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.
What app have you brushed the dust off of, this christmas?
‘Tis the time of year to tolerate disrupted working patterns, place bets at the bookies for which famous people will die (if there’s any left after 2016), wonder why I bought so much alcohol and even consider starting the day with it even though I drink far less than I used to, and eat leftovers for several days more. In between all this fussing and sweeping and putting away and abnormal tidiness, there must be the occasional minute to rediscover an app or two that has languished under sedimentary layers of digital dust through no fault of its own other than simply “too many apps”.
A good app, an app you know is good, an app you bought for a reason, an app which shouldn’t have been forgotten. Now you’re waking it up and giving it a shake and possibly even reading some more of the manual and learning a bit of slickness about it. A deserving app that you owe a bit more time and dedication than you’ve shown thus far. Rescued from the sedimentary layers of geology. An app that you knew was a gem all along. It just got pushed to one side, not its own fault for being so polite, they also serve who sit and wait. Now is the time for a booster injection of understanding. A couple of steps ahead compared to how it was before this christmas confusion.
Comments
For me: iWavestation. I really really really like this app. I really like the concept. I’m going through the manual again, and although I understood it fine before, I’m very motivated all over again.
Launchpad/Blocs. Thanks to the new Launchkey that arrived at Christmas, these have taken on a new major role in my music making.
All my other apps, desktop stuff will be employed in making loops and samples to be fed into these, where they will be jammed live and recorded.
That's cool. So when you jam live, do you just launch loops or are you using the keys (and looping whatever you are playing with the keys)?
Launchkey
Wish they made a pro version and stayed with this one.
Such an amazing app.
Yeah I’m surprised Launchkey doesn’t get discussed much. Very musical app. Like with all Novation products though, it has annoying limitations that could have been totally avoided.
Annoying thing is it doesn’t work with their current range (mk2) keyboards. So very outdated.
Still learning to get the setup right, but I load everything in AUM, put a few rhythmic bits in Launchpad, and boost these with Rozeta triggered apps for drums and basslines.
I then load up a couple of synths and play these live over the top.
The goal is to be able to trigger pads in Launchpad with the Launchkey hardware pads, tweak synth patches with its knobs and play synths with the keys.
Seems to be getting a bit mixed up though, so pads are also triggering synth notes, and a bit of other madness. I’ve followed Jakobs vid but not quite there yet.
Definite potential for a really good live performance setup though.
I’d add another new rediscovery: Animoog. I’m also finding Kauldron a really solid, good sounding synth.
I am still keeping my Launchkey 49(61)
I say that because I fried the first one and the guts are from a 61 I put in there. That is what shows on the midi selection area.
I have faith that Novation have a master plan and all of the apps are en route to master plan........one can dream
For me it’s Audulus 3. The app can do amazing things and there are many free patches that can do things which would be an app unto themselves. Nevertheless, the app is a visual programming language and to get the most out of it you need to spend regular and consistent time with it. I have definitely received my money’s worth yet I know spending more time with it would yield even more benefits. My New Year’s resolution will be to try to program with Audulus 3 at least three times per week.
GarageBand—as most of you know, I use my iPhone exclusively. I recently (after years of dismissal), came to realize that it is the best DAW currently available for iPhone setups. Sure, I would prefer to use Cubasis, but it (as well as other great DAWs) doesn’t exist on iPhone. That said, MultiTrack DAW, my previous iPhone DAW of choice, is being retired.
Kaspar. Never really realized how powerful it was until now. Phosphor 2 as well. I used to use it a lot as it was my first synth on iOS
IVoxel. I was inspired to fire it up by your earlier discussion of working with it.
I noticed (and I’ve got audulus on macOS as well as iOS) that the more patching I do, the less tunework I do. I’m now of the mind to use audulus more or less as a box of “somebody else’s presets” and treat them as software eurorack panels. That way I’d treat it as a non-financially-harmful modular, but with the intent to use it musically. To be perfectly frank (sidebottom) though, every time I’ve opened Audulus in the past year or so I experience a wave of apathetic tiredness – thinking that there’s too much to do. I must force myself to use presets more than I do, just to get the higher level stuff done.
Try making a voxel – it really is a useful step forward from plain live vocoding.
Patterning.
I was using that earlier funnily enough. Never been put away, that one.
I've come to the conclusion that there are a few apps I am mostly in charge of, know what they can do, can get around in to my satisfaction/requirements (Auria,Beathawk, DM1, Gadget, Egoist etc) and then a slew of secondaries which are by no means secondaries it's just that I've not put enough time in to become comfortable with them or they're just too clever for my skill level/understanding/general IQ etc. Patterning is sort in this second group, but I must say it always feels 'welcoming' and unlike, say, Sector, I get what's going on. I also find the song mode very good and this encourages me, plus I love the idea of finding the odd kindred spirit in the cloud kits, BUT STILL there's all sorts of songs and things waiting in there I've yet to dig out....
There are quite a few patches that people have made that can be useful for music. I also see it as a way to learn more about synthesis in general which I enjoy learning about via Audulus.