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.
Major Layr update coming (AU!)
From their Living Memory Software FB page:
Coming Soon: LayR's Birthday Treat!
As LayR’s first birthday approaches we have a real treat for you with an enormous and totally free update!
The first round of beta testing is over and as soon as the new manual is complete we’ll soon be opening it up to a wider group of testers to make sure we release it with as few bugs as possible! So without too much fuss and to put an end to speculation, here’s a list of what’s coming in a few weeks time: ( Facebook's lack of formatting has somewhat ruined this text but hey! ... )
First, the entire User Interface has had a massive facelift to make it much quicker and easier for new users while still keeping it familiar for existing users.
- Layer Editor controls are now fully labelled.
- Pinch to zoom and scroll the Layer Editor to access smaller dials or focus on a synth section.
- New, optional, "expert" level shortcuts that take advantage of touch screens for several new swipe gestures to quickly open and close UI panels without needing to tap on buttons.
- Double tap on the background to zoom the Layer Editor to the tapped location.
- All Dials: Increased accuracy and threshold between horizontal tracking ( fine control ) and vertical tracking ( coarse control ).
An optional new "Light" colour scheme for working outside by the pool in the sunshine.
Intrument Mixer Panel:Drag and drop Instrument Strips to rearrange order.
- Drag and drop Instrument Strips to copy into or merge with another Instrument.
- Drag and drop Layer Strips to rearrange order within an instrument
- Drag and drop Layer Strips to the mixer background to create a new instrument with that Layer
Drag and drop Layer Strips to other Instruments to make a copy in the destination Instrument.
Easier Import / Export:Bank Files: A new file type for importing and exporting entire banks of presets in a single file to Files.app
- LayR no longer imports directly to the current performance, instead it now utilizes the bank and program slots in the "load" and "save" panels.
- Import or Export whole banks or individual presets to and from Files.app directly from the preset load and save panels.
- Dropping files into iTunes documents now automatically imports them into LayR on next launch. ( no messing around with numbering )
- Access iTunes Documents folder directly from Files.app "On My iPad".
The preset updating process has been streamlined, now only one message is displayed with a progress bar when factory presets are updated.
Load and Save Panels:In the Bank and Program preset lists you can now swipe left on a row to delete that bank or program.
- Import and Export now operates on slots in Preset filing system. When you import a program it no longer replaces the current performance.
Performance "Append…" has been fixed, you can now append multiple performance programs to the currently loaded performance.
A New Modulation Matrix:
The Layer Editor keeps the old modulation mixers while introducing a new Mod Matrix that allows you to route any modulator to any destination.
Synth Engine:A new Oscillator mode providing coarse/fine tuning and improved FM with a much greater range.
- A new "Fixed" oscillator mode that decouples the oscillator from the MIDI keyboard.
- A new "Sync" mode for LFOs that keeps LFOs in all playing voices synced to the same phase as each other.
- An option in settings to keep LayR in "Legacy Mode". As LayR progresses CPU usage will increase, this option will give older devices a longer lifetime with LayR.
- To reduce aliasing artefacts as notes get higher the “Fold” amount in Filter 2 is now adjusted downwards as key notes go up.
Reverb is now silenced when changing presets.
MIDI Ports:LayR’s now has 2 Virtual MIDI Input ports named LayR Instruments and LayR Performance.
- LayR Instruments is the old Input port renamed. If you’re running the LayR app un-hosted you should route all MIDI note and control change data to LayR Instruments.
- LayR Performance is a new MIDI port that responds on ALL channels to CC0 (bank select LSB), CC7 (volume) and Program Change only. All other MIDI events are ignored by this port. This means you can use this port to change the Performance bank/program and set the master volume independently of the 16 channels being used by the Instruments.
Settings: A new option: Enable Performance MIDI Channel. If this option is ON then the LayR Instruments MIDI port will route CC0, CC7 and Program Change to the Performance Port on the specified channel. This is same as the default behaviour of LayR up until v1.2
Arpeggio Sequencer:
New features to take the Arpeggio Sequencer to a whole new level of creativity!New streamlined UI.
- New Playback Type
- Random: Notes are chosen at random from the held "chord".
- New Event Types
- Indexed: To choose specific notes the held "chord".
- Skip: Skips over the next note that would have been played.
- Every track in the sequencer can now have it's own playback Mode, Length and Speed
- Options to Copy/Paste/Clear tracks by long pressing on track background.
The sustain pedal is no longer used to hold arpeggiator notes. Instead there is a new "Hold" button in the Master strip and Arpeggiator panel.
