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.
BM3 vs. Beathawk
No, not starting fires. I'm just not very conversant with software outside of old fashioned "normal" daws, (I'm an Auria user.) I have Beathawk, because it has a collection of incredible sounds that work well with AU. I have messed with it a bit, and at some point will take the time to learn to make music with it on its own, as it seems like quite the incredible tool.
Functionally speaking, are Beathawk and BM3 the same thing? Kind of/or completely different?
Comments
Never got on with BeatHawk - but great sounds. Only played with BM3 for couple hours but I think I'm gonna love it (didn't like BM2 fwiw). BM3 seems to offer quite a bit more functionality overall. It's worth it (and heard this from others) just for the ability to quickly sequence and automate AU apps (iaa too) and record those into loops and arrange on the song timeline (or play around/audition with different loops in the scene section and then arrange)
BeatHawk doesn't have nearly as much functionality as BM3, but what it does, it does extremely well. Very responsive interface, quick workflow, excellent libraries and rock solid. I have found BH2 to be inspirational and I have been surprised how much work I actually get done with it. So far I'm mixed about BM3, not least because of the many crashes I experience and losing work (iPad Air 2 here) which is a creativity killer.
Beathawk has a fluid and relatively stripped down workflow that works for me sometimes. The BM3 sampler is just in a different league and does all the stuff I wish BH's sampler did. That said, I've been using BH as an AU inside BM3 and sampling some sounds because the sounds are unparalleled on iOS.
Hmmmm, both. However, it depends. Looking more for a variety of built-in/IAP sounds you can quickly make into loops, or are you looking for something to control your Audio Units to make into loops that way? See, I'd go Beathawk first since it's got a whole variety of sounds where the BM3 IAPs are mostly sampled synths. If Sampletank ever went AU on iPad, then Beathawk may have a run for its money.
Funny you should bring this up. I was just trying to figure out how I feel about that one myself. I deleted BeatHawk twice before finally warming to it. Midi out made the difference for me. I'm really a synth guy more than sample based, so it had little attraction to me. But I could immediately see it as a quick compositional tool that was also universal, and could be of great use as an AU as well. Once I got over the different-ness of it over the likes of Auria Pro, Cubasis, and ModStep, I was surprised at how accessible and productive it feels.
I sort of freeze up in front of time-line based sequencers, but never seem to get anywhere beyond messing around with clip based sequencers like Modstep and Infinite Looper. BeatHawk sort of broke me out of that, but still doesn't feel like what I'm really looking for (which is probably Ableton Live, but I'm allergic to desktops these days and probably would never spend the full-ride for anyway). Gadget sort of gets there, but the 16 bar block aspect of it, and the closed architecture rub me the wrong way a little. Garage band? Well, that kind of nails it, but my whole being rebels against it for some inexplicable reason. But I digress ...
Enter BM3. Clips and timeline and pads. What's not to like? Well, it seems a little over-engineered to me to the point that it's really confusing. OK, so persistence is the cure for that. I'm of the mind unpopular mindset that powerful tools don't have to be brain-dead simple. We all learned to drive. I think we can do this.
But then there's the feeling of deja Vu over all the years-long struggles of Modstep to come to grips with stability trying to host AU's and iAAs. BM3 is way more ambitious in this, and I have this dread feeling that it'll be a never ending resource suck. I hope I'm totally wrong on that!
I plan to focus on BM3 unless it proves to be too unreliable. It has all the elements I want. It will hopefully be universal soon. If it remains unreliable for AU and IAA then I can work around that hosting externally in AB3 or AUM as I do today, or committing earlier to audio as I should probably be doing more of today anyway. I'll probably host IAA's in AB3 a lot anyway as I love state saving (which no one else can do) since I'm constantly interrupted mid-composition and want to be able to get back to work with the minimum hassle. And becuase I love task switching, global transport, and AB Remote.
BeatHawk is always going to pull me back as are ModStep, Cubasis, Infinite Looper, Gadget, and Auria Pro. They each have aspects that help fit the moment I'm in. But I'm going to at least try to focus a little, and I think BM3 is the right choice for that ... for now.
I know TLDR, but there you go. Curse of being a fast typist.
