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.
Before the days of iOS there was....
What was your first experience with the freedom of portable music making?
My introduction was the Yamaha QV100
Than there was the classic grey Gameboy running LSDJ
What about you guys?
Comments
I had/have a QY-10. And before that a Tascam Porta-05.
Dell Axim and a few pocket pc apps
This
Stick: available almost everywhere, portable.
Then found 2 sticks - discovered polyrhythms.
A mechanical pencil and paper.
QY10, QY20 for me (and QY700 in the attic, but that’s not portable, and I must get round to selling it).
I also did have a Casio pocket calculator in the early 80s, and by pressing down a special key it plays a little melody. It also just played discrete tones on the number keys.
Casio VL-1
Da Da Da ...
A floppy with FastTracker 2?
https://m.thomann.de/de/thomann_chromatic_40_mundharmonika.htm?o=0&search=1521704779
I started with Tascam Portastudio and Yamaha QY70.
I’ve still got one of these in the loft:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portastudio
I wonder how mobile is defined here.
I never felt that iPad were more mobile than a notebook. Especially if i compare to the modern ones.
IPhone is another thing. It still beats the iPad in every way for mobile hardcore (i was)
Tascam Portastudio. I really just used it at home in one place, though, so it was more about affordability and size than about being portable. iOS is what changed the game for me. Not just a recorder/mixer but a whole self-contained music-making thing you could hold in one hand, use in a restaurant or waiting room somewhere. Easy to take for granted now, and iOS isn’t professional enough, and blah, blah… but it’s still amazing.
Made an oscillator controlled by 1 key and a knob through the internal speaker. Battery powered and a duct tape guitar strap for rocking out. When I was older I added a 1/4 jack and fed it through some effects - it could be pretty cool!
I still have it and recently found a System 7, was hoping to make another "module" of some kind with it.
Really? If I have my iPad Mini 4 or Air 2 in my bag I forget it's there. But even my Macbook Air is heavy and chunky enough to be very noticeable. iPads are a lot more mobile than even the lightest laptops imo.
This vs pt01 of my child neighboors. At home MSX but with 9 years I didn’t know how to use it more than play Konami games (Nemesis2 the best) with my 15 years brother.
Later come FT1 &2 (2 glitched on my non interlaced non color monitor) and also this come too.
Never go outside my home. We were rapping not so later than that and then portability was walkman or boombox. Also I started radioshow at my town so Hiphop (including my own music) was on all my friends houses. That was the first time I feel the ubiquitous power of being a God.
If i need a bag it´s not mobile for me
I know what you mean but it´s also a very personal thing anyway. IPhones are the only REAL mobile devices then for me. IPads are of course still more mobile than a notebook in general but not really in my case since it doens´t matter if i have to carry something which weight a pound or 2 or 3 if i can´t fit it in my pocket.
Also i compare the things i can do with it to the size and here a modern notebook wins hands down (for my needs).
I always see picture of mobile setups with iPads, audio interfaces and huge midi keyboards and wonder what is mobile about them.
I mean i never make music on the go and never ever saw any one to do it so i also wonder if mobile is not only going from one room to the next without a cable in most cases.
Also if things get more powerful and you like to use larger screens like an iPad Pro 12.9" the convergence gets closer. I like to do everything on one device which is "mobile" for me and here i see pro and contra on iPhones, iPads as well as notebooks but i would call them all mobile in general (but the iPhone would be my only choice for on the go things if i could do that....i tried and i can´t).
I was there at the beginning of iOS music and thought that it´s the dogs bollocks (it was and still is in some areas) but i realized that a multi-touch screen is not everything and even sucks at some things. Apps like Animoog, Model 15, ThumbJam etc. are a joy to play (if you don´t need 2 hand chords) but i also realized that i can play much more expressive even trough my notebook keyboard as midi input compared to a touch screen (beside MPE stuff like the mentioned apps offers).
But yeah, it´s all up to experience, needs, likes etc. But often i have the feeling iOS and large parts of the community see it as replacement for everything (for some it might be indeed) and the holy grail of music production. It´s the only kind of music creation which tends to seperate itself for some reason.
I watched with interest the insights you gave about the future of mobile music and no one really knows how it goes.
The future for me is still crossplatform in any form. Especially as i´m sure we get just that ONE (or two) OS which might transform to any device.
I see the app store like it is itself as biggest downside for iOS (and the bad connectivity compared to notebooks).
Relive those days with a frequently updated port
https://16-bits.org/ft2.php
In 1994 or 1995, the BOSS DR-5, not just a drum machine!
https://boss.info/us/products/dr-5/
Light, can run on battery.
4-track sequencer, one for the drums and three for melodic instruments.
My first steps with composition (thanks to 200 user patterns) with a sequencer, great memories !
Heh. No thanks... I don't have the patience to deal with that sort of clunkyness anymore. It was cool in the days when it was the only option we had, but now there are better/more playful/userfriendly/fluid ways to make music
I'm still stuck in 'Tracker Land' (Renoise) hehe...
Notebooks are certainly very portable these days. Still not something I carry around like an iPad, and in some settings is too obtrusive. Maybe psychological that it opens up and looks like a computer to me, where an iPad is just this flat thing. I also don’t like trackpads. The touch screen is a big plus for me. When it comes down to it, I still want a DAW on desktop with mouse and keyboard, but for sketching, exploring, and messing about, the iPad is my friend.
@Cib the fact I was working on a song in the couch yesterday and someone ring the door and I go there with the song in my hands (BM3) is the nearest to put FT2 or Cubase at same level of my PT87/wakman/desktop in portability terms. Next mile for the iPhone and garageband anywhere freaking people with smart instruments.
I will never do music on my couch with a laptop (or surface due mouse dependency). It has compromises but also opened a new paradigm (which I enjoy most than old fruity producing which was my most beloved musicking time)
@Samu why not use sunvox directly? Snake? I remember it comes with it, no?
Meteor on Windows Mobile
I have a 'history' with Renoise dating back to the days of the first Mac-Port when I was part of the beta-team
I had completely forgotten about those, I had one and the memory has instantly taken me back to another hemisphere ...
I posted my answer meanwhile the topic was going so put my question just after FT2 port post... after reading all new comments let me say:
ReNoise seems a beast on its own and if you mastered it... run and don’t look behind you.. go! go! go!
I had a Casio SK -1 I got at a pawn shop for $10.