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.
iPad Pro 12.9" + iPhone X For Synth and Looping?
I don't know a ton about using a synthesizer, but I'd like to start goofing around. I apologize if my terminology is incorrect, I am reading a lot to inform myself on the subject. Right now I have a MacBook, Windows 10 Desktop, iPad Pro 12.9", an iPhone X, and multiple DACs/Amps that work with the computers and with the iPhone/iPad. I do have the USB Camera dongle, as well as the Lightning DAC if I needed to use those. As far as software goes, I have access to GarageBand, Adobe Audition, and I have the AudioKit Synth One. As far as I can tell, there is no way to record a loop in Synth One, but I may just be incorrect. Is there any way to connect my iPad and iPhone together to use Synth One on the iPad and use my iPhone to control the creation of loops for playback? Or any suggestions at all about how to connect the iPad and iPhone together for the control of making music?
I was watching videos by Red Means Recording last night, and as far as I understand, he is recording a loop for playback and then building on that as he goes along. I essentially wanted to know if there was a way to recreate a workflow like this using the hardware I already have access to.
Again, I apologize if I'm using the incorrect terminology, or if my question is unclear. Thanks!
Comments
From the video, it looks like he’s using the OP-1 as a sequencer and manipulating synths and samples to his liking and then recording them in. I think it’s recorded to the OP-1s tape mode which is probably how he exported it out.
Since you have GarageBand, you can use Synth One with it. You just have to load it as an Inter App Audio and you can mess around with it from there. Treat GarageBand like a sequencer and loop out 8 bars and go from there. GarageBand has a sampler but I don’t have too much experience with it. Linking the iPhone to control GarageBand isn’t possible (I think). You could use the iPhone separate of the iPad and link them together using something like Ableton Link. Take the audio outputs from both and run them through a mixer.
I know that probably won’t completely answer your question but I believe it’s a start.
It is an additional purchase, but I’ve been happy with the iconnectaudio4+ for getting audio and midi from one iPad to another. A free alternative is possible, using your MacBook as a hub, and using the lightning cables to send audio and midi into a DAW, and then back out into the other iPad, admittedly not that slick if you aren’t using the Mac to record. Apple has it built in to the OS now, but there are a couple other 3rd party apps that have more features (not sure if the Apple way allows sending TO the iPad).
The other way is to figure out how to keep all the audio on your iPad, and just use the phone as a midi controller, or Audiobus remote, to control apps in the background on the iPad. You could use Bluetooth for those connections.
I appreciate the replies and the assistance. I needed to do some more reading to make sure I understood the terminology because all of this is very new to me. I was under the impression that MIDI would be the synth itself, but the synth is the instrument, and MIDI is the communication protocol? I also was unfamiliar with what a DAW was, so had to look that up as well. I have been tweaking Audiobus as well as the Audiobus remote, and using midimittr to be able to control the synth on the iPad from the iPhone, and have the iPad audio connected via lightning to the the MacBook for audio input. I believe I would like to use GarageBand on the Mac for the actual recording and GarageBand on the iPad for looping and sequencing, if that is possible. I appreciate the recommendation for the iconnectaudio4+, but unfortunately it's out of my price range for the "just goofing off" type of things I would like to create. I am fine with purchasing a few apps or cables that I might need, but I don't really have any intention to make this a profession of any sort at the moment, so I would like to avoid spending a bunch of money on doing it considering the hardware that I already have is pretty expensive. I did also obtain the Samplr app, as I believe this could be helpful towards what I am trying to do. Currently I am stuck on understanding how to connect the iPad to the Mac over bluetooth using the MIDI Studio application, and then having that audio picked up by GarageBand on the Mac.
Yes you got it right about the midi now
I would suggest looking into beatmaker 3 and see if its audio recording works well enough for your loop record needs. If not, you could get blocs wave or loopy hd to work as loop recorders(that would be loaded inside bm3 via iaa), and then just record the loops you want to bm3 from there. Blocs wave has better screen interface imo, but loopy hd has very good midi control mapping. You could get some custom midi controller software on iphone, like lemur, touch osc etc. to send midi controls to loopy hd over bluetooth.
However if you just want to record soft synth sounds, its better to record the midi, not loop audio like you might do with guitar. This can also be done on bm3 very well and you can load audio unit plugins for synths and fxs on it.