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
Thanks @NTKK I'll be on the lookout for that email. -Niki
Hey @Samu & @Fruitbat1919 , I'm interested to know what your ideal setup and workflow would be with files.app support. For example: which apps you'd use. I've done a little research on the files app and to me, it seems like the workflow would be similar to using AudioCopy. You'd use it to move sounds between apps, etc. Looking forward to learning about how you create. Thanks in advance - Niki
We want to use it similarly but more freely to add sounds. And can we get support for MPC 2.1 Software program import? So we can import programs made on the desktop that would be the ultimate for me
Hi Niki,
To my mind iMPC2 has its advantages in quickly getting down ideas that I would then send to BM3 to play with further. I say ‘play with’, as I am firmly in the ‘making music for fun’ camp.
The reason I would then go to BM3 is to further add more complex arrangements and fx. The main reason I start anything off in iMPC2, is that I like many of the drums in the packs I’ve bought off AudioCopy, but it’s easy now with AU to bung a few tracks down too.
Once done, what I want to do is send all the individual sounds and tracks to BM3. I want to do it with the bare minimum of fuss and with as much choice as possible. I also want to save and back up each ‘song’ easily off my iPad (just in case). I must be able to do all this with no need for linking to a computer!
Saving: I make lots of small segments of musical ideas. These need saving and backing up to the cloud often. So ideally I would like automatic backup to the iCloud Drive and the option to save Song saves and individual stem folders to Dropbox. AudioCopy saves for stem folders is fine, but it must then be easy to send the whole folders or individual stems to other apps or the iCloud (and Dropbox). It’s about making everything easy, quick and painless as I spend way too long saving, sending and backing up files on iOS apps.
Exports: as above. Must be easy to send whole song stems, individual part stems or even just individual sound stems from a kit. If these were automatically always saved along with backups of each song to a folder in the Apple Files app, you’ve then made it so much easier to move them. StepPolyArp app has the option to save its files direct to the iCloud, which means it’s backed up too! On iPad folder is the way to go though, as I can use that when I have no internet access and then send them to the cloud later for off iPad backup
The above shows the typical small idea I would have in iMPC Pro 2. You can see by this that sending lots of individual parts anywhere is a pain and I would like it automated like you are trying to do with the Stems option, just I would like more choice where I can send them and save them.
I have been told that sending any parts to AudioCopy leaves a file in the main app that you are not able to delete - is this true? If so then using AudioCopy without computer access will make the app grow in size and use too much storage.
Hope you understood my babbling Niki. If you don’t understand something I’ve said or just need some clarification, just ask
Bat.
Just to add:
It’s about choice of moving stuff around within iOS that’s needed for many of us. We don’t have one big app that does it all like on a pc, so we use multiple apps to do specific tasks
Started to get into a few projects with impc pro2. Found a few bugs which i'll report @Retronyms (transfer impc pro project on Ipad Pro). Overall finding it good, the only real issue I have the song mode but maybe I'm not using it correctly.
Yep I’ve sent some bug reports. I have to say Niki is very helpful in trying to get the dev team aware of all issues.
What issues do you have with Song mode? Anything I can help with?
The main advantage of Files.app support would be to be able to access the files from other apps and avoid having to use a computer with iTunes or iFunBox or similar apps to do 'house-keeping' regarding files.
Adding Files.app/DocumentPicker support for Import & Export related functions would also give us freedom to choose where we want to keep our own files.
At it's simplest form we could do an 'export' from iMPC Pro 2 and keep the files inside iMPC Pro 2.
When we need to use those files in other apps we could simply use the 'DocumentPicker/Files.app' and 'browse' to iMPC Pro 2 and get the file(s).
Same would be for 'exporting' files from other apps that support standard iOS 'Action Sheet'(Open In...) we could simply put the files directly inside iMPC Pro 2's 'Documents' folder.
In short, the addition of making the iMPC Pro 2 'Documents' folder visible to the Files.app would give the users more freedom to shape their own personal work-flow. It would also make it easier to do 'backups' of the sessions without having to involve 'computers'. (For example copy the exported session to DropBox).
Give it a go!
Make the iMPC Pro 2 'Documents' folder visible to Files.app when running iOS11 and I bet many users will thank you. I know I will, with a review on the Swedish AppStore
/Samuel
If @Retronyms actually implemented sensible user feedback like this I might consider giving them my patronage again. Standing by with great interest and anticipation.
Ok my issue is that I can't seem to drag n drop sequences to the song list. What I find I have to do is copy a sequence if I want to make it longer than the seq loop i.e 4 bar loop into 12 bars means 3x of that seq. The up shot of this is that I have many more sequences than I actually need and if I want to tweak one i.e a verse I have to go into all of them and tweak them individually.
Yeah we could do with a merge function (if I’m understanding what you mean). Would be good to be able to merge some song sections together. As for drag and dropping sections, I just drag a new section back to where I need it. Agree could be more ease of making and editing sections.
