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 Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

VirtualRoom AU is out (AUv3, works with AB3)

Features:
AUv3 Plugin
3D Positioning
Stereo input
3 different rooms
Multiple instances
Copy/paste
Source position mirroring
Parameter automation (if supported by host)

VirtualRoom AU by MN Signal Processing https://itunes.apple.com/app/virtualroom-au/id1285558162

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Comments

  • Nice. Hopefully i wont forget that i had to buy this due to lack of wishlist. Like i have forgotten what was that app that i really wanted to get that was released recently..

  • I love this app, but this is a separate purchase not an update to the original it seems.

  • Been beta testing it works brill,

  • The devs going to look into midi learn maybe for a future update which would be cool for the faders.

  • @Ben said:
    I love this app, but this is a separate purchase not an update to the original it seems.

    Yes, it's a whole new app written from scratch using the JUCE library. Unfortunately JUCE doesn't support Audiobus so far, so if I had made it an update, I would have had to drop Audiobus support. But there are plans for the evolution of VirtualRoom Pro, too, like adding multiple inputs (which is something JUCE doesn't support on iOS, either).

  • @ToMess said:
    Nice. Hopefully i wont forget that i had to buy this due to lack of wishlist. Like i have forgotten what was that app that i really wanted to get that was released recently..

    I added it to my wishlist :p

  • edited October 2017

    Good work, Fritz. Always encouraging to see developers doing something different.

    Back in the day I owned some JVC Binaural recording headphones, and have been fascinated with the potential ever since.

  • AU parameter automation working in BM3, without glitches? Could map it to MIDI then, I need live control over position.

  • MIDI will come eventually, including MIDI learning. Parameter automation works, but there is an issue when you use automation in a loop. The first time it works fine, but as the loop is played over and over in recording mode, it can happen that automation points are lost. I'm still investigating this issue. As it seems it's strongly related to timing, so it is more of an issue on older devices and less problematic on more recent ones with smaller screens (less time needed to update the screen after a parameter change).

  • Virtual Room AU is perfect for testing pre-fader sends in upcoming BM3 update :)
    (Ie. assign Virtual Room AU to an AUX Bus, hard pan the two pads/sounds L & R and feed them into the same 'room' with individual control over the placement of both sounds). Me like this a lot!

  • edited October 2017

    awww i was hoping it was an update. :( oh well
    Developers gotta eat too ;) . I probably won’t repurchase, but really do like the original version.

  • AU automation works for positioning??

  • @Max_Free said:
    AU automation works for positioning??

    Yes it does.

  • @Fritz said:

    @Max_Free said:
    AU automation works for positioning??

    Yes it does.

    Just became intrigued. :)

  • Is this similar to Cakewalk FX3 SoundStage from years ago?

  • Done a quick demo, not the best but shows app used inside AUM.

  • Imagine if this 'Virtual Room' was integrated in into a host allowing each and every sound to be freely placed inside the same room. In BM3 this could mean a lot of small 'speakers' on the same grid depending on where in the chain it gets inserted :)

  • @realdavidai said:
    Is this similar to Cakewalk FX3 SoundStage from years ago?

    Conceptually, yes: you place sources and a listener into a room and get the sound at the position of the listener.
    But sound-wise, I'm pretty sure the two plugins are worlds apart. I haven't used the plugin you mentioned, but the screenshots I found look like it's at least 20 years old. I did a lot of research in 2008-2010 on how to make artificial binaural reverberation actually sound realistic (i.e. similar to a binaural recording) and have since turned this research into algorithms suitable for music production and other applications. 20 years ago the knowledge of psychoacoustics was just not where it was today and the algorithms that were proposed at that time have flaws that are very easy to point out nowadays. Just as an example: 20 years ago people thought that it was a good idea to take the output of an early reflections model and feed it into their late reverberation model, because like this you get a higher echo density for free. Nowadays it should be clear to everybody that that's a stupid idea because this imposes all sorts of comb filters on your late reverberation would sound really bad.

    If you like to know more about how to make 3D audio work for you, have a look at the video of my talk at the World VR Forum this year:

  • @Samu said:
    Imagine if this 'Virtual Room' was integrated in into a host allowing each and every sound to be freely placed inside the same room. In BM3 this could mean a lot of small 'speakers' on the same grid depending on where in the chain it gets inserted :)

    That would certainly be cool. Maybe talk to Intua about this. The 3DVERB® algorithm can be licensed.

  • And the normal VirtualRoom Pro App is now also AU.

  • @Fritz said:

    That would certainly be cool. Maybe talk to Intua about this. The 3DVERB® algorithm can be licensed.

    I've mentioned that to Mathieu but it's ultimately their decision to make.
    (If more people request it, it might happen).

