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.
Drum synth AUs? (besides Ruismaker, Axon)
Any drum synth AUs out there besides the Ruismaker ones and Axon?
Side note, seriously, how hard can it really be for a trillion dollar company to add a section in their app store for AUs? Tim Cook is more interested in censorship than taking care of his product.
Comments
I’m beta testing one not sure when it’s due to drop.
I found MV08, doesn't appear to be much else. Then yeah, Drambo, or whatever the name will be.
Yeah that ‘one’ in beta testing seems to be pretty decent at a very specific task.
I like making drums in Laplace — cool synthesizer for percussion!
I believe this is because of the "category" of your request. Such request for tagging, filtering, sorting, searching,.. of apps in app store are probably suggested to Apple on a daily basis. They can choose to fulfill some, all or none.
If they fulfill all, the app store will be obviously a complete mess. If they only implement only some suggestions, people will complain why the others were not fulfilled and of course, they would need to maintain those features. If they fulfill none, people will still complain, but there will be many people who don't miss those features and actually welcome the simplicity of the app store. Yes, probably everyone on this forum will love to be able to filter for AUv3 compliant apps, but that's just a very small fraction of the users of the app store.
They've made the app store worse over time. In particular the UX of new design/layout for apps is awful.
Categories and sub-categories (which would solve the problem) seem like pretty basic functionality that would be used by a lot of people. Of course this doesn't matter because most of us find new apps through referrals... oh wait, they're taking that away.
I’m beta testing SynthDrum Kick. Dunno when release is but I like the sound. Reminds of a Volca Kick.
Vatanator is AU and I use Beathawk a lot as an AU Drum machine, not really synth’s but both have a lot of options for samples.
Reslice can be used to trigger samples slices <= not a drum synth but can be used as one
Apple made it a point to build AU function into iOS, and it would take a person maybe five minutes to come up with a simple system to categorize those kinds of apps to make them easy to find. I guess appeasing a Marxist regime that has re-education camps for millions of it's citizens pays more though. Thank you Tim Cook.
There is an option to search for all AUs in the AppStore app - just search for "audio unit extensions".
This feature is not documented adequately nor does it have a shortcut currently.
Taking away referrals is a weird step, probably it somehow interfered with their business goals (or business goals of [biggest] developers). Actually there are categories in app store, but not subcategories. This is a huge simplification for apple and for the app store concept itself. Yes, there are "power users" of the app store who would really welcome it, but again, this is apple's main philosophy since Steve Jobses comeback - focus on the "mainstream user" and power users will often welcome it too (because often they use technology the same way as these "simple users"). If you can hide the extended options to allow power users do what they want - go for it. But never clutter the user interface / workflow / architecture of the app / hardware. Also, don't waste 90% of resources to make only 10% people happy.
And talking about leaving power users do what they do, maybe in an obscure and not very polished way, there it is: search for "auv3 drum synth" or "audio unit drum synth" or only "audio unit drum" and you have mostly relevant results.
I am not saying it's a good or bad philosophy, but it's consistent. And if you don't fight it, you often realise it's not such a big deal.
I don't know what it means to "come up with simple system", but believe it or not, implementing even the simplest subcategory feature into such huge software used by monstrous user base, which Apple app store definitely is, can easily cost millions of dollars worth of people's worktime. I am personally working on a software used by "only" 3 millions of people and often implementing something that seems like "putting only one button on one screen", from the user perspective, is a result of months of work of dozens of people involved.
On the other hand, millions of dollars is still nothing for apple and maybe this feature could directly generate much more money than they would need to invest. But it's still not worth "betraying" their philosophy - see my post above. And keeping strongly attached to their main principles is what makes them very special in technology world and I believe it's also their main reason for such success.
A favorite quote that Steve Jobs repeated many times: "Perfection is achieved not when there's nothing more to add, but when there's nothing left to take away". This is the main reason why you often don't see "feature x" in a popular software (developed by a company with hundreds of developers at their command), requested by (seemingly) many people. Not because they're not capable of implementing it, but because if they follow every request, their software will end up as a cluttered mess that no one would actually like to use, including users that requested those features.
Sorry for a long post, but I often see such complaint on this forum and I can see the problem from both sides - as a user and musician and as a professional software developer (and a technology business enthusiast). I hope it helps others to understand, why developers sometimes don't do what the "crowd" requests - it's often for the crowd's own good
My day job is HCI/Product Design. I've been doing it for a while. Please spare me the UX101 lecture.
Currently the app store is a **** show, so I have zero interest in Apple's core philosophy for the App Store. It looks like it was put together by marketing people, with UX and design as an afterthought.
The ability to easily browse is a pretty core part of a 'store' functionality. Adding sub-categories is hardly a wicked problem, and done right (I've done it - so really how hard can it be) it is easier for novice users to use than search. And it certainly won't cost millions of dollars to design.
Is Future Drummer any good? I know it’s not au, but I’m salivating looking at it...
Yes, it is. Link is a bit buggy at the moment, but I think it will be fixed soon.
Yes, FD is a-ma-zing for those of us mediocre beatmaking skills, or who want some variation in drum tracks but are too lazy to customize an entire song!
Regarding the app store, I agree with @cian. It's been said before but who thought removing the wish list was a good idea?! Clearly the iTunes team and the App store team are hanging out too much and leaving the UI team at home alone...
Laplace is great. While it is not multitimbral, with some automation of filters and the 'stiffness' knob, you can get half a kit out of it.
you catch more if you just put “audio unit” in the search... with “extensions” it only picks up 15 or so..
You can also search for AUv3 in the App Store but you’ll still only see a fraction of the iOS AU host, instruments and effects available. Come join my group. I have a list of several hundred iOS AU compatible apps. https://m.facebook.com/groups/1704410769839550?ref=bookmarks
Joined, thanks!
If you search “audio units” on the App Store you’ll get better results.
"audio units" search pulls up 110 individual AU apps. Still over 160 shy of what's actually out there. Apple really should have a specific section for apps using there own formats. It's the reason I started the IAA compatibility list before AB joined IAA protocol with AudioBus 2.1 SDK and why I started the the iOS AU compatibility list.
I gues I have tried most drum synth apps yet keep coming back to Stroke Machine for real drum synthesis.
The easy way of doing FM and RM even with samples and the very deep modulation matrix plus attack transients and filtered noise options, a capable set of filters and saturation options, makes it a powerful machine that can also be used as an electribe-like groovebox.
I wish it was available as an AU...
Too bad Mr Franke does not respond to bug report mails nor does he seem to be interested in fixing a few issues, been waiting for months now.
Drums right now are half-assed b.s.
Maybe something solid comes along, maybe not. But we uses what we gotz
Never trust a developer who does not respond to emails or communicate with users or resolve reported issues or does not care about bad reviews or does not update the app for months/years - it shows their commitment, passion/obsession-level and seriousness with their app and effective management of their time/team. Why would anyone want to place their precious music career/hobby in the hands of a developer who we don't know how long they would sustain their business/interest in the app? There are burnouts after the honeymoon phase as most of these projects are part time hobbies. Look for a past track record of maintaining successful commercial apps. I don't mind if it is an indie developer or a large corporation - constant communication and frequent updates with a clear roadmap manifest their commitment towards the app and show how well they are organized internally.
You must be using inappropriate tools or the wrong samples.
@MobileMusic
Yes!! That's why I felt like adding the few grains of salt, although I love using it as-is, at least on a pre-iOS 11 iPad.
Unfortunately I don’t Facebook so I can’t access your list. I’m sure it would be helpful.
Hahahahaha