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
You know I've never used infinite looper, wasn't even aware of it so thx - seems a little expensive though.
My app will be AU only design to fit into your AUM/AB tracks to first & foremost capture midi input. The playback will be using pads as clips. I intend to have a midi display (like IL) which I already have developed (see pic1).
The other aspect of IL (editing) will probably be a separate app - again I have this already developed some 4 years ago. (see pic2)
Midi cc recording is easier than notes - its only one message whereas notes record as note on+note off and are then stored in a midi file as just note on with a duration.
14 bit midi cc or indeed nrpn/rpn maybe slightly more difficult but still easier.
What do you want from midi recording that includes ccs - are you looking at creating automation clips? Lots of interesting applications then - e.g. I could optimise them, compress/enlarge them, remap then, optimise them etc. Let me know.
Lets think about this. Midi is recorded with bpm information (it turns beats into samples into realtime). You would still need some form of bpm. There is the bpm it was recorded with, but I can override that per pad to either a fixed value you can choose, or sync it to the host bpm, or sync it to Link bpm - add to that the ability to tempo divide a pad too (play it x2 or /16th speed of the bpm chosen) - that should give you what you want. Its what I do in Quantum.
So midi tracks (in midi files) always relate to a bpm - but we can override that.
with the cycle on free mode how would you trigger the cycle? Just the length (or given a command like a midi cc)?
gotcha - I agree. Will only be sending AUM midi (no audio) back to the host in this app.
And yes if AUM receives midi for host tempo change then that would filter down in the AUHostMusicalContextBlock & AUHostTransportStateBlock to all connected apps.
Ok quantisation afaik can occur in:
1) overall length of clip - so me marking the midi track as 8 beats when it was recorded at 7.924. This seems just sensible to always do so I added it.
2) Start time of events (notes only?) - so putting note start times on quarter notes if 1/4 say.
3) Note duration - so rounding the length of notes to be 1/4 from the (new) start. Note I said new as it may have also been quantised.
4) Applying Quantisation during recording
5) Applying (undoable perhaps) Quantisation after recording after a preview with the ability to copy to another clip
I think 5) would apply yes?
Awesome this will be brillante!!!
Question :
If the recording was stopped at 7.924 ,maybe using different number such as 7.224 ,will the looped recording be empty until 8 and the total length would be 8 too ?
Or it will stretch midi events to fill 8 ?
Or the recording will loop to 7.3 ?
Basically I am looking for a midi looper that acts exactly like LoopyHD but for midi .
In LoopyHD you don’t have to pre set the length but the recording will start and stop at quantized bars ...
if I received the last note on at 7.2 & it was 0.4 beats long it would be 7.6 long, but I mark the music track as 8.0 so when you export it it shows 8 beats (two bars say). I will also play the clip as if it were 8.0 (I extend it).
will look at LoopyHD
Loopy (both flavors) handle this nicely keeping in mind that its primary use case is as a looper -- which is not what people are always going to be wanting for this AU midi recorder. I think it is important to have a readily accessible way of not being tied to a particular loop length when you record.
loop length that you record is what is stored in the standard midi file (ie you can export it anywhere, it can have space at the end). You have the option to fix the length before you record (so recording automatically stops) but you can choose an unlimited length.
playback of a midi clip of length x can be (non destructively) altered to smaller or longer sizes. This is what I intend to provide.
Sounds great!
The quick answer: yes I do live looping, and in addition to simple audio, I also record some effects I apply on it, which is like "live automation recording".
so what you purpose seems to fit my needs.
What I'm really looking forward to, is the possibility to have multiple tracks (OK, if it is auv3) and above all a good controlability over midi from an external controller. (record/play/stop/erase)
me too! I like automation (both au parameters & possibly midi ccs) as it means I don't need to switch apps.
This is very cool. Looking forward to it.
To me, it will need ability to edit midi in a piano roll. I’m a rubbish performer so need ability to quantize, move notes, etc. extensively. Having that in a separate app would be just adding extra steps to the workflow, IMO.
that would push up the price & delay the delivery. The main function of this app is to record & playback(with some small variations).