Not at all, ton of great info. Thanks, guys. It clears it up for me. As I said, the kind of composition in BeatHawk/BM3 is totally foreign to me, sounds like BM3 is the same idea, but there is more, and there is less. Until I really mess with BeatHawk, and get an idea as to how this kind of a workflow is meant to be, I'll just stay out of BM3 for now. I may never get there. And the sounds in BeatHawk are to die for - still haven't purchased all the packs yet, working on it. Between Auria, BH, iSymphonic, SampleTank and ThumbJam, I have a whole lot of sounds to play with.
Beathawk inside of bm3 is a dream come true. There so different that it comes together nicely. Au for me plays well in bm3. Really bm3 is the ultimate with what it does with the simplicity given. Just like any rogram it takes time and practice to learn it. No one should really complain till after a week of use. Beathawk is awesome at what it does and the instrument packs are up there.
Beathawk is very limited and doesent do 1/50th of what beatmaker does. Beathawk is not much more than a drum machine that can also sequence other internal instruments, beatmaker is a full blown daw.
I like the song arranger in BeatHawk, but i would like BeatHawk much better is we could load auv3 apps inside of it, to pads like BM3 does, and the file browser needs a little work, I actually stumbled across the fact that touching folders with 2 fingers opened menus with features. Also another bank of 16 pads/tracks would be cool.
Who sais you can't use them together?
I load up BeatHawk as AU in the pads of BM3 and use the stock sounds
The thing is it doesn't save state all the time. So you need to resample it.
BeatHawk doesn’t appear to do much I can’t do in other apps, but I still like it. The sounds are good. It’s a neat little music-maker. Then… my experience with manipulating samples for composition is limited, and BeatMaker inspires me to get more into that.
I like experimenting these days with new ways of thinking about making music. Both BH and BM3 provide opportunities for that, and I don’t see them as competing with each other or mutually exclusive at all.
I'd say Beathawk if you prefer to play with preset-content and BeatMaker 3 if you prefer to create and use your own samples.
@wim Very interesting read, we seem a bit similar in type.
But as I have sooo many non-AU Synths, I am not going the road with AUs in BM3.
AB will it be for me, for MIDI routing and saving and producing Audio loops from that and then combining everything with long ambient parts or something in a timeline DAW.
As long as BM3 ist not fulfilling everything in regards to MIDI, I will make use of modstep, Genome, Infinite Looper,... and maybe recording MIDI into Cubasis or later NS2. Depends.
For the final Audio, I plan to use Auria Pro for Mixing and Mastering.
Still dabbling round :-)))
I think BeatHawk does not compare to BM3 . BM3 is more like a 'hardware' sampler in steroids and BeatHawk more like a 'hardware' synth rompler with many good sounds for production.
Given that it's near universal that samplers and non-samplers agree that Beathawk has good sound packs, it would make sense for UVI to make sure AU state saving works dependably, especially when the user saves with Beathawk in keys mode.
Forgot to add, if you are into composing, BH2 is much more convenient and slick to me, and it has midi export, which BM3 doesn't. For me BH2 combines a quick workflow with inspiring sounds which I can then move to my desktop DAW of choice and exchange the sounds to for instance in my case mostly Spitfire Audio libraries, Zebra and/or Omnisphere. That's how I use it. BM3 I use for playing around, layering, and experimenting.
the biggest flaw in Beathawk is 'us skipping the rtfm step'
(btw it's one of the best and most comprehensive manuals one can imagine)
I admit I only figured out the 2-finger tap in file management after a hint here on the forum and I never would have expected Audioshare under the iCloud exchange topic.
All that is clearly written and explained - Beathawk scores way above the average handling of most apps.
Imho there's a specific idea behind distribution of samples to pads.
Some (pre-thought) personal style of pad functionality applies: if certain types of sounds are always located at the same position, a lot of browsing can be avoided.
For simplicity let's assume kick, snare, hi-hats are always on pad 1,2,3.
Selecting a pad makes the folder of the current sample the folder to which the arrows apply, so one can flip quickly through the respective instruments, your kicks, snares, hi-hats.
User content is easily imported by moving entire folders from Audioshare and you can design your own folder hierarchy.
