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
I really like the new folders when browsing inside *.zip files.
The app also already does some form of check on the files if they are compatible or not so an option to hide those 'unsupported'(or those with checksum errors) files automagically would be very handy.
Sounds like you need to learn more about BM3
Use the + sign to create new banks - each one is a track and load Dixie as an AU on each track. From there you can copy MIDI across tracks or use AU MIDI (Rozeta) to drive several tracks etc., almost anything is possible.
I haven't been using BM3 or any app much due to working and learning Ableton Live recently. About adding more AU on each track, that's all very well but can you detune the voices to get them sounding rich with a chorus effect. I would like the rich unison voice there while programming sounds on Dixie.
Is it possible to export sysex files from KQ Dixie ? Maybe if the dev adds an "Open in" into his app, this would allow to export the sysex to Buddy Fm app and then to Volca Fm?
You can detune voices but this is FM synthesis so you need to alter frequencies as the relationship in the operators can change tuning and sound quite drastically. One other way is to sample into BM3 then simply detune your samples. Alternatively try adding Chorus FX
Or you could save some processor by using FAC Chorus as an AU effect.
+1. Great app, by the way
. So many presets to play with... 
@RyoutaKira
Thanks for a great app
is it possible you could add midi learn to the main app? This would make it an even better controller for DX7 hardware. i don't think there is a way to do this currently with external hardware.
This doesn't work properly with Audiobus 2. You can select it as an input unit but whatever you select as an output unit (Audioshare for example), it doesn't show up in Audiobus 2 toolbar when Dixie is open so can't record. All other input units work fine in this regard so must be a problem with Dixie?
I used it with MIDI and audio in AudioBus 3 - all good.
Has anyone tried with Audiobus 2? Is it supposed to work?
In App Store it just says "Audiobus compatible" but no mention about the version..
Is it crazy of me to have not purchased this yet because I’m afraid of drowning in the sheer number of presets available?
Tested in AB2 and can confirm transport controls not showing but does still record if you leave AB set record then go back into the app. Or upgrade to AB3 if you can
There it is right there John Carpenter 80’s soundtrack, great stuff
I haven't seen this mentioned here and may be common knowledge already but if you search the web there is a pdf floating around of the book "FM Theory and Practice By Musicians for Musicians", a Yamaha book from 1986 written by the man who invented FM synthesis trying to explain FM theory with examples and patches. Seems really good so far. It is recommended to have an "X" synth on hand to try out and hear the patches that are explained in the book so I can use it with KQ Dixie to try and understand FM theory.
Thanks
You are Nancy Sinatra and I claim my etc etc.
@thesoundtestroom @JohnnyGoodyear Ha cheers guys
I wondered that too - that feature would need to be added. For the time being (and given that it’s a $4 app), i’m OK with the idea of just using KQ Dixie to identify cool patches, and then making a note of where they are in a notepad app. Of course, if you want to edit the patch and re-save, you can’t do that (yet).
I find it a little annoying that the use of presets is taboo in music making, especially on something with the library and sonic expansiveness of a DX7. The patches are just building blocks. Raw synth tones are abrasive and generally need further processing and effects to sound desirable in a mix.
Don’t we already take standardized noises or sound creations and apply them to make music. Isn’t the noise of a sawtooth wave kind of an established “preset”, but then we do other things to it to make music? What about the sound of a middle C note on a Steinway grand piano? Is that a preset?
Like someone said above, the DX7 and the early samplers (Fairlight) were really the first time you could hit a key on stage and hear approximations of exotic or cumbersome instruments you didn’t actually have with you. A lot of those approximations were bad, but just like as happened with the 303, 808, and 909, they became sounds that were appreciated in their own right.
It will happen. I wasn’t going to get it but...
No need to panic. Just save your favourites to the AU folder and you’re all set.
well, they are kind of a curse... I remember browsing 15k of them to select some to upload to a Yamaha DX200 groovebox which had the 'DX-7 on a card' soundmodule
Still have a TX-7 around, so I'm kind of tempted.
I feel similarly. I might be crazy too.
I can easily waste countless hours scrolling through presets, and that's just on a synth with a couple of hundred presets. The huge size of the DX7 preset library is even more daunting because we're talking 10s of 1000s of presets. Let's say there's 50,000 of them. What if 49,900 of them are variations on THAT electric piano patch - wouldn't want to waste time on those. It'd be nice if there was some kind of search engine/filter that gets me only the Board of Canada sounds, Brian Eno sounds, and other non-stereotypical DX sounds.
OTOH, some of the Dixie sounds demoed so far by Trueyorky and Doug are pretty nice, and the possibility of using it as a sort of editor and/or librarian for Volca FM - though apparently with limitations, even with the workarounds - are drawing my interest.
With digital synthesisers which have digital control systems, there must be a certain definite and countable amount of possible patches, and no more than that (whatever that number is). If the number of existing patches of a synth is more than that aforementioned number, there must therefore be definite verifiable duplicates in there. I wonder how many duplicate patches there are under different names (and by extension, I wonder how many duplicate patches there are with exactly the same name).
Incidentally, what is the quality control of this huge mine of patches that everybody is referring to in this thread? Is every one a crafted gem, or is it more likely to be the product of sessions with randomiser programs whereby if it makes a sound at all, it’s in. Never mind the quality, feel the width.
Needs random
Digging in to the .zips I posted page one, I can report many duplicates or near duplicates, and certainly not all are crafted gems, but none seem to fit the “if it makes a sound at all its in” scenario...all the patches I’ve tested (probably .003%
) seem to be imbued with intent, (yes I’m aware of the intentional fallacy) or purpose for someone, somewhere, at some time in the past 30 or so years...many many of them are filed under a designer’s name, but that’s neither here nor there
Yep. I’m actually looking for sounds that seem as if no human had anything to do with
Agreed. Either hide or just don’t Import unsupported files. Otherwise this app is absolutely brilliant!
Dixie isn’t too bad to program, and double tapping envelopes etc Makes them editable with touch...
Ohhhhh mannnnn this is gonna eat too much time bahahahahaha!
Plus running thru bm3/AU effects gee whiz Wally...
FAC Chorus!
I find myself double tapping knobs and stuff to bring up the LFO or envelope like in Amazing Noise or Apesoft. How awesome would that be?