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
C’mon guys... use wisely the tools you have!
TITSTITSTITSTITSTITSTITS
Shouldn't that be ladies ?
I agree again, Andy, that what you describe would require a lot of work ( as you describe it). Still, in my innocence, I can't help but wonder if Michael's suggestion of iOS basics as a category would not develop a body of information simply from the many threads that would ge generated and that the search engine ( I don't know if it is flawed or not) would provide easy access to the appropriate posts. Where is the work in that beyond the initial setup?
So far I count about a dozen enthusiastic yes's for some sort of Basics category, two or three negatives and a couple of not sure's.
Not sure what that means in the big picture but the continued interest in the thread does indicate to me that there is interest in the discussion. I also feel there is a little more momentum for figuring out just what to do and how to do it if it were agreed upon (and if there is a real need for it).
I am guessing @michael is the Wizard of Oz ( and I only mean that in its most positive sense!) here and that he would implement any change in the forum. Actually it would have been good if I could have found out about his existence when I joined up... Maybe an Audiob.us Basics category ( just kidding!!).
Has he been monitoring this thread like some omniscient and benevolent presence? Should we ask his opinion? Just asking,
Not sure of the protocol here.
Finally, just let me say that if wiser heads take this possibility up I will be happy to recede into the background and continue just asking questions. Cheers and thanks for all your thoughts.
I'm not saying don't do it.....just don't expect it to fix all issues you initially described
@Michael IS everything you describe him as ... some things you missed out though, he is responsible for Loopy/Audiobus/Samplebot as well as libraries used by other developers ... so a knowledgable, likable, generous and very busy (new dad also) person
If this idea ends up being implemented, it is a good one. I still find myself facing issues with iOS music production and would like to not be reminded that starting yet another thread that was like Thread X is bad forum manners. Fortunately, my requirements of iOS music production are (seemingly) so well below those of most forum members that I don’t have near the need for info.
Usually this level is plenty of male teenagers...
This is what I was talking about earlier. I've been here since the beginning and I've never know it to be a RTFM-as-full-reply type of place. Yes, sometimes folks are simply linked to previous discussions but hopefully no one feels chided as a part of that.
Think we could crowdsource a single "Get up to speed on iOS Music" sticky fairly quickly. Collect a bunch of links to existing threads, videos, resources, etc. Organize them into topics from n00b to Gandalf and put them as post one into a single thread.
I think the best approach is a Question and Answer thread that's searchable. Beginner's are sources of questions and thousands of beginners have the same questions (experts get tired "ctting and pasting" the same replies).
But search Q and A's become useful resources... in the other threads you paste "AAA" (Asked and Answered). You effective teach the beginner to use search and only ask new questions.
With Google like search capabilities more users find the site and ask more questions: that's what made StackOverflow go viral for programmers.
Google brought me here to meet you folks.
While I'm here I have a few questions if you don't mind.... :^)
McDs vision has my vote. Clarity. And if we could do just some of what syrupcore suggests.... we'll, that would just be syrup on the core, I mean cake.
How do we move forward? Or don't we?
We could do a project like the synth presets project that started a couple of months ago.
Every couple of weeks, we decide what the topic of interest will be. It should start out focused on basic iOS workflows, techniques, and procedures, mainly with regards to music, but maybe also cover file management, connectivity, etc.. Later, if the project is maintaining interest, it should move on to more advanced music workflow topics.
Anyone who wants to contribute by writing something can. Then the hard job comes, reading, compiling, editing, and organizing the info into a single, readable entry. With enough varied input, it could really cover all the questions that would come up for a beginner.
I would take a crack at pulling together the info and organizing it into a readable document, if this ends up happening. Anybody else willing to help? Or have any other suggestions for how this could become a reality?
Thanks, CP! In the vanguard as ever. I think just culling the threads and copying relevant parts would be a treasure trove of knowledge.
I think the difficult thing is not putting the information in, but getting it back out. If you put all the neophyte information that will ever be required in to one thread, or make a separate thread for each item and each revision or reiteration of it over and over, there’ll still be phenomenal difficulty in accessing it again – searching or finding, using a search engine or find motor, is limited to almost knowing what the answer is before you can search for it. No matter where you bury the information, it isn’t evident most of the time.
I suspect, seriously, that the future of document curation such as this little problem here and all the other similar ones everywhere else is to use robots. This is why we have robots. Instead of suggesting which film or song to spend money on, or suggesting which product or service to spend money on, or offering to book hotel flights that you have to spend money on (or occasionally there’s free information such as the weather, if you can tolerate seeing adverts for umbrellas everywhere for the next few weeks), robots like google’s Alexis Cortina, and that other one, silly, sree, Sirius, or however you pronounce all those agents (Siri seems to be the hardest word) should be able to focus on a specialisation or expert domain if it knows you’re also into it. If you want to learn a thing about a topic, we’d want a fairly in-depth tortoise to teach us about the topic rather than give us a basic shallow overview.
Try it, people who have those services – ask your robot about, well, anything to do with electromusic. Ask what track freezing means, for example, and see what it comes up with. I suppose you’d have to give it the context of music production, but, you know, that’s the future of education (and unemployment, if you’re a teacher).
I see what you mean. I suggest a separate section, but locked, no questions, just these curated, edited, organized topics as answers. Questions can stay in General or wherever. This section is more just for organized info only. Kind of like a Wiki, or even a Blog. Should have a TOC at least, though.