  • @Fritz I'm interested in getting this to play with. Initially, wasn't that interested due to listening essentially needing to use headphones to hear it. However, at least in one of the demos I heard, it was easy to hear the effect even on the iPad speakers.

    Now, I'm perplexed as to which one of these to get since they're both AU now. What are the primary differences now between VirtualRoom Pro and VirtualRoom AU? Or, are they basically the same app now?

  • @skiphunt very nearly the same, at first I was slightly peeved as i had bought the pro and then bought the au a few days ago,
    but there is a difference, the Au plugbin has a choice of small, medium and large rooms and 'azimuth' parameter, though I'm not too sure how much you can percieve height in the algorithm?
    not sure if there is difference in au parameter automation as i am using cubasis, so someone with BM3 could maybe tell if both have automation..

  • @skiphunt. The sound source is separated into L and R so it allows for more subtle change. You can also select room size. That bears some interesting results. It seems simpler to pan on the fly with VR Pro which I prefer but someone with a more discerning audio palette than mine might appreciate the added control over parameters.
    I bought the AU version just to get multiple instances in AUM then VR Pro (which I already owned) gets updated. No worries though, they're good apps and happy to support the dev.

  • Thanks for the feedback. I chatted with Fritz about it over on the app's Facebook page. Evidently they're both AU now, but only VR Pro works in AudioBus since the new one is written in JUCE and AB isn't supported yet.

    Sounds like eventually they'll be essentially the same app when/if JUCE gets AB support. I'm only curious enough to buy one of them so I'll likely get the new VR AU version since I use AUM more.

    thx!

  • edited October 2017

    Hey,

    For those who have this app... I bought the VirtualRoom AU version and have been playing with it in AUM.

    I'm not really getting quite the 3D 360 effect I was hoping for... but with extreme placement on various channels, and also using BM3 to automate position and parameters, you can get some interesting effects. So, I may keep it regardless.

    That being said, I'm curious why I'm not getting much difference between the left and right channels of a given stereo source. I would think that if I placed the head icon in the center of the room and the left and right source channels all the way on opposite sides of the room... them moved the head icon all the way over next to the right channel source, that it'd be louder and the characteristics would change. Likewise over to the left side of the room.

    And, if I moved the head icon laterally left and right within the room, it'd sound like whichever L or R source channel you're moving towards, that it'd be louder than the other channel on the other side of the room.

    Also, if I have the speaker sources behind the head icon, and then spin the head around to face the speakers, it doesn't sound any different than with the head facing forward. Seems like that should change in a 3D space.

    It's not behaving this way for me. The level of sound coming from the left and right source channels kinda sounds the same. Has anyone else noticed that? Or, am I mistaken as to how the sound should behave in a 3D 360 environment? Or, perhaps my expectations are too high for a 3D 360 "binaural" illusion within a 2 channel stereo environment?

  • Alright, I've been playing with the VirtualRoom AU plugin a bit more and have some thoughts. First of all, I don't think it really meets my expectations for convincing 3D, 360, 'binaural-esque' spatial illusion.

    However, I'm getting some very interesting effects from this that can even be heard without headphones.

    The test I just did was all laid out in AUM. 3 channels, Swarpug on channel 1, and a recording of me saying a single different word on the other 2 channels (just to more easily focus on the direction of sound and room quality)

    I put VirtualRoom on each channel separately and placed each source in a different part of the room on each channel with differing room acoustics. I also did a bus send before the effects to 2 more channels. One channel just to hear all without any effects, and another one using reverb only. I played with a few but settled on Altispace because I thought it sounded the most spatially convincing and less 'effect" sounding.

    The setup using the reverb app Altispace, combined with using AUM's built-in stereo panning on 2 channels and mid/side balance on the 3rd... got be some fairly convincing spatial illusion.

    When I compared to the VirtualRoom AU setup, the results were very impressive. Much more defined spatial location and with adjusting the acoustic parameters for each channel separately, I was able to dial in some very impressive effects. At the fact that I could automate all of the parameters and head icon positions in BM3, and there are some very trippy effects that can be achieved.

    Has anyone else been experimenting with this and have other suggestions and ideas to try out? Like I mentioned before, I can hear these differences even without headphones on the iPad 10.5 Pro's speakers. Admittedly, the new Pro's are doing something new and different with the external speakers that mimic spatial illusion pretty well, but with headphones on it was an order of magnitude even more impressive.

    I think I'll keep this one. :)

  • Noob here...I love this app, can I recreate this effect on a desktop daw like cubase or fl studio?

  • @ginandjuice said:
    Noob here...I love this app, can I recreate this effect on a desktop daw like cubase or fl studio?

    Well, there's a VST version under development.

  • VirtualRoom AU v1.1 is out, and it can do nearfield sources, too. Have a look at the "virtual barbershop" type demo on YouTube:

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