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
So I caved and bought it.
First reaction was that it is a bit of a limited toy. The UI is quite basic in appearance. But like all good toys there are some good distractions to be had and it is pretty easy to get a groove going with vaguely interesting melodic content.
When you connect the output of a node to more than one other node then it randomly chooses that path. I would like to see more options for the choice. Even round-robin verses random would be a nice option.
The built in synth is too limited to be of much use and it can be difficult to hear the parts separately when you have more than one emitter. I eventually got it connected to Zeeon and then it's a whole different ball game.
The enhancements I would like to see are the aforementioned node path choices. A simple sample player to get round the limited built in synth, maybe with a choice from some defaults (Tin Pan Rhythm does this well) and a better choice of durations, maybe musical note durations when you get link.
Oh and I can't reduce the tempo because the top down drag thing gets triggered.
Good start though and I'm sure I will use it to good effect quite soon.
I am waiting for drum triggers to be activated before taking plunge.
In the meantime.... enjoy the amazingness of drummer NAH
@sebastianarnold : Did you know NAH work on drums ?
Have you all voted on the Senode web site?
https://www.poll-maker.com/poll1935873x2Fb546cc-51?s=res
Holy crap, that was intense! Thanks for introducing me to that insanity.
This is a great beginning of the app although I do find starting a new project can take a while and could benefit from some additional controls and different ways to get notes in to help speed things up.
e.g ability to randomise selected nodes in a scale, being able to select a node and cycle through notes, turning it like a dial along with scale lock, rather than just press a key on the keyboard.
I think it currently works well when you have a midi keyboard attached but when you are just rolling with an ipad it could do with more options and tools here.
look forward to the updates especially when it gets Link, AB3 midi would be nice for the emitters too
btw what's the icon to the left of the marquee tool, a grid of nodes? Can't see what this does yet
@sebastianarnold
Have you tried holding the record button and pressing keys on the keyboard to create a chain of nodes very quickly as a starting point?
Yes that's useful, can also record in from other apps this way too.
Can the record button be MIDI mapped? Please. Is there some erase or undo working the same way?
That’s the grid lock. When it’s on, whatever you move locks to the grid. When it’s off, everything moves freely. Helps for visual organization.
oh yes, thanks
Oh I see like ‘snap to grid’.
@sebastianarnold please please please add copy paste for a group of nodes.
+1
It's nice to see that so many improvement suggestions from you are either already under the hood or on my list. Keep the feedback coming, and I'll try to see what is possible in the next weeks or so... :-)
Right, at the moment the probability of chosing a path is equally distributed over the number of outgoing edges (1/k). But I like the idea of round robin as well, this goes on my list!
I have a request as well! What are your thoughts about modelling different parts of a song? How would you switch between, e.g. a verse and a chorus in Senode? Would you need something like this? I have some parts of it in the implementation already, but I'm curious what are your ideas...
Best,
Sebastian
How about being able to save paths/networks and switch them out as groups or individually, or maybe being able to save/load emitter settings during playback, or some combination of both. Maybe the easier way would be to save your current layout as a "Scene" and be able to switch scenes easily during playback (similar to Oscilab). Here is soundtestroom demoing the scene switching in Oscilab, if you are unfamiliar with that particular app:
The video is supposed to jump to 10:50, but that is where the Scene stuff is, in case the video starts from the beginning.
Love the app. Actually your video where you are drumming and the app is used totally pushed me over the fence, and I have no regrets: have had the most fun with it over the last two days.
As for song parts I guess my first thought was "scenes" that you could switch between. I could also imagine there would be "scenes" for each of the trigger paths, but that could be complicated to syncronize if you'd like to change more than two at the same time (or more than one if you also play the drums, or something else, at the same time).
I have missed sections/song parts though. What about a bunch of scene tabs (say 8, like Odessa apps) and you can either control how many beats/rounds they are there for, before swapping for the next/random or scene pattern? It would probably require being able to copy the entire set for a scene to another, to avoid not having to manually set up each note etc again though.
scenes sound like a good idea, along with midi cc emitters too
Yep, +1 would be great to create a scene / performance and collapse similar to Audulus sub patches. That way we could have several of these on screen to select or even wire between. Double tap to open one up for deeper editing then come back up a level
Scenes and CC emitters get my top vote as well.
How about making the layout surface a lot bigger and scroll-able? You could setup different networks in different areas, easily connect these together as well if you wanted to, and provide a mechanism to turn the individual networks on or off during live playback or by MIDI input.
I would really like to be able to master transpose via midi - so all emitters / nodes are affected, that would take the app into great territory
or to have the option of selecting only individual emiitters
Drag to the side - it is scrollable but I think zoom out would help.
It is scrollable! But it doesn’t work unless something is off-screen. If you drag a node or emitter off the edge, you’ll be able to scroll over. If you bring it back, the view will refocus. Also works if you add nodes consecutively. They’ll eventually march off screen in a straight line, after which you can scroll back and forth.
Did not know that. Thank you!
How about a user switchable path. You can tap a path arrow to lock it so it is always the active/chosen path. You can switch it with MIDI events as well.
Scenes that can be chained/organized (play this twice then that...).
I love this app.
I must say the suggestions for switching nodes and nodes with internal logic seem great to me. If some of these were “instantaneous” switches and their “inner logic” included counters, then song structures could be created as extensions of the basic network programming. No need for scenes as an added layer!
yeah midi mappable triggers for the emitters, but also able to assign the emitters to another type of sequencer node so that the emitters can be sequenced internally and timed in bars/measures etc
ditto
(To detour the thread for a moment....)
Such a voice that we forget she was the drummer.