, especially what I can relate to with traditional instruments.
I think most of the best music in history was made by musicians excited with what they had rather than focused on what technology might bring them in the future.
Update on my previous response....YES.....now that I can use AB3 and Midiflow filters with ALL my core MIDI apps
@Love3quency I think a recent welcome trend has been apps that embrace the unique properties of a touch device rather than just "mimic the desktop" and provide mobile VSTs that don't add extra value.
I love something like Borderlands Granular (oldie but goodie) and am constantly hoping apps like this take off with a dev that is committed to listening to user feedback and have a roadmap for the future.
The financial outlay is really very little compared to hardware/desktop so I think it's worth it to not only use great apps but also participate in the wider community.
I am less hyped for the releases from the "big names" and tend to wait a while before jumping on those.
Basically apps that take advantage of the touch screen platform = excitement. Desktop ports and/or apps that would be virtually the same user experience with a mouse = nah, I'm good.
Me being "excited" about music-making was with my 4-track cassette recorder, drum machine, sampling keyboard, microphone, and delay pedal in the late 1980s. Anything was possible.
Jumping up to PC hardware and software power around the turn of the century meant I could boost the sound quality immensely and still be reasonably excited about the process, which with VSTs was seemingly limitless.
In my progression, iPad has been a step backwards, but I saw this "party" going on and I wanted to join. And the hardware power is there but the software is odd and doesn't do what I expect. Sure I'm not as motivated as I was when I was younger, but the fiddle-faddle fidgeting of apps doesn't inspire me like others.
I'm still "interested" but I was much more "excited" before I actually owned an iPad.
Apps like Soundprism, Gestrument, Samplr, Borderlands, Thumbjam, Audiobus, Cubasis etc. ruined my desktop needs plus they also ruined the "wow" effect for all lot of other apps released later.
Im forced to BLAME THEM.
This is going to be a longer post, so bear with me mates. This is my answer.
Ten years ago, I used FL Studio on my PC. Okay, so I still do when I'm on my laptop given it's a really great program, but I've always dreamed of being able to take my music creating wherever I go rather than be stuck home or hunting for wall sockets for my laptop. I always dreamed of creating music in a social setting rather than being confined to a "dungeon" for anything other than mixing and mastering. Not having a social life really sucks, lol.
Ten years ago, I always dreamed of having some sort of rompler with realistic sounds (like Sampletank) and a collection of Native Instrument synths, but I could never afford those things given the unreasonably high prices of music software and the pain-in-the-ass software activation methods (with the exception of Image-Line's easy keyfile system). Given the fact I'm pretty much against installing illegal cracked software but don't give a shit if others do it, I pretty much searched and found DSK's vst plugins and made do quite nicely.
Ten years ago, I was also in college studying music synthesis and other useful things (which were great) but was stuck using, ugh, Digital Performer. (Off-topic, my campus couldn't use Logic, Cubase, or some other easier DAW that didn't suck and wasn't a complete pain in the arse? Couldn't even use Pro Tools nor the DAW of my choice in order to bounce stems which can be mixed down in DP, minimizing the headaches? Nah, of course not. Why make it easy on us poor bastards?)
So, imagine my excitement in 2011 when I caught wind of FL Studio Mobile, Nanostudio, BM2 which was freshly released back then, Xewton Music Studio, Multitrack DAW (which thankfully hasn't changed much at all), Thumbjam, Sampletank (which I purchased when I heard Miroslav 1 was released on there), ReBirth, and just so many other greats. Good enough excuses to get an iPad 2. Of course throughout the years since, there have been Auria, Cubasis, Gadget, Audiobus, Audioshare, an update to Audiocopy which allows it to store multiple .wavs in folders based on the app from which a sound file came, Caustic, Beathawk, Nave, etc.
So, am I still excited by iOS music apps? Your damned right I am. Whether on my iPhone in the palm of my hand, or in two hands on my iPad Air 2, the fact I can go anywhere and create any type of music is nothing short of a miracle. This being said, I've dialed back how much I spend on music apps. I have more than enough to satisfy my needs. However, seeing the way mobile music making is evolving (well, at least on iOS since Android is crap), these are exciting times to be living in. Cheers mates.
+1. May the ios Force be with you.
I am more excited every day.
What I found exciting about iOS music making that inspired me to invest in it was basically the mobility, touch surface, and cost. The price of apps certainly was a factor because I'm not using it professionally. Hundreds of dollars rather than thousands makes it easy to play with much of what's available. Logic Pro is what got me into making music on a computer because of its relatively low cost for high power.