@syrupcore that’s actually a great idea. I’m here for that.
Rather than folders, I always suggest tags or keywords. Same here – rather than more departments, each being an island, it’d be quite useful to have some way of keywording a thread, with as many relevant keywords or tags as are, er, relevant.
Indeed, searchable by keyword would be incredibly helpful. I know nothing of how to implement such a function though.
Locking the thread would be good idea because it would help to minimize some of the problems The U was addressing. I made a sticky thread similar to what we're talking about over on the NS forum years ago. It said "Don't post questions here, start a new thread" over and over but still folks did it. The (potential) benefit of keeping it unlocked is as a place to discuss the list itself. Guess that could be in a separate, linked thread.
Think it'd be in a few steps.
I'm down to start or help with 2 and 3 if someone else can start 1. That is, of course, presuming this process is the way to do it. I'm unattached.
Aww! Yep, I'm reading - well, the bits where people say nice things about me anyway ;-)
This is sounding less like an area of the forum and more like a wiki to me. What do you guys think about a separate linked wiki, with some SSO magic for cross site login? Or would it be better to keep it on the forum?
I think whichever is the least hassle for you.
My personal feeling is keep it on the forum, although I’m not really sure why I feel that way. I guess I want to be sure the forum benefits from any additional traffic it may bring. If the Wiki could have a strong Audiobus identity, and not just be a generic Wiki, then maybe that would be enough.
@LinearLineman's intent was an area for asking questions without ridicule or wasting the time of experts, if I read that correctly. I morphed that into Questions seeking Answers (that persist and grow into a "Frequently Asked Questions" document that can be searched to assist anyone seeking advice.
I have since test the Search function on the Forum and it's really good. I asked myself a question and put in some search words and I realize the old FAQ format is just extra work to maintain.
Maintainance of a Wiki is also non-trivial but they can be pretty powerful with a group shared editing investment.
@LinearLineman mentioned ""freezing" which means nothing to be as well so I tried search and found 2 "on point" paragraphs
Freezing MIDI tracks is a great way to do this. Once you freeze
a MIDI track, it turns into an audio track (internally). So it no
longer counts as a MIDI track to the system and you can now
set your buffer size to 4096.
Frozen tracks don't take any CPU or memory, so you can do
this to free up those resources. Once you're ready to use it
again, you unfreeze it and that track is back to the way it was
before it was frozen.
Organizing the question with this excellent "answer" is a Q&A building process that takes an editor to maintain.
Putting a Page in a Wiki for "Freezing" with this text is probably better. Create a Freezing page and ask someone to fill it in or edit any partial or wrong answers. The questioner creates the page and someone answers by editing the page and reviews validate,
enhance or modify the page.
But tolerance for "beginners" asking questions in thread headings like "QUESTION: What does "freezing" mean in a DAW?"
then you can search for "QUESTION" in the serach box and seeing a list of Q's and click the link for answers. Maybe that's what was intended... just put "QUESTIONS:" in a category, is that right?
If someone could just ridicule me now it would save you all a lot of reading text unless the site offers "Blocklist" for certain wordy newbies.
OT QUESTION: What's the "markdown" for putting text in the "grey box"? I forgot all my Markdown and Wikipedia didn't have a simple example so... QUESTION or HELP PLEASE.
If there’s an assumption that beginner questions are in some way not tolerated, this is wholly incorrect. Beginner questions are all over the place, and almost all of us ask them all the time, even those of us that have been here forever. We’re used to it. Almost none of us know all of the whole topic domain, as we all work in different ways. For example, some are used to playing an instrument and know what those tadpoles on telegraph wires mean, others like myself don’t, so I ask stupid questions about it (or more likely, not, and just go ahead and put any note anywhere and call it art).
Some are used to patching their music together using slabs of audio and samples and chunks of found sound (usually found inside an app). Others like myself never sample or record sound as audio (other than recording vocals) and do everything as midi sequencing. A lot of people are ignorant of the nature of midi data and control messages. Some are more focused on the making of a groove with emotional power that you can dance to or suchlike, others are more focused on the melody and composition.
Some are happy at the mastering stage, others fear the eventual prospect of mastering (or indeed coming anywhere close to the finishing stage). Some know synthesisers and the process of sound synthesis with great familiarity, others just prod and adjust any knob anywhere and listen to what it does without ever gaining an understanding of what contribution it technically made. We’re all very much beginners in about half of what we do here.
Couldn’t have put it better myself. This site has always been for beginners. Super helpful and I always find what I’m looking for when searching for a topic. I’m not convinced anything needs to change.
Definitely a Wiki....as to where it should be...hmm dunno, 2 things to think about spring to mind
Could/would it help attract new members who are already looking into or using iOS, or if you want a wider catchment to include non-iOS and AB users...
A lot of the stuff that would go in there would be relevant across all platforms.
Something else to bear in mind is search results...do you want search to include posts and Wiki pages ? if so then I think they would need to be together ? I'm not familiar with the forum software so do not know if it is capable of hosting a Wiki or merging search results from multiple sources (if the Wiki were elsewhere)
You would have thought with all that knowledge and expertise we would have made a hit record between us by now
We did. We just didn’t want to share the profits
do you mean the grey box like above ? If so just click Quote on an existing message and you will see it....
You basically add a '>' to the beginning of the line for 1 ident...'> >' for 2 indents
Thanks.
Testing
Look Ma, I can use Markdown like the Pro's.