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.
Experience DSP Spikes? IOS 11.2.2
I recently upgraded to IOS 11.2.2. I am running a simple test. Using two channels in AUM which includes Inputs as Sunrizer and Beathawk. I have one effect on each which includes EOS2 and Audio Reverb and output = headphones. When I play live I get DSP Spikes. Random Jumps to 123% and shows in red. I have the latest Gen IPAD (non Pro) and DSP is average idling at 32% except for Spike. I don't think I am pushing the IPAD at all.
Could it be the IOS 11.2.2? don't recall it doing it before upgrade. Any suggestions on what could be causing these DSP Spikes?
What is your experience?
Thank you!
Comments
I only get spikes when I swipe between apps. Can you try that?
If that’s the case we should gather a momentum and try and sort it out. My both iPads hover at around 20 - 30% at all times apart from when there’s heavier graphics involved.
@Michael @j_liljedahl @brambos @sonosaurus could you comment on this? I know stMichaels is talking about AUM but the same thing is happening to me in Audiobus. It’s such a shame because the extremely capable pro 10.5 is reduced to air 2 performance because of this.
Is this indeed iOS 11 problem or ca something be done on the app level?
Also @SecretBaseDesign
Are the spikes audible, or just visible on the CPU display?
Yes they are. The usual fine latency crackles. The more you swipe the worse they get. I find AUMs right hand sidebar particularly bad.
Perhaps someone more experienced with the lower level intricacies of iOS can chime in, but the CoreAudio signal chain is already on an extra-high priority thread managed on a system level.
It sounds like iOS is giving priority to visual rendering over audio rendering. However, this would go against every multimedia convention I know. Most services will always prioritize audio over video since audio breakups are much more annoying to the human senses than visual degradation (e.g. video streaming services will always first turn down video quality if this can ensure a continuous audio stream).
If this doesn't impact games, then perhaps moving the UI to OpenGL could potentially solve it, but that's more a hypothetical statement than a real solution. It would be like 3D printing a house: unneccessarily complicated, time-consuming and likely not resulting in a better product for the end-user. And that's assuming the CALayer/CoreAnimation framework isn't already based on OpenGL under the surface (I'm not sure?).
I’ve noticed this issue. Changes in the UI cause issues with sound. AUM slows down if it’s playing and I do anything with the UI, even if there is something very simple going on in AUM. I think this started with later versions of iOS 10 or with iOS 11. I thought it was specific to certain apps but apparently not from what I’ve seen recently.
I’ve heard of some users seeing this issue. As Bram says, audio has priority over UI, so UI activity should not affect audio performance. Unless one or more of the currently running audio apps have broken the golden rules of what’s allowed in the audio thread.. and unless iOS itself has bugs regarding thread priorities and CPU frequency scaling... unfortunately both seems quite likely, especially the first.
OK, so how does one find out what app is causing it? I've noticed swiping to and from dubfilter creates spikes. I mean, swipe spikes are there anyway but as mentioned above things like menus seem to make it worse, like the right hand drawer in Aum but also opening preset browser in ToneStack.
I haven't got a clue what's behind but I'm more than happy to be a Guinea pig.
Have an issue in AUM on iPhone 7 Plus but only with Audio Damage Dubstation 2. I have cpu spikes and audio crackles with that AU depending on its UI state : average cpu goes from 80% with spikes over 100% and audio crackles with UI closed, to stable 30% and perfect audio with UI opened, in a project with several AU effects, Loopy iaa, and AUM bus routings. What I do is opening Dubstation 2 and glide it in a corner « out » of AUM UI, this let me space to work properly. I’ve sent two mails to Audio damage support, they never answered. My issue seems to confirm there is an issue with graphics priority over audio, this is what I’ve thinked too.
You could try to open Eos 2 UI and see if cpu/audio get better. I know it should be inverse and is counterintuitive but it has worked in my case.
On this pic Dubstation 2 is opened and glided in lower right corner cpu is 33% and audio is stable:
This one is same project with Dubstation 2 UI closed, 87% cpu and audio crackles :
I’m not surprised. In fact I definitely had them on iOS 10 just now they seemed to be somewhat more pronounced.
I was expecting my Pro 10.5 to completely outclass my air 2 but with the way things are going I can see myself selling it as the gain in multiapp scenarios is marginal.
i was under the impression that this is something that's always been the case?
i got an ipad 5th gen a few months back and was pretty disappointed when i realised i could only get 3-4 apps running without audio crunches when switching between them. sometimes switching causes sync loss too. the only way around for me is to use the home button and then tap the icon of the app i want to open. i can get a few more running without crackles this way. must to put the zap on the cpu to load up an different ui so quickly
That’s really interesting. Could that mean that it is the apps rather than the system that is causing it?
i think it's probably the os imho. who knows? i was quite curious about the resource hit with ios apps, so i checked on my pc in task manager to see if it was any different- when i switched between programs i had open, i got a really big cpu spike too. my pc is a quadcore. they must just allocate resource priorities differently. but what was said earlier seems to make the most sense tho because audio glitches are a lot more annoying than visual ones. don't know why it's like that. i'd be happier with voice stealing like with digital hardware
aren't you impressed with your pro? it must be better than an air2? i saw one in cash converters for 500 quid. so nearly bought it
It was marginally better on iOS 10.3.3.
Then because of latency issues in Gadget and Samplr I decided to go 11 and if it didn’t work out I thought I’d give myself a break from iOS. It’s not gonna happen really as I’m still keeping my still very capable air 2.
Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t disastrous but with my AB preset it doesn’t make such a big difference to justify the £250 extra I’ve paid. I’m selling mine now for £500. I’ll put it on local gumtree which will likely work. If not, eBay never fails but 10% goes to the middle man ):
Exactly. We’ve had this conversation recently. In fact there was that issue with AB2. To be honest I wouldn’t mind if Audiobus looked like windows 2000 as long as audio worked fine.
It's a pity that an Audio Geekbench app wasn't available for testing audio plus routines etc.
Random cpu spikes here as well with AUM.
Since ios 11 I've stopped using IAA because of the switching issue.
Then since the last 2 ios updates these random cpu spikes... Tried to figure out if it's a particular AUi or AUfx, but it seems random. Not even pushing it - few lightweight AU, cpu is around 30-40% and sometimes without any interaction with the iPad.
With all these tools available it feels like my iPad had never been so useful, but on the other hand it's unreliable to a degree where it stops being fun. Like ios8 was back in its time with midi and sync issues.
I was hoping that these problems were due to my aging iPad, but it seems the new gen pro's have them too... eh..
Edit: Air2 ios latest
OT:
Anyone knows if a new 10.5 iPad Pro still comes with iOS 10 pre installed? Some old stock maybe available in the UK?
yeah, mine pretty happy with my pad when i'm realistic about stuff i can do with it. they are very capable, like you say.
your pro should sell on gumtree for £500-sold my last ipad there within an hour. had to unlist it straight away to stop people texting. think i'm just going to stay on 11.1 unless i hear glowing review about further updates
When DSP spikes it is definitely audible.
I am still contemplating going full scope with IOS vs a DAW. My son and I are troubleshooting the issue and see if we can test different things.
Goal: I personally would like to record a section of a song via audio, yet don't feel confident to pursue a piece without being interrupted and having to do it over again ( I guess good practise)
I can confirm I get this behavior when no GUI for Instruments are open just the AUM and I still get a spike now and then. Update: Got three spikes in the last 10 minutes.
Update: The most interesting thing just happened..... I got another DSP Spike and this time the Strings sound being generated from Beathawk is just stuck in AUM, except when I move it out of the chain and need to close and reopen for the stuck notes to go away. While the notes are stuck and I am not playing on keyboard the DSP is at 40%.
I just feel this is a hit and miss to expand my IOS endeavor, yet I love these Apps on IOS.
Strange indeed....
I got it off eBay for £470 after a very indifferently made bid. The selle wrote it was sealed and never used by which I understood it would be an open box with iPad wrapped up in plastic. It turned out to be completely sealed with 10.3.3.
It was a massive stroke of luck but since I’ve spent the last two months fiddling with trying to find the most suitable Audiobus preset I realised that I’m verging on addiction to playing with connecting apps as opposed to actually making music. Not really, but music to fiddling ratio standing at 30 to 70 I’ve decided that the less is more and reminded myself what a beast Air 2 seemed to be only 2 years ago. There’s this thing of hearing others being able to run x instances of model 15 and the search for gold at the end of the rainbow is too hard to resist.
Sometimes one needs that kind of nudge from technology to realise certain things. I’m not just an ‘iPad musician’ and not only an electronic musician either so the choice is easy really. iPad is still without a doubt an amazing tool and will definitely get better with time but what if time is the only thing that’s missing?
Just got an email from eBay with £3 seller fee offer just for today. The universe is conspiring with me to sell it.
I was using auria to mix a song yesterday and suddenly it became very non responsive, I had ny compressor on bass, eos2 as a plate send, and no limits on output - I noticed that cpu was reading 180% there, I never had that happen before. Deleted eos2 and back to 60% (went with a plate impulse instead). Ny compressor became old timer instead. I like no limits so it's still there but latency has to be at 512 for it to work.
I think for now, with my air1, if I am working in any app it will just be native stuff, no au or iaa for me. Plenty of available effects in auria to use. I feel like ios has plateaued right now (not just for music), and I am not feeling excited about buying another iPad. The jump from ipad2 to air was massive and I was frustrated at the time with using a computer, so the iPad was a breath of fresh air, but now that I am in a different spot I'm feeling different about it.
Anyway, I am not sure if that's the same issue that is the subject of the thread but the cpu spike was new for me.
I’m on a brand new iPad Pro 2017 model and I was so surprised how few music apps I could run simultaneously before I started getting CPU spikes, which like everyone else seem to be caused by graphics. I’d like to find some kind of objective testing method to determine the actual performance loss. My old iPad 2 is only marginally less capable with nearly th same music apps so something is definitely amiss.
I'd noticed this spiking when switching apps after updating to 11 as well. Not sure how prominent it was on 10.
Turning off motion helps a bit, using just AUv3 is the way forward as it's mainly an IAA issue (although AUs can spike when bypassing and re-engaging). Affects midi timing too a bit with IAA sometimes.
Weird thing is sometimes I jump and there's no spike, so why not at all times? Pro 12.9 2017 11.2.1
@Cambot @soundshaper I’m glad this thread is not sinking into nothingness. Thanks for the bump.
From my layman’s angle I’d say that if those CPU spikes reduce a pro 10.5 that on paper is twice as powerful as air 2 to close to equality, then the CPU hit must be quite high. At this rate even the next generation machines will have issues. So no matter how much money you throw at Apple the problem will persist until it’s resolved by software and not hardware intervention.
I think that's the correct conclusion here. These spikes don't say much about how fast your iPad is; even the fastest supercar stands still when it's waiting for a red light. And that's exactly what seems to be happening here: the super fast audio render thread is halted, waiting for some slow (graphics or UI?) process to finish.
So do the devs get after Apple about this? Are they aware of this issue?