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
@Janosax
I’m curious about Garagebands loop launch set up: does GB allow you to record your loop launching performance to timeline?
Yes your GarageBand playing performance in loop mode can be recorded/edited in arrangement view. Also, loop mode allow for audio loops but also for midi loops for internal instruments or AU. A nice feature in loop mode is that you can slide with your finger to play/stop several loops on the fly. You can also copy/paste multi audio/midi loops from loop mode to arrangement mode and vice versa. And you can record audio and IAA (apeMatrix is even synced) in loop mode. Only limitation is you can’t merge/freeze in loop mode, only arrangement mode offers merging feature so your need to copy paste between modes for CPU ressources management. Stagelight has loop mode freezing but also midi control (don’t know if loops can be triggered by midi however). But Stagelight doesn’t have swipe on loops gesture like GB.
In Stagelight loops and scenes as mixer and effects parameters are assignable to midi via midi learn. So that should be possible to control whole session including AU when they will be available and record all midi triggering to timeline. With a such TouchOSC template that should be very interesting for real-time arrangement including mixer and parameters triggering:
Or with KRFT surfaces which allow for midi LFO triggering via Link:
So if I’m in GB and launching my clips, there’s a way to record a timeline version, live, while launching from the loop view
Absolutely. Just tap on main record button, play your loops live and everything is recorded and editable in arrangement view, just like with Ableton Live or Stagelight. GarageBand is so underrated!!
Edit: when doing this, new arrangements tracks are made with instruments and effects. When merging/freezing tracks in arrangement view, instruments/fxs in loop mode view still exist and eats CPU. In short, after merging arrangement and loop tracks become independant. So when your arrangement is done, it’s better to make a song copy and delete all tracks in loop mode and only keep arrangement tracks for better CPU management.
@Janosax
Thanks! Been a long time since I looked into GB
Hey @Janosax
What’s it like bringing your own .wav into GB? Is that something you can do in the loopbuild view?
Just digging on the Pete Johns Garageband ios tutorial videos. What a revelation!!
You can import your own files easily in GB in arrangement AND loop views, via loops icon menu or via copy paste though Files apps (GarageBand file transfer folder on local storage). That works flawlessly. The limitation here is that pitch shift and time stretch capabilities are not available for those imported files, except if they’re Apple Loops format like inbuilt GB loops.
Stagelight on the other side has real-time time stretch and pitch shift capabilities for imported loops and inbuilt loops, but they need to add Files app support for taking true benefit of that feature (that’s planned). So it’s potentially super powerful and very compatible with Link, could be the first full featured linkable iOS DAW. For audio edition, only reverse feature misses IMO, I already asked them for that and will ask again and again lol. Reverse is already there for drum machine samples, so this should be possible. This is important for audio mangling stuff which is a must have for any DAW. I’m very excited with Stagelight, having an Ableton Live like DAW on an iPhone is a dream come true!! Only thing I hope is it will not become a subscription app...
Can it import loops, Match them to the BPM, but not use timestretch ?
So it changes speed and pitch of the sample, this is a very important feature for a lot of dance music, right now only Beatmaker 3 can do that of the apps that i have tried on IOS, Beatmaker can do it in the sampler and on the timeline.
Stagelight is able to change sample speed and pitch (only in octave jumps at the moment) independently, and can also preserve pitch while changing song bpm. Works in loop and arrangement modes. Don’t support Files app yet, so I can’t import yet my own samples. But that works also with my own mic recordings! Their loops use .ogg format, don’t do recordings as there are no options in settings yet, I will ask them for that.
Stretch/pitch options are the left of clip view:
GB is able to do that too, but only with Apple loops, and not with wav/aiff loops nor audio recordings. But pitch works in semi-tone and there is reverse option:
I can't tell if that is a yes or a no, i will test it when it gets released.
You want sample to match bpm but pitch changing according to speed? Possible when « preserve pitch » option button on the left is disabled.
That is excellent, thanks for the info.
Yes I’m happy with that feature too
There are per sample settings in the drum machine, and you can add inserts effects per sample!!
There is a piano roll mode for drums where velocity can be edited per note:
Drum pads are velocity sensitive from center to edges of the pad, and is resizable:
Same thing with instrument keyboard which also have scale settings:
@Janosax ; So if you had to choose between Stagelight and GB? Even w all of SL’s great features I think it’s best to stay in GB if you’re using Logic Pro
Really enjoying this, and the dev seems very responsive on the beta programme. Did a small, slow jam to demonstrate a couple of the internal sounds.
https://soundcloud.com/user-593555103/grim-2
If they add all wanted features, I will go to Stagelight, as I’m so used to Ableton workflow that I use on my Windows laptop. GB at the moment offers me a good portion of that workflow, so I stick with it until Stagelight offers AU support, but will still practice its workflow to become more familiar with, its a pretty deep app.
Indeed and BM3 has to option to save any sound as an AppleLoop for easy import to GarageBand and with enough markers the pitch&time adjustment i GarageBand works very well
Apple could add 'transparent' AppleLoop creation to GarageBand (ie. add transient markers to all recordings).
I'm really looking forward to the next GarageBand update...
(Hopefully on Monday accompanying the iOS12 update).
That could be sweet for sure!!
Wuuuut? BM3 can save to Apple Loops? Wow! Sample on that and move it on into GB.. Thanks Samu!
@Janosax , thank you also !
@Samu it means that BM3 can do transient detection ?
Those up and down arrows to the left of octave pitch up and down semitone at a time.
Not yet but you can add a slice-markers at every 1/16 or 32nd note or so and tag the file with how long it is in beats/bars and original tempo which is needed for AppleLoops to work.
Yes I made a mistake
They will rework audio editor on 4.0 release, so it’s very good if they improve its capabilities. They listen to customers needs. As they make a multi platform app, I think they are really financially capable to make a very capable iOS DAW.
I liked it, nice playing!!
Some sounds are interesting in Stagelight, and effects sounds good especially Gater and Glitch6. Drum machine is amazing, and instrument keyboard excellent. Whole thing really reminds me Ableton Live kind of electronic sounds. Even with AU support, there is some interest in built in SL sounds. I always used Ableton effects a lot. SL drum machine with Audio Damage, FAC, Brambos and DDMF effects per slot will make killer sounds!! And with freezing that will be an easy workflow.
Cheers. I’m actually very enthusiastic about this. I tried it on mac when it first came out and it seemed a bit limited but it’s really taken off.
No we are talking AU support!
It’s gonna be a while.