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.

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Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Xequence + Audiobus + AUM, best practices for a complete music production environment

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Comments

  • @espiegel123 said:
    @SevenSystems : have you been in touch with Michael Tyson about this? He seems very interested in helping developers with AB-related woes.

    Yes, we have had and continue to have great communication regarding various Xequence - related issues, so that's not a problem :)

  • For the text challenged, can some kind musician upload a video of the setup and wiring process with all these apps ? It’s always confusing with so many hidden routes in various menus for routing midi and mixing the final audio !

  • hey @SevenSystems the fix seems to work! 🙂
    I‘ll do some more testing tomorrow, but all initial testing was good and state saving was working as expected. Nice!

  • @nick said:
    hey @SevenSystems the fix seems to work! 🙂
    I‘ll do some more testing tomorrow, but all initial testing was good and state saving was working as expected. Nice!

    Don't be too optimistic (not wanting to ruin your party but... I'm a "burnt kid" in this regard :))

  • @SevenSystems said:

    @nick said:
    hey @SevenSystems the fix seems to work! 🙂
    I‘ll do some more testing tomorrow, but all initial testing was good and state saving was working as expected. Nice!

    Don't be too optimistic (not wanting to ruin your party but... I'm a "burnt kid" in this regard :))

    well, at least it works so far! I will try to break it later 😉 but wanted to say thanks for finding and implementing a fix so quickly, and I think it really does matter, state saving makes this so much easier to integrate in a workflow

  • I have been using Gadget as a sketch pad, and I am ready to move the MIDI into Xequence. It seems that Gadget exports each track as its own MIDI file. Is there a way to get all those MIDI files into a single Xequence project?

  • Start a new project and save it. Then open the first midi file, select the clip, and copy it to the clipboard. Next open the original project and paste the clip where you want it. Save. Repeat for each exported midi file.

  • Tx for the quick response. So strange that Korg doesn't have an option to export as a single MultiTrack midi file.

  • @espiegel123 said:
    I have been using Gadget as a sketch pad, and I am ready to move the MIDI into Xequence. It seems that Gadget exports each track as its own MIDI file. Is there a way to get all those MIDI files into a single Xequence project?

    Gadget has pretty much the worse implementation of midi import/export on iOS. :(

    Xequence midi into Gadget however is a cracking combo and a much smoother experience.

  • @SevenSystems : I have a question about the best practice for a situation like this. I use BeatHawk a bit for groove experimentation and idea sketching. I will load it into AUM and jam along with NeoSoul Keys or iFretless bass and capture the audio. I would like to also capture the MIDI from iFretless since I find that I play it like a real bass when I use its interface rather than a keyboard.

    I kind of have it working, but the MIDI I capture seems like it might not be locked in tight. (It could be my playing, I need to set up a better test of that). Anyway, I wasn't sure if perhaps I could wire things together to maximize timing accuracy of the captured audio.

    Currently, I use AB3, AUM and Xequence running as apps and configured as suggested in the QuickStart. I have Ableton Link turned on in all three apps.

    iFretless Bass is loaded in AUM as an Audio Unit as is Beathawk.

    Midi is routed to Xequence from iFretless via AUM's routing. MIDI from Xequence to iFretless is also setup in AUM's routing. Seems to work fine. I am not routing any MIDI into BeatHawk. It automagically starts playback when I press play on the Audiobus palette.

    I press play on the Audiobus palette for Audiobus and press record on the AB palette for Xequence.

    I am not sure if I should somehow be using MIDI Clock to slave BeatHawk to Xeq instead.

    I hope that made some semblance of sense.

    Thanks,
    E

  • This is a very timely thread for me to study... I tried to hit play in AUM and make the "Gladstone" Gadget play some acoustic sounding drums. After about an hour I found the right settings but now I want to record more tracks using a MIDI recorder and not the AUM audio recorder.

    I just want to be able to fix "bad notes" and salvage a 4 minute recording rather than upload files with mistakes.

    So time to dig into Xequence and try out the "Bank Selects" for my iSymphonic "orchestra". Wish he luck... everythings has updates since I tried this before and everything had bugs or missing features.