In Mk1 MPC Pro you dragged the sequences from the pads to the song list order - was easy as pie, this is why I'm wondering if I'm not using it correctly
This puzzles me also.
Yeah having that back (forgot it was even there in the original Pro lol) would make it easier than cloning and moving.
I’m used to cloning and moving now, but it can be a pain and not as intuitive as drag and drop from a list. The list also has the bonus of not having to have multiple edits actually in the song - good call, we want that back!
I think the model for song building here is the Triggerstor from Tabletop, drag the pads around, duplicate the pads, lengthen the pads etc
Yeah pretty much. I can see the merit in both approaches, so having the list back would be helpful, but doubtful it’s an easy call to merge the two options.
@Fruitbat1919 Thank you so much for giving me a little insight into your workflow. Definitely helps put things in perspective.
What I've drawn from your response and also @Samu is that file.app support is all about choice and ease. What you would like (and correct me if I'm wrong) is to send any files/sounds directly to the files app from iMPC Pro 2 instead of sending them to AudioCopy first and then to the Files app from AudioCopy, saving time.
I've already added a feature request for for an option of stem export not to create a file within the app (and end up taking up a ton of space over time). I'm still talking with our devs about why files.app wasn't implemented and if/when it will be an option for iMPC Pro 2.
Thanks so much again for the feedback. Let me know if I missed any big points. -Niki
@Jose_Bee @Fruitbat1919 @Littlewoodg @JohnnyGoodyear The song mode in iMPC Pro 2 is different as you've been chatting about. The change was mainly influenced by our move to implement AU & Audio (also IAA) tracks. While I understand it's a hassle cloning/copying SEQs and moving them around. The Pro 2 song mode allows you to record longer .wav files and record them continuously through different SEQ (Hope that makes sense).
To help with the problem of having to tweak certain things in multiple SEQ's all of the mixers have a "change globally" option, but I think we could probably expand on global changes. -Niki
Almost correct. There would be no need to even 'send the files' since it would be possible to directly pull those files from the iMPC Pro 2 'Documents' folder. To clarify, enabling the 'Files.app support' would in practice make the same folder that is visible to 'iTunes' on the computer accessible to all apps on the iOS device using the standard iOS document picker and it would also enable 'management'(delete, rename or transfer to other device etc.) of those files using the Files.app. Super handy!
Yeah, but make that optional since it's a super handy way to do 're-sampling' (ie. convert a track to audio).
It could for example be used to render an AUv3 track to audio and thus save CPU.
Alternatively add an option to 'render pattern track to audio' for quick re-sampling.
Thanks, appreciate that!
I'm still trying to pin-down what makes iMPC Pro 'dive'(ie. crash) when trying to select an input for recording.
I'm using a Steinberg UR242 as my main audio-interface and iMPC Pro 2 is the only app that 'dives' when I try to select an Input! Also the 'sampler' is missing an input selector (ie. which input to use for sampling) and input-monitoring! (that feature is present when recording an audio-track and it would be a super handy feature have in the sampler too).
Cheers!
/Samuel
@Retronyms Let me chime in that supporting Apple’s files app is consistent with Я design ethics.
+1
I'm honestly quite impressed by iOS GarageBand and it's Files.app integration so It would a real blast to see iMPC Pro 2 adopt a similar approach
All that @Samu said
Yes. Everything @Samu said. LMAO.
@Samu Hmmm, I see! File management is definitely a plus. I also like your idea of rendering AU>audio tracks.
Do you mind sending me an email to [email protected] about the crash when selecting input? I'd like some more info to possible repro. Thanks! - Niki
Just sent an email to the provided address with crash-log and some screenshots and further details.
I'll be happy to assist in testing but I will NOT sign any NDA's...
Cheers!
/Samuel
Dear Retronyms, can we get the option to have the flux fx be global or just on individual tracks/sequences/ with individual settings please?
Yeah, the arrangement workflow in MPC Pro is definitely much better than MPC Pro 2 imo, I guess they have their reasons for ditching it but it was soooooo much faster. If Retronyms is reading this thread , it would be great if the undo/redo function also applied to audio unit tracks too, and last but not least, adjusting the length of notes in the timeline would be great, ( or is it there and Im missing something?)
I’ve always wanted to mess with iMpc but bm3 has me covered like a champ...the app is coming along though..
So the major bugs I've found:
Can see more than 8 tracks on the top drop down (already reported)
Import from IMPC Pro on Pro 12 doesnt bring across sequences (already reported)
Cant delete a track - you can but only the last one and you cant change the order
Hey @Jose_Bee, can you please clarify what you mean by "Can see more than 8 tracks on the top drop down". Also, to clarify the import bug. Are you saying no SEQ are transferred when importing onto your iPad Pro 12.9 inch? I requested a more sophisticated track delete option to our developers. Hopefully, it gets added sooner than later.
Look forward to you reply -Niki