MIDI Controller Mixer
A brand new panel that brings a whole new level of performance control to LayR. This is at it's most basic level, a built-in MIDI Master Controller panel that can be saved with Performance presets.A Slider strip for each Channel Volume to group instrument volumes per MIDI channel while maintaining their relative volumes.
- A slider for every MIDI control assigned in the current Performance.
- Slider strips can renamed and can also be hidden from the mixer panel.
- The mixer panel can also be used to query to which instrument/layer/dial any MIDI controllers have been assigned to in the current Performance.
The mixer can also be used (with an option in settings) to transmit MIDI CCs to LayR's MIDI output port.
Audio Unit:
A fully functional Audio Unit version of LayR. Except for a couple of "multi-output", "multi-timbral" features that are not (yet) supported by AU hosts.
Featuring:Zoomable and scrollable UI to make it much easier to see and use on that tiny thin strip in the host view.
- New Shortcut buttons in the Layer Editor to quickly zoom into useful locations in the UI.
- Pinch to zoom, and double tap to zoom.
Side note: It’s Living Memory Software's position that the Audio Unit version of LayR is ideal for playback and occasional preset "tweaking" but for serious sound editing and preset creation the full screen IAA app remains our preferred choice and should probably be yours too!
PDF Manual
A comprehensive manual replaces the old in-app help and with the new labelled controls, the old overlay in the Layer Editor is no longer needed.
More Sounds
And, of course, there are some new presets too!
Comments
Looking forward to it
Hooo! That was a HUGE list of improvments!!!
We’re so spolied!!
Thank’s!!
Holy hell!!! I think the may be the update that finally gets me using LayR! So psyched for this to drop.
I don't see MPE on that list.
Obviously great news, my only concern is if it pushes up CPU usage, as it's already pushing my Air 2 to the max.
Very cool that they are trying to build in a legacy mode though.
WOW that is some list !!
Cant wait for this
oh wow
I can’t wait
New "Light" colour scheme for working outside by the pool in the sunshine.
That is an absolutely absurd list of new features. Good luck devs and testers!
Living Memory has been very very busy. That looks like a whole new synth.
I can confirm it’s a superb update. Has mode for older devices so will still work if you find update pushing your cpu too hard
But if you use the legacy mode can you use the new features and advantages in the update? Like to know
Woah! Massive!
I feel my Air2 creaking a lot lately with many of the more powerful synths and fx pushing it to the max now. I just hope Apple has something to replace it that doesn’t mean either hundreds more in cost or a worse screen.
Brambos and the low CPU AU stuff is saving my bacon at the moment, doesn’t stress the CPU too much, and my other worry - the way it’s heating up.
Thought about replacing the battery but it wouldn’t fix the speed issue, so guess it’s time to start saving for a Pro...
GREAT SCOTT!!!
OK, that made me laugh.
Hehe, me too.
MPE is great but I would guess it isn't all that straight forward to implement on everything. If it was, everyone would do it, right? On that note though, LayR can come quite close to MPE like behaviour if you spend some time setting up your presets/layers. Also, a feature missed by most, is that if you have for example keys/pads with long sustain/ring and you further up the keys (via a keyboard split/fade) have layers with lead like sounds, pitchbend and similar modulation ONLY affects the currently played notes, not the ringing/sustained notes. Pretty clever I think, as I hate when I would like to add a slight pitchbend to my lead but I notice it affects every note ever played that currently make a sound, on most other synths.
I must be really oldschool as I much prefer to use pitch-bend and mod-wheel(s) over mpe on devices such as the seaboard. For onscreen keyboards it's different though.
And to be honest I prefer to use onscreen keyboards over hardware but then again I don't play 'live'...
I would love a full size onscreen keyboard - imagine the cost though!
I'd love to see larger iPads for stationary use ~15" or so
(My eyes are starting get really messed up so the larger the better).
Imagine though a 6in x 24in screen that is in addition to a big iPad. Any type of onscreen ‘keys’ we can imagine!
I reckon we will see this one day, desktop ipads like Surface studio. But will only happen when iOS is more mature and more pro apps are available.
Can confirm that this is a big step forward.
Amongst the many great improvemrnts - AU midi out from the arpeggiator is a blast, drive your other favourite AU synths from LayRs much improved, multi-channel arpeggiator.
Hallelujah!
When???
Add in there a bottom third of the screen to be touch sensitive like the iphones and then the ipad would just be the physical mpe controller