    I think Xequence/AB3/AUM is probably the right feature combo. I just hope everything is stable unlike the big DAW(G's). Who wants to freeze to audio constantly just to make something?

    NOTE: The new Korg Module "Ivory Steinway D" IAP is so good and seems really solid. It also appears in Gadget if you own Module and Gadget and buy the Module IAP. I think it's has displaced RC275 in my workflow. All the Module IAP's have been stellar so far:

    Triton has some gems
    Orchestra has excellent strings with articulations
    Scarbee Rhodes is a favorite for me and I have them all I think
    Organs rival Galileo IMHO

    So, leveraging Module/Gadget is important to me and Xequence could be the key.

  • @espiegel123 if the sending apps are correctly implemented, then recording of incoming MIDI notes will absolutely exactly be on time IF "Use incoming timestamps" in Settings -> MIDI / Recording is turned on.

    Unfortunately, many MIDI senders do not implement this correctly (it's the same story as the other way around :)), so you might never get really accurate timing when recording MIDI. You can try with "Use incoming timestamps" enabled or disabled to see if it makes a difference, and try routing the MIDI from your sender directly to Xequence without any intermediaries.

    Failing all that, you might have to resort to actually quantizing the incoming notes during recording, or after the fact.

  • @McDtracy if you do find a bug in Xequence, please let me know right away so I can have a look! Other than that, good luck with your new setup.

  • @SevenSystems : it would be great when using xequence with AB3, if one could arm Xeq for recording by pressing the Xequence record button in AB3's palette but not have recording/playback start till you hit the AB3 palette's AB3 play button.

  • wimwim
    edited November 2018

    @espiegel123 said:
    @SevenSystems : it would be great when using xequence with AB3, if one could arm Xeq for recording by pressing the Xequence record button in AB3's palette but not have recording/playback start till you hit the AB3 palette's AB3 play button.

    +1 on this. I’d rather have the record button act like a “record arm” if the app is stopped, and not start playing/recording until play is pressed, or AB3’s global play is pressed. If Xequence is playing then pressing record should start recording immediately.

    What I usually do now is set count-in to 1 bar, hit Xequence’s record button, wait until I hear the metronome counting down, then press the play button in the AB3 transport for the app I want to record. I can only press the individual app play button because if I press the AB3 master play button, Xequence stops. It took quite awhile to find a sequence of actions that worked.

  • wimwim
    edited November 2018

    @espiegel123 said:
    @SevenSystems : I have a question about the best practice for a situation like this. I use BeatHawk a bit for groove experimentation and idea sketching. I will load it into AUM and jam along with NeoSoul Keys or iFretless bass and capture the audio. I would like to also capture the MIDI from iFretless since I find that I play it like a real bass when I use its interface rather than a keyboard.

    I kind of have it working, but the MIDI I capture seems like it might not be locked in tight. (It could be my playing, I need to set up a better test of that). Anyway, I wasn't sure if perhaps I could wire things together to maximize timing accuracy of the captured audio.

    Currently, I use AB3, AUM and Xequence running as apps and configured as suggested in the QuickStart. I have Ableton Link turned on in all three apps.

    iFretless Bass is loaded in AUM as an Audio Unit as is Beathawk.

    Midi is routed to Xequence from iFretless via AUM's routing. MIDI from Xequence to iFretless is also setup in AUM's routing. Seems to work fine. I am not routing any MIDI into BeatHawk. It automagically starts playback when I press play on the Audiobus palette.

    I press play on the Audiobus palette for Audiobus and press record on the AB palette for Xequence.

    I am not sure if I should somehow be using MIDI Clock to slave BeatHawk to Xeq instead.

    I hope that made some semblance of sense.

    Thanks,
    E

    This might not be the case for you at all, but many times I’ve been tripped up by forgetting to turn off record quantization. Nothing like having a nice swing groove going, then quantizing it right out when you record the midi.

  • +1 @wim The quantize recording defaulted to on always gets me.

    Not a big issue but @SevenSystems what is the reason this is enabled by default? And chance of an option in settings to change this?

