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 that this is a democracy but I'd vote no on adding an arpeggiators if it were.
There are plenty of great arps to point ChordBud at. Would rather see efforts focused on making ChordBud the best chord progression app instead of a kitchen sink app. /my 2 non-democratic cents.
Can I voice chords anyway that I like? Inversions, 4 note, 5 note, 6 note stacked etc?
For example, a pretty standard voicing would be an inverted ii7 where you dropped the 5th.
Also, do you support tension notes. #5, b9, etc
@cemolcay : Yes, Exactly! Especially since there is a paucity of guitar strumming apps on iOS a la the hardware Yamaha Motif series.
I'm considering adding chord inversions. My music theory library: https://github.com/cemolcay/MusicTheory already does that. I just need a clean UX idea that fits into ChordBud's "super easy to use" thing.
Maybe, in the chord input grid, if you long press a chord, I will show a sliding menu with all inversion options in it. I already have that idea in my mind, and created that iOS control for that: https://github.com/cemolcay/DragMenuPicker
But not implemented on ChordBud yet. What do you think?
@syrupcore thanks a lot for your ideas, that was just what I need to make ChordBud better for you
Also, yes, I agree with you that there are lot of great apps does arp better. I always had in my mind that make apps play well with other apps and the current stack of hardware/software people already use, not inventing the wheel again
@cemolcay another purchased-support-customer here! Excited to this develop! I agree with @syrupcore re: arp.
The app crashes if I try to select all midi channels. Also, my midi channels don’t line up. Channel 1 goes out to 2 in the destination app’s input and 2 to 3, etc etc. Could I be doing something wrong? On a 2017 iPad 9.7 on iOS 11.1.1.
Have you tried thumbjam's strum mode? It's in the arpeggiator. Think you have to select 'Quantize Only' as the type. Then the spacing can be adjusted between 0 and 100 seconds. I haven't tried it but I think TJ works as a MIDI effect in AB3. If so, you should be able to go ChordBud->TJ->destination instrument. That wont fix the voicing though!
Noted, thanks. Gonna fix it on the next release, thanks for your support!
Quality many thanks looking forward to the update, will let you know how it goes.
I say it’s wonderfully simple and all of the suggestions are worthwhile. I would add as a UI feedback highlighting the selected chord in the timeline so I know it’s selected for me to move / resize it. Also, perhaps add a circle outline with a dot (like a target) as a handle on either end for resizing. It does well know but I think an area for the user to aim at would be nice. As a further suggestion have the chords auto ripple edit (like film editors), or at least have the chord you have selected “move to the front” if behind another chord so it can be moved and resized.
Great start, and I laud you for time signatures other than 4/4!!!!!
Chord substitutions, inventions, and octave shifting would be invaluable!
I’m available for beta testing (already purchased you app
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@cemolcay gotta love a chord app and this is a good addition to what’s out there
Some observations and suggestions:
MIDI panic button
I’m getting an issue that adding chords doesn’t update the playback, have to stop and start to hear the new additions
Thanks for listening!
Just got this and started to work in BM 3! Would love to beta test for you! I used the preview chords to record into BM3 to record patterns. That way I can stay in scale and mode!
I guess this doesn’t have MIDI in for triggering the chords by foot controller or any other MIDI notes? I would like to have that added if possible.
@cemolcay Looking forward to playing with this. Also enjoyed the thread (hadn't read it before now). What a hothouse of development research
Good luck!
Great app for progressions, hopefully the midi hit and miss will get sorted as it’s very limited on what it seems to work with at present.
That sounds perfect.
I was a little perplexed trying to get the Midi out working, but find it works pretty good with AU mode synths. I think it is because the connections get made for you, or something along that line.
Hey eveyrone, thank you very much for your valuable comments. I'm making a roadmap and going to add/fix all your requests in the next few updates.
These are will be in this week's update.
Then I continue to work on more advanced features on timetable editing and chord input grid, like chord inversions etc.
PM me if you want me to add you to testflight.
It would be nice to see AB3 midi as well.
Keep up the good work!
Excellent news on all the needed updates coming this app will soon be smoking for these chords.
I made a quick video of ChordBud driving the FM Player: Classic DX app.
The iPad screen recording feature has the audio slightly out of sync . ¯_(ツ)_/¯
@cemolcay thanks for your comments, great that you are listening to your users
One more thing that may be useful: some kind of preview / audition button, hold down the ‘function key’ to preview individual chords within the chord picker, also might be helpful if you could play chords this way in the timeline too, valuable feedback to allow you to build the progression.
@analog_matt this is amazing, thank you!
@Artefact2001 there is a edit/preview toggle button (pencil shape / music note shape) on the track editor's navigation bar which kind of does that. You can listen the chords/notes if you press them in the preview mode (button turns music note shape), and you can add them to timetable on edit mode (button turns pencil shape).
Is there any chance of a step by step tutorial for this? I'm having a few problems, listed below, which are baffling me, especially since others here seem to be having no trouble getting it to work.
(I'm on an iPad Air 2 running iOS 11.1.1 and an iPhone 6S ditto, both working fine with other apps.)
So here are the problems I've had (the first one being the most serious since
I can't get any sound out of it. I've set up the MIDI out channel on Chordbud and the MIDI in channel on the intended receiving app in the obvious way - using a range of apps in case that would make any difference (most recently FM4 and SynthMaster Player), with no audible results.
No playhead indicator and no way to even send the invisible playhead back to zero.
The edit/play button seems to appear only occasionally (and when it does appear, it still doesn't make any difference).
The 'Chord Progression' section, which appears both independently at the top level of the app and again inside Settings, also doesn't produce any sounds (though it appears to have a Play button - which much of the time doesn't respond to touch).
No detailed user guide. The in-app tutorial would be sufficient if everything worked as expected, but since it doesn't, it isn't: I assume I am missing some basic point but having explored, I think, every corner of the app, I can't work out what it is.
A solution would be fantastic (as would a step-by-step video). Thanks a lot!
Hey everyone, new version 1.0.2 is out!
It has Ableton Link support and fixes a lot of annoying bugs.
New updates are on the way based on your comments.
Playhead is coming in a couple of days as well as chord inversions and more advanced editing on timetable.
Good stuff. Glad to see this evolving so quickly...
@cemolcay does your app have a key remapping ability from an external/internal keyboard? Ie like midiflow scales
No actually, but I could add an external midi keyboard mapping engine in the future, it is a good idea.