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.
Got a ginormous amount of drum loops, where should I put them?
So I got a shedload of loops from loop loft a couple of days ago with a huge discount.
Most of them are in 4 different formats: AIFF, REX2, RMX and WAV.
AIFF: I'm not sure if these are actually apple loops or just regular AIFF.
REX2: proprietary format for the REX player in reason but apparently unusable on iOS, right?
RMX: proprietary format similar to REX for a plugin called Stylus RMX, which unfortunately costs a whopping €300...
WAV: Not sure if these might be acidised or not but probably not.
So I downloaded all of these, which of course took ages to complete.
Then I copied just the WAV files into Audioshare, thinking it's the most common format with the best chances for compatibility with the various apps I may want to use them with. I wasn't aware of the possibility of AIFF being Apple loops that would be tempo adjustable in Garage Band. But I didn't intend to use GB anyways. The nice thing with having the loops in AudioShare is that they can be played as loops in the AUM file player with no importing or renaming etc. If only they would time-stretch. If I change the tempo it changes the pitch, unfortunately. So here's my humble request for @j_liljedahl to add time-stretching as an option to the file player in AUM and AS. Or maybe to build a separate loop player that uses the same storage so one doesn't have to bother with importing etc...
In the mean time I discovered blocs wave works pretty well for playing the loops in different tempos but it's a hassle importing everything.
So I wonder what other people would recommend as alternatives? BM3 maybe? Or iMPC Pro1/2?
My purpose for the loops right now is to play along to them, practicing stuff, so not really using them to build songs. Although I may want to do that at some point. But that's why I really don't want to go through the importing and much prefer the AS/AUM file player solution.
So, any recommendations for alternatives?
Comments
AudioStretch comes to mind.
http://audiob.us/get/891/AudioStretch
...into your tracks!
Right, I actually bought that some time ago. Will try it out with these. Thanks!
AudioStretch or Twisted Waves
Bm3
Group the Loop has automated timestretch with Ableton Link and it plays well with AUM and Audioshare. Bit like Bloc Waves but a different set of features such as MIDI control, which BW doesn't have (it's an excellent all-around looper). I wouldn't know how to import samples as a group rather than individually though.
+1 on timestretch in AUM fileplayer, would be outstanding!
Thanks for the info about Group the Loop. I did not know its capabilities.
Okay, I really don’t like audiostretch.
Launchpad
What’s your DAW out of interest? Do you have BM3?
Maybe BeatMaker 2 or a DJ app?
I'll give that a go, thanks.
I have BM3, Auria Pro, Cubasis, Gadget, Caustic, iMPC Pro (1) but I mainly like to use AUM for live playing with no sequencer. I haven't really figured out BM3 but I did get one of the loops in there. It wouldn't loop unless I recorded the loop into the sequencer, though, so that's not what I'm after. I was expecting to be able to just hit the pad once and have a loop going until I hit the pad again. I couldn't find a way to get this latching behaviour. Quite possible it's hidden somewhere in there. The app is still pretty mysterious to me...
Hmm, yes, maybe I should try BM2 and Traktor DJ.
Any of the DAWs should be able to do it, but it does seem like overkill since it seems you just want to stitch together some backing tracks where you can change the tempo without changing pitch.
You may already know that time-stretching algorithms vary, and the further you stretch, the more the sound will be affected (effected?). Also know that stretched files sound better when sped up than slowed down. Depending on the BPM of your loops, you might want to slice some of them up, then resave at a slower tempo.
Thanks for all your great suggestions everyone!
Launchpad turns out to be pretty cool for this. Just loaded up an empty project and filled it up with 90bpm drum loops. The time stretching is pretty good quality as long as it’s not too extreme. Import is very straight forward and can be done in batches, so that’s another plus.
Glad you found something that works well for you. If you haven't already, look into the Blocs Wave integration for slicing up/remixing your loops.
And how about a way to manage these loops and other samples? Even on the desktop, it’s far from a solved problem. But it could be really cool if an iOS device could make it easier to find what you need.
Of course, storage is a big issue. But it might even be a case for some cloud storage.
So, by any chance, is there an iOS app to manage samples and loops?
I’m leaning towards BM3 as my sample library (currently Audioshare). Files app integration, Open In, tagging, folder structure.
+1 on the request to @j_liljedahl for adding time-stretching as an option to the file player in AUM and AS!! I ran into this the other day and would have LOVED for this solution to exist!!
Just posted on the Kymatica forum about this. I hope @j_liljedahl will see it.
http://kymatica.com/forum/index.php/topic,239.0.html
Cool! It looks like @j_liljedahl hasn’t replied though. ☹️ I was reading some of the posts on this topic and saw the part about AudioShare being able to read the bpm in the file name and calculate the number of beats. I would even be fine with AUM reading the bpm in the file name and then stretching the file to match project tempo (without changing pitch). It would sure be a life saver!!
I've seen your posts but was out of office during the holidays.
I will investigate if there's any options for this in the future.
BTW, also the FilePlayer in AUM does look for the BPM in the filename to calculate the number of beats in the file, and adjusts playback speed to have the file synchronized (if the Sync toggle is enabled, obviously).