Having grown up musically in the 60's and 70's, I think what we have today is something to remain excited about. iOS has its quirks and isn't always as reliable as sitting at the piano or picking up a guitar, but what can be created on a little iPad or iPhone is a capability beyond anything I could imagine as realistic years ago.
Meh
Guitar pedals is one area I would love to see iOS music grow. There are a lot of modeling apps, but I would prefer AU's. Having a overdrive from AmpKit, and a Delay from ToneStack, running through an Amp in Amplitube would open up so many doors for guitarists.
Yawn...maybe I'll go for a walk and get some fresh air. Might continue reading that novel I've put on hold
It's all about the synths and the touchscreen for me. To just have, like with the iWavestation, an absolute classic as an app for not even 30 bucks, with a much better interface than the original ever had, excites me. I think it is a fair statement to say, that an iPad is the best way to experience the (i)Wavestation today.
If Roland would bring the D50 i would freak out.
Full blown production is underwhelming because of the lack of CPU/DSP power, quirky apps etc. I see the iPad as a natural external sound module. iOS and Desktop belong together. I think it's a missed opportunity, that Audiobus doesn't offer a capability like studiomux does...
iOS music apps are not worth it, jump the ship and go back to the desktop!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzweil
I think i was mostly excited because it was a new thing but after several years it´s nothing special, just another tool on the set-up.
I also was very excited about the whole multi-touch thing but i also realized that it is not always good, even worse in some cases compared to a modern notebook with a great trackpad.
I appreciate that we get great tools in a box but at the same time beeing still limited or there are things reinvented in the iOS realm which are there for decades on other platforms.
The true is that i started with iOS to create my own sounds/music and people says it´s great and desktops and notebooks are terrible. Then i bought a modern notebook and realized that it has nothing to do with older machines needing 5 minutes to boot and such and i speeded up my workflow. A notebook is as mobile as a big iPad for me and it can do much more too.
But i often wish some iOS developers would make real multi-touch apps for windows 10 without the restrictions of iOS which is still a smartphone OS, even on iPad Pro´s.
Apple itself seems not to invest in iOS versions of their pro apps like Logic or even a full Alchemy 2 for Garage Band iOS.
I was an early "hardcore" mobile iOS fan and even did a few albums with an iPhone 4. But after years i don´t see much evolution anymore in iOS and the app store kills the rest. I was so excited when i used just the iPhone 4 and later 5, then bought an iPad 2, hated it, returned it. A while after that i bought an iPad Air which i used for a year before i sold it because it was bad for my already damaged back and neck to hold it while laying on the sofa
I was excited by the option to create sounds on the go.....but from over 200 iOS songs i made i just made 1 "on the go". I can´t create stuff in a bus, cafe or even sitting in the forest or so. It´s great for field recording and stuff but i just feel better to create stuff at home and mobile for me is taking a computing device from one room to another
But maybe i just need a "fresh" thing from time to time and switch force and back from mac to iOS or i use both together.
But NanoStudio 2 could excite me really.... maybe
And all that can change of course. I´m with the tools, not with an OS, hardware or software company.
I would be really excited if i could demo iOS apps and/or we could do license transfers and could use extern SSD´s for bigger sample libraries and stuff.
Let´s see what iOS 11 will do.....
What @lukesleepwalker said. Also I'm excited about the upcoming Beatmaker 3.
I wish Korg came out with a good Guitar strumming arp Hadget as well as a better sampler Hadfet.
Agreed! There is a Tubescreamer AU (DC-9 I think is the name) and a some nice delays, but I'd love to see more. But for my purposes, I really can't complain about Amplitube Fender 2 running into Crystalline.
Thanks, I didn't know about DC-9. I just picked it up. If I like it I'll grab there other effects too.
Dear Diary,
I use to be unimpressed, but lately I'm too blown away and overwhelmed. Naturally, everyone prioritizes their own particular and specific set tools/features, or how effective a tool or micro combination thereof works. This usually requires making sacrifices to get there. This may include not having the ability to use your favorite sequencer, synth, or sampler, just as a few examples. For my workflow, I try out different combinations to achieve similar results, make a decision to stick with it, but never spend enough time with it to become proficient at it due to a radically new update, such as AB3, or the introduction of a new utility app, or new sequencer or sampler who's features show promise to fullfill my previous desires.
I seriously believe the only way for me to end this cycle is too cut myself off from this forum and any other ios news. But i just can't bring myself to do it. This is seriously no different than what i use to do when I owned all hardware and frequented synthtopia and vintage synth explorer. I'd aquire gear to make my work flow better.
Insight: The hardware versus software debate, desktop vs laptop, laptop vs tablet, is something that humans fabricate as a substitution for their own lack of creativity and improper problem solving.
+2!