A piano roll with full daw editing of a midi file is a big undertaking - ive done it before but not using Apple Ui so I would need to recode it all in swift.
When it is done I can provide it as an add on.
@kink>; @kinkujin said:
I don't think it needs an editor at all. There are lots of piano roll editors for MIDI out there and the dev has said he'll make a nice simple editor. I applaud his decision to avoid app bloat.
Agreed! Nice and simple record, quantise if required and instant playback/loop with low cpu usage please.
So> @espiegel123 said:
So, would you then load the .mid in Cubasis or some other DAW with a piano roll editor? Or are there standalone midi editors?
the app exports a standard midi file which can be shared with other apps that can input .mid files or emailed etc
I dont use piano roll editors in ios only pc myself
@kinkujin Xequence has quite comprehensive MIDI import, editing and export facilities and isn't a DAW, so I guess you could say it's a "standalone MIDI editor"
cool, I can test it with Xequence then!
I'll third that. There are editors, there are also clip launchers / MIDI loopers that work really well (ModStep, Infinite Looper, etc.). What I believe is interesting here is a really, really lightweight MIDI recorder for capturing the MIDI from improvisations and trying out variations. Most other apps have a range of features and processor footprint that require you to "budget" their inclusion. I'm hoping this is lightweight enough that you can add it into an already stressed device and not push things over the edge....
ok, I get it now.
What I want to do is ...
1) load a preset setup in ApeMatrix
2) get a serious thing going
3) save this whole schmear as a .mid
4) go on with my day
5) open ApeMatrix again and continue with that midi file or ...
6) open this .mid in Xequence or other app or daw and edit
7) finish this schmear on ios or send to desktop daw.
Will this app @midiSequencer is cooking up help to accomplish this? If so, I'm on board.
Xequence is awesome!
Seem it’s one midi channel per instance.. personally, I can only see myself having 3-4 instances recording in a session (IBassist, Future Drummer, Stepolyarp and, or Quantum).. But then again, on another day, I can load up Patterning 2, Dot Melody,...
ok just bring it on...
If I'm understanding correctly, one could also save the .mid file and a preset, then load the recorder into another host and play it back, avoiding the atrocious midi import characteristics of some hosts. Of course if you want to edit that midi you would either need to import the midi file to the host, or record the midi playback in that host.
I love the possibility that I could bypass all the crap midi import I find with some hosts (or the lack of any midi import at all). Picture being able to start a jam in AUM, but then being able to port that in a few seconds over to Ape Matrix, Cubasis, Auria, etc. exactly as it was, and hit play. Drooling over here.
yes, drooling ...
I'm intending this to be low cpu - so already tuning it. It will however only be ios11+ at launch - mainly as 12 is just around the corner and the UI needs it. If needs be I can see about iOS 10 support later.
It is intended to record midi directly to a standard midi file format in memory so you can save it to a file. That file can then be shared (email, sent to another app like Cubasis/Audioshare etc) if you want to work on it.
Saved files are stored in the app itself, so it will appear in the file list.
I'm probably going to use the Files app to get midi files into my app, which means you can (on ios11) save it there too.
There will be visual indicators on the UI for recording, but you could also automate the record button (probably midi cc or au parameter chg) - enabling you to stop/start the recorder as quickly as possible.
I'm not looking to restrict it to one channel - currently it records midi from any midi channel, but hosts like AUM allow you to filter messages reaching the app by channel. Playback uses the channel recorded.
I have a record channel rotary (omni or 1..16) but I'm not sure I need it yet - certainly not in AUM, but other hosts maybe.
Recording is single track, but the pads will be multi-track. At the moment its 4 pads so you could record one track & playback 4 others all in the same audio unit.
My final tuning will show if I can increase this to more pads.
.mid file for the recorded midi & presets for the recorder & pad settings (it will load midi filenames if they still exist in the app). As these exist 'inside' the app you can load that same app in another host & still have access.
thats the theory anyway - I need to finish the pad parameters to get this in a state to move around hosts.
But it sounds like a few people want the package approach (recorder+pads loaded with midi) to just load into a host.