  • @Richtowns said:
    +1 @wim The quantize recording defaulted to on always gets me.

    Not a big issue but @SevenSystems what is the reason this is enabled by default? And chance of an option in settings to change this?

    The reason is that I exclusively make EDM and recording anything without quantization doesn't make any sense there ;) The quantization setting is saved with the project, so you could turn it off in your "template" project if you have one... but maybe you're right and it would be better to turn it off in the internal default project (which comes up when you hit "New project".)

  • edited November 2018

    @SevenSystems said:

    @Richtowns said:
    +1 @wim The quantize recording defaulted to on always gets me.

    Not a big issue but @SevenSystems what is the reason this is enabled by default? And chance of an option in settings to change this?

    The reason is that I exclusively make EDM and recording anything without quantization doesn't make any sense there ;) The quantization setting is saved with the project, so you could turn it off in your "template" project if you have one... but maybe you're right and it would be better to turn it off in the internal default project (which comes up when you hit "New project".)

    No no no no!!! :D Let it enabled by default, I don’t make EDM but always use quantize too. Or make a setting for that in general settings? On/Off and quantization option, I use mostly 1/8 1/16 and 1/32, could be cool to set default value for new project too. Or allow us to choose/assign user template as default song? With a reset to internal default if needed. Could be nice too.

    BTW: AB preset state saving works really well now.

  • @Janosax said:

    @SevenSystems said:

    @Richtowns said:
    +1 @wim The quantize recording defaulted to on always gets me.

    Not a big issue but @SevenSystems what is the reason this is enabled by default? And chance of an option in settings to change this?

    The reason is that I exclusively make EDM and recording anything without quantization doesn't make any sense there ;) The quantization setting is saved with the project, so you could turn it off in your "template" project if you have one... but maybe you're right and it would be better to turn it off in the internal default project (which comes up when you hit "New project".)

    No no no no!!! :D Let it enabled by default, I don’t make EDM but always use quantize too. Or make a setting for that in general settings? On/Off and quantization option, I use mostly 1/8 1/16 and 1/32, could be cool to set default value for new project too. Or allow us to choose/assign user template as default song? With a reset to internal default if needed. Could be nice too.

    BTW: AB preset state saving works really well now.

    Yep, the "Save current project as default" button sounds like the best idea.

    Oh and good to know this state saving thing is finally sorted. I spent roughly 6289262792962 hours on trying to make it reliable :/

  • @SevenSystems said:

    @Richtowns said:
    +1 @wim The quantize recording defaulted to on always gets me.

    Not a big issue but @SevenSystems what is the reason this is enabled by default? And chance of an option in settings to change this?

    The reason is that I exclusively make EDM and recording anything without quantization doesn't make any sense there ;) The quantization setting is saved with the project, so you could turn it off in your "template" project if you have one... but maybe you're right and it would be better to turn it off in the internal default project (which comes up when you hit "New project".)

    Default quantization is a good thing. I'd wager more people would want it ON by default rather than off. A setting to change default behavior or set it for a song? Sounds reasonable, though settings can easily become a bane of existence :smiley:

  • I wish that one had the option of making the default to be quantization. I rarely want it on.

  • Back to my earlier question about best-practices to get accurate MIDI recording in Xeq with AUM, AB3 and Xeq when iFretless Bass and BeatHawk are running as AU in AUM.

    As @wim suggested, my initial issue was partly that input quantization was on.

    With it off, the timing was still a bit jittery. I recorded the audio from iFretless in AUM and the MIDI to Xeq.

    I then imported both the MIDI and audio file into Auria Pro and could see that the offset between the MIDI notes and the corresponding audio varied quite a bit. For the most part, the two were offset by a 1/64th note or less at 105 bpm. But some notes were off by almost a 1/32nd note and a few lined up perfectly. It might sound like subtle deviations but the result is the MIDI sounding a lot rougher than the audio.

    Time stamps were turned on in Xeq as was Ableton sync.

    I love Xequence.

    I don't know if this an expected amount of jitter that is just the nature of MIDI on mobile devices or due to the way I set up the routing or weak MIDI out performance from iFretless Bass. Or possibly that I