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.
FM PLAYER - Final Update Demo Available for FREE on Thursday 7th Dec 2017
Ok so this is the final release version and it will be in the App Store for 100% Free from the 7th Dec 2017.
When I'm playing this I still can't believe its free.
Now also with more than 50 presets with some by Red Sky Lullaby
Comments
Can’t wait. Sounds so smooth.
cool beans indeed @thesoundtestroom
This app is fantastic. The sampling is so rich and full - it sounds beautiful.
Great job, @analog_matt
What's the download size?
Does it work as an AUv3 too?
Thanks everyone!
@Samu - download size: I started with over a 1 gigabyte, and paired down some unnecessary velocity layers in some of the sounds, and applied some lossless compression. So, you have a One-Gigabyte library taking up only about 300mb!
AUv3- Eventually, hope to make an AUv3 version. I've been recording FM Synths for over a year now. And, eventually, hope to use all those recordings in a massive Pro app. But, that would be sometime next year, and probably a paid upgrade. In the meantime, this is an excellent app for those that want near spot-on DX7 sounds for live playing, or, other fun music-making endeavors.
Really looking forward (and to paying you for the upgrade in 2018
)
Hell yeah @analog_matt - I would absolutely pay for an upgrade to AUv3 and more sounds.
This thing is truly a beauty - the Synthmaster Player of DX7 sounds
Yes, it’s one of those you just wan to play....lots and lots
Counting down the days here.
I love the part from 8 minutes on on where you sing "Bring back the 80s!"
Thanks for all you do.
And how fortuitous that you chose to demonstrate the sustain pedal (at the end of the video) on the one DX7 bell preset that has endless sustain, the BellWahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. That's one of those sounds that shows how marvelous the DX7 really was
DX7 Danger Zone bass, nuff said. We’ve had to wait too long for this preset to be available on iOS.
Roger that, Maverick- I will come up with a special prize for the first person to post a video of themselves playing the Top Gun theme with this app!
Thanks so much, it means a lot!
Thank you, you're awesome!
I spent today re-recording the main Electric Piano sounds with twice as many velocity layers:
DX7 E Piano 1
DX7II Full Tines
The app store version of those EPs will have twice the dynamic response of the beta- Creating a very realistic playing experience with a MIDI keyboard.
I can’t wait? I’m so glad I got my iPad Air1 back now!
I want to pay money for an AU version
I can’t get the guitar tone close enough. I’m a stickler.
Matt, hows it going with Audiokit supporting creating AUv3 instruments. Are we there yet?
@analog_matt : Some of us us IPad Pro Guys would love to see a “Pro” 1 gig version with the extra velocity layers! Sounds great as is though!
Yes, AK code works with AUv3 now. Though, there are a few things to keep in mind.
That's awesome! Only 1 gig? I was hoping to make something bigger!
I'm not sure if that's ever going to work, since neither Swift nor Objective-C are realtime-safe languages. I.e. their implementation is full of locking code that could lead to underruns, clicks, pops and stutters. The actual synth/MIDI handling parts of an AUv3 (or any audio app for that matter) should always be written in realtime-safe languages like C and C++.
But then again, learning C is one of the most useful things any programmer can do.
Agreed.
On one hand, for the casual person reading this, C can be very difficult to learn. It may not be for the average person or hobby coder that just wants to develop music apps for fun. i.e. Things that are fundamentally understood by many developers on this board, like C-style pointers, can be daunting enough to make a normal person give up learning to code... And cause rooms full of freshman CS students to change their major.
Oh yes.. absolutely. But problems caused by languages that are not lock-free are ridiculously hard to solve, even for hardened code veterans. So it’s probably better to get it right from the get-go.
Pointers, while admittedly abstract at first, are unfortunately a necessary code pattern and shouldn’t be harder to understand than object orientation. I’m not sure if there’s a way around such concepts if you want to make something meaningful.
It’s taking a long time but I guess we will eventually be able to create real-time audio apps completely in a high level language like Swift. The speed of CPU’s now and the clever optimisation compilers perform make it possible if the locking mechanisms can be sorted. Like probably quite a few people here I first started on the early home computers and delved into assembly language as that was the only way to get decent performance. So I’m now 50 years old and it might be possible in my lifetime before my brain gets even more confused
And apologies about derailing the thread. The synth sounds really nice, looking forward to trying it out.
FM Player is written in Swift. Once we release the source code, people will hopefully be surprised at how elegant and simple it is to write a fun little musical instrument app.
That is surprising to hear. I didn't know that Swift was that powerful. I looked at it a little and was thinking to try to learn some Swift mainly because it looked simple enough to get some basic things happening, but if you used it then I was clearly mistaken about how far you could go with Swift.
Now I have to ask, what are your thoughts on Pure Data? Is that a viable way to make an app that could perform up to standard and offer a decent level of complexity? I was worried it might run too slow or something, but I really haven't tried anything in it besides some basic tutorials.
I need to take a look at AudioKit too, as I think it may be similar to PD in some ways.
Swift is incredibly powerful. It's the new standard for App Development. At the last conference I attended, someone from Apple mentioned that over 90% of the apps in the App Store released in 2017 are written Swift. (It's the standard for everything except music apps
). Everyone from Instagram to Twitter is using Swift in their production code now.
The advantage of getting good with Swift- If you don't end up making apps for yourself, it's a skill you can use to get a high-paying job. There is a huge demand right now for Swift developers (in my part of the world, at least). But, that bubble could burst.
I have not used PureData. But, people seem to like it. There is a wrapper for PD that allows you to use it for iOS, Lib PD (https://github.com/libpd ) that has been used to make many popular apps.
There is a major fundamental difference:
AK is a framework for programming languages
PureData is its own programming language
You'll need to know a programming language that is natively used for Apple development (Objective-C or Swift) to use AudioKit. AudioKit is a collection of "helper methods" written to be used in those languages. These helper methods reduce the amount of code you need to write yourself. AudioKit provides pre-built classes for filters, effects, sound generators, and other useful tools that you can add to your apps with a couple of lines of code (as opposed to hundreds/thousands to make yourself). Plus, it has an active community of contributors and users.
Also, many "non-music" app developers use AudioKit because they want to add music, audio, and accessibility to their apps without learning complicated DSP algorithms themselves. (Like a builder who uses pre-built cabinets for a house, instead of constructing them themselves).
On the flipside, Per Bram's advice- For those serious about audio development at the upper echelon, there is no substitute for learning C & C++. Keep in mind that route is a journey that will take several years/decades to master. I'm daily humbled, baffled, and learning new things every day.