This compensates somewhat for a less sophisticated fx-processing and brings the advantage of a more lean performing app.
An AUM setup for sound generation can automatically collect results in AudioShare from where Beathawk imports them in one go, not too bad imho.
Do you just record to AudioShare from AUM then import maps to correct pads? Can you please elaborate on this? Thanks!
Keeping BH active if only for use of its Musical Toys pack...
well, how should any of these apps determine what you consider the 'correct' pad ?
Kit design is a user task, but imho it's fairly convenient in Beathawk if you follow the advice above and always assign certain types of sounds to the same pad position.
You can build any hierarchy of folders which helps against those infamous, endless scrolling lists.
I have no idea about their readymade stuff organisation, as I'm not interested in that.
Until now Beathawk's approach is the most effective one I found for own stuff.
If you have a kit-folder with subfolders for instruments you only have to select 1 sample from each folder to it's respective position and afterwards a reassignment always refers to that folder (until you choose a different one).
That mode of operation makes a lot more sense to me than having my stuff sorted under someone else's categories, even more if those are limited to 1 single level.
The crucial point is simply the existence of a custom folder hierarchy and that you can import folders from elsewhere (Audioshare in my case), not just single samples.
Beathawk falls into the same category as SampleTank for me, I just can't get overly excited or creatively "lost' in either, meaning inspired enough to reach that zone of just experimenting and being a channel for the inspiration.
Not that both aren't tremendous quality and very cool for what they are. I still have both on my crowded iPad Air 2 64 GB, and use their sounds for overdubs or MID bits but I can't see doing an entire track in Beathawk. But again I'm a songwriter/musician doing more rock/pop/indie Verse/Chorus stuff than hiphop or thumping EDM.
Love some of that stuff and experiment with electronic music all the time, just not my main bag. The excellent IAP sound sets UVI puts together are tremendous & very reasonable...reason enough to keep it on hand for me.
The audio track recording, AU hosting, AUX system, mixer etc. of BM3 just pushes it into the realm of full DAW, where Beathawk is still a more MPC styled, 'music production/groove machine'.
Pretty much where I am, too. But, the temptation is always there to play with a different method. Never hurts.
@rickwaugh Absolutely. It's why free space is always a concern for me because I have a hard time deleting apps that I like but don't really use because I love having the immediate options, more paint on the palette.
late to this party ... hehe
So, how do we stand today? Alot has happened in a year. Wim, how do you now get on with BM3?
I am intimidated by BM3. Every time I open it up I just go ... ummm ... it's so cool ... ummm nope! But, I know that I probably just need to study it like i would algebra.
This quote from frejahel I find interesting...
"Forgot to add, if you are into composing, BH2 is much more convenient and slick to me, and it has midi export, which BM3 doesn't. For me BH2 combines a quick workflow with inspiring sounds "
So, should I be thinking about BM2 or has that ship sailed? Or should I be just skipping all this and waiting for Drambo??
edit - Ok, so i just reread and found that he/she is referring to BH2 not BM2. So, Beathawk two (2) then? :--)
For me, BH works and it works very well. It has an immediacy to it that is just really easily lost with DAWs and I find ease of access critical to me for inspiration and getting down musical ideas. I really tried to get into BM3 but the workflow is just the opposite of what I need to thrive. It is really labor intensive and highly focused on sampling. Cubasis made sense to me the minute I opened the app, much like the feeling I had when I opened BH.
BH pairs super well with Cubasis. Start in BH, sketch your ideas, swap out sounds, move into Cubasis to record the midi, swap out sounds some more, swap out sounds with other AUV3 instruments, add effects, get your song mix and flow down, song done.
Both are freakin’ weird, but I can use BH2 as a sound module and am quite happy with it.
For building songs, for me, neither. I use AUM/AB3 for jamming, and Cubasis is my DAW.
ok ... thanks for your input. I tossed this around for quite awhile before finally purchasing BeatHawk. I'll refrain from proclaiming my like of it until I work with it for a bit as I don't think that's useful to anyone. But, I will say I was up and running with it in seconds. Very immediate. And at a sale price if it doesn't work out there will be less pain.