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
Not trying to get you to write a book, but is it the jam/play along live aspect you like/benefit the most from here? Not my forte really (lack of skill), but just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing out on another obvious benefit...I do appreciate what it does (and elegantly), just not best suited to my immediate stumbling maybe...
It's that, but mainly because it functions as a top notch working 'desk' from which I can load up and control apps. It's the first app I boot up when making music, browse for the saved setup I want and go from there.
Before AUM I used Audiobus with Mimix, but that only had 4 (?) channels and AUM has blown it out of the water. I still use Audiobus for recording into apps such as Auria and Blocs, but for multi app and guitar work AUM's the boy.
I like a mixing desk, and AUM is a very, very good mixer.
What's the problem with AB3 and the iConnectAudio4+?
Unless you load up AB3 with all apps before connecting the ica nothing loads into AB3.
Thank you. I understand better now.
Another aspect of AUM that is useful and frequently not provided in other AU app hosts is the ability to control additional AU parameters via MIDI. I hope that Audiobus 3 adds this functionality at some point. Various aspects of the built-in effects and other mixing functions can be controlled via MIDI including bus sends.
AUM is amazing. It starts a multiple app session super quickly, all apps start with no yawn: patterning, egoist, unique, Xynthesizr, Turnado and effectrix. It takes literally 5 secs to start the above session with nothing hanging!
I miss the side bar (probably the reason why AB3 needs more devs response) and the fact that loopy doesn't expose individual outs to AUM.
If it wasn't for that I'd be using AUM live without a doubt. I think AB team have got a bit of catching up to do.
(I know it's a sacrilege to say it here but I cannot lie)
Yes AUM is amazing, I'm hoping iOS 11 brings midi out from AUs which will take it to another level.
Sometimes I kind of do like the Yawn in AB3 as it prevents me from starting apps I then have to turn off cause I wanted a different setup after launching, so I guess it works for every one's own creative flow.
AUM is the best for getting started quickly when I just want to mess around and record ideas.
Wish aum output to apps like loopy or multitrack. Maybe it's out of respect for audiobus? There's IAA input but no output. Not sure why? I know you can hook aum thru audiobus but then it's added cpu hogging and less for the apps themselves. Love aum and audiobus tho. Both amazing
Technically, IAA has only "hosts" and "nodes". There are nodes that produce audio (generators and instruments) and process audio (effects). The only case where audio is going from the host (AUM in this case) into the node, is for effect nodes: host -> effect node -> host. This means there's only two potential ways to get audio from AUM into Loopy: one is if Loopy hosts AUM, which is what happens under the hood when connecting them via Audiobus. The other is if Loopy would implement an IAA effect port, allowing audio to be tapped from any host into Loopy. This would be awesome, since it would allow tapping the audio from anywhere in the signal chain in AUM, for example to loop-record the dry signal into Loopy without additional effects added later in the signal flow. You'll need to ask @MichaelTyson to add this
Good news! The AUM 1.2 update is going live right now. Cheers!
excellent thanks!
Done. I'm going to send him an email. Thanks again for always responding so quickly and in detail. Now that I think about it I think I emailed you once and you told me something similar. :-P I'll bug Michael. Thanks for being patient
So now we have the option to host all midi apps in Audiobus controlling all the audio hosted in AUM which makes a pretty powerful setup. in AUM you can now choose IAA port 1, 2 etc
Liking the idea of AirPlay output. Haven't tried it out yet, but looking forward to no latency?
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Yes, this was annoying. I still bought AB3, but do not like the fact that to get the most from it we have to buy a third party array of mini apps - MIDI Flow package for AB3 - instead of having similar in-built.
It almost doubles the price, which is one reason I haven't bought MF as yet.
Oh, I'm quite sure AirPlay (and Bluetooth) output has lots of latency. This is part of those technologies, which are heavily buffered to avoid drop-outs.
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That must be how MusicStreamer does it's work, then. I regard it as almost magic that I can control playlist in that app via iPad, sent to a WAP which in turn goes through a Devolo Home Plug, up to my router, into a NAS and back again through my stereo with no noticeable buffering.
I suppose knowing what comes next allows this, as opposed to the more random and instant signal that comes from a music app used live?
Same here. I totally need this but last time I tried Michael the response wasn't positive. I think it was something along the lines of 'wait for Loopy Pro'.
Do bug him though, one never knows.
Re: bluetooth audio - the a2dp output has pretty good low latency. I find it actually surprising that there aren't more people raving about it ... Audiobus3 -> bt? Auria Pro -> bt?
Now it's possible, thx to JLilla :]
Care to quantify "pretty good low"? Are we talking 10ms? 50ms?
It's definitely playable. Tapping on Aum's keyboard results in a felt fast response, @kgmessier
It is a lot better, and so grateful that it works at least better than before where it literally sounded like an old radio, but now it plays back perfectly. I have Soft Drummer playing in a channel and sounds perfectly. Also, triggering synths in Beathawk via AUMs keyboard works nice, although the latency is barely noticeable, it is noticeable. But not unplayable.
Has anyone else noticed high cpu and lots of spikes since this update? Certain apps which I used all the time seem to be doing this and don't remember the issue before the update. Sometimes I see it jumping into the 1000s and then back down again. I remember there was a similar issue just after it it was released so wondering whether that bug has crept back in...
So I'll often have some apps loaded and the DSP will be rising and lowering all the time when nothing is happening in the apps etc.
@j_liljedahl
I'm very curious if anyone else is experiencing the same thing as @Carnbot.
I use AUM live weekly and haven't updated to the new version yet - i might hold off if this is an issue
Are there any videos of the new functionality in action?
Yes. I only partially understand the update list and would like to try and ensure I am using this app as much as I'm capable of (not very).
Could be this:
Maybe it's not an actual consumption issue, just better reporting of what was happening before.