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
yes, but I'm almost certain the original poster isn't in that group
Monitor headphones when you can't port the KRKs.
Caustic only allows two effects per track, and the effects units are more akin to stomp boxes than anything truly precise, so I'd avoid Caustic for mastering. (For sound design and creation however, Caustic is awesome, ESPECIALLY with that sick modular synth lol.)
MultiTrack DAW could potentially do mastering within itself, but it's a bit more limited. You CAN use IAAs on the master effects buss, but you're better off feeding Multitrack into AUM via Audiobus (and, yes, Multitrack DAW IS an AB state saver!!!) and using AUv3s (Klevgrand and DDMF) to do your mastering and limiting and such.
Xewton Music Studio, again, is very limited in what it can do effects-wise. Laying out tracks and musical ideas, it works VERY well. I wouldn't use it for mastering purposes though. Nanostudio is EVEN MORE limited in what it can do effects-wise, so definitely no. Music Studio and Nanostudio are great for sound sources and laying out tracks.
Cheers mate.
Howd you know? Haha i use final touch precisely because i dont have proper monitoring, i just use decent headphones and then test on my ipad speaker and then PA to see how things sound , im really more of a live performance guy and just getting into the whole recording mastering thang
if you know your cans well you may get pretty far that way, but it's not an easy thing.
As mentioned 'mastering' in it's original sense is a different thing from what Final Touch offers. It's focus is loudness the quick way - not sound. (I bought it full charge when it was released)
I think there's a big difference between mastering your own music and mastering for other people, and the requirements for monitoring/acoustics change accordingly. I know a lot of people who get great results just with trial and error by testing their masters on a bunch of different systems, so it can be done if you want to put the time into it.
Best advice I can give if you're doing it yourself is to focus more on the mixdown, get that sounding as close to the finished sound you want. Use the "mastering" stage just to get the overall level closer to the volume you want, a simple limiter is all you usually need. It's too easy (and common) to kill a really nice sounding mix by applying compression or multiband processing you really don't need just because you read someone else used it. This might help too:
http://innerportalstudio.com/articles/Mastering.pdf
On second thoughts, I'm not sure how useful an excercise it might be, as I would be using plugins that you could use on the desktop anyway - not exclusive to iOS.
Final touch (in it's defence) has Eq and dynamics to offer, not just maximising. I have to say I'm unsure as to where reverb fits in with a mastering chain, but there you go.
I have never used reverb in mastering the last 16 years, but I guess someone somewhere has.
Considering the remix contests I've participated in, there's no shortage of people in the world who think that reverb sounds good on everything.
Thanks for the article!
Thank you! Very helpful!
Looks like it's down to FL and BM3. Being able to directly host AUs might give BM3 the advantage. @Samu could you chime in on the compressor/limiter/eq that comes with BM3?
All I can say is that you are free to add as much 'stuff' as your CPU can handle in any order you like
This applies to Pads, Banks, Busses and Tracks...
The 'Dynamics Processor' has Compression, Limiting and Expansion with Optional side-chaining where the side-chain input can be freely chosen. As for EQ/Filter you can have either as many single node EQs/Filters as needed or use one with 6 nodes where each node can be freely selected. Everything can be automated if needed...
There is no 'preset order' for the eq/filters, effects or processors.
It's up to the user to choose in which order to process the audio
More detailed info should drop during next week...
(I do expect at least a few more betas though).
Thanks for the breakdown! Sounds very flexible! If it has an RMS meter too then I think @jwmmakerofmusic would be very happy
I totally agree with you there @telecharge..... If you listen to Bob Marley 12" single "Jammin" (the studio 12" version) there is Reverb even on the Bass at the beginning, until Robert 'Nesta' starts singing. As for Mastering it's not easy. How did you get on with your competition?
@studs1966 Winners for that one won't be announced until "on or around" May 1st.
If you're interested, the studio producing the song -- which tracked the stems I pointed you to -- recently shared their master WAV file.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xmjnfpgbym5wj1w/OneMaster.wav?dl=0
I've submitted to a another competition since that song, and I'm currently looking for the next one.
Great stuff!......
So, I must make an amendment to an earlier comment. After FL Studio Mobile 3 crashed on me for the umpteenth time when trying to master a track, I decided to go ahead and check out Xewton Music Studio. Holy...shit. Not only does it have effects slots (rather than a universal low pass filter for tracks), you have effects slots for individual tracks, sends, AND master track. It also supports IAA effects AND instruments and is AB3 compatible! Now its internal EQ is a limited 3-band graphic EQ, but that's not the end of the world. It has a stereo widener that allows a signal to go monaural, so I can mix in this no problem. I'm going to write Xewton to see if they can install AUv3 support for effects and instruments. Cheers.
Good old music studio!
Thanks for the update! Crash tendencies take FL right off the list for me. As for Music Studio I think @BiancaNeve just smirked told ya so
I may have had a small grin, certainly not a full smirk though....
But I do think Music Studio is often under rated and you have to give Xewton kudos for the fact that it's still being kept up to date since it first launched back in the days of iPhone 3GS
@BiancaNeve and @srcer
So, I read in the Xewton forums on my small feature request thread that eventually, Music Studio will receive a number 3 upgrade soon. It truly is amazing how Xewton cares enough about Music Studio to keep it maintained throughout the various iOS changes and hardware changes throughout the years. Music Studio will always have a place on my iDevices.
I like it a lot as well! :-) Until BM3 comes along to compare against, Music Studio and Gadget are the best workstations for creating music on a phone. :-)
Hey thanks for this! I had this app on my 3GS when it first came out. I've rediscovered it thanks to this thread. This is exactly what I needed for my iPhone
Hey now! Gary from Future Moments here. I'd like to throw our mastering app AudioMaster, in the ring here. I hope this app comes in handy. There's now 40 total presets. iPhone and iPad.
All suggestions are welcome!
Here's our additions:
▪ Added 26 more presets to choose from for a total of 39 plus flat EQ
▪ Now you can press and hold any preset to hear only the volume boost
▪ Bluetooth Output
▪ AU, IAA and Audiobus compatible as usual
Try before you buy -> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/audiomaster-for-podcasts-music/id1091734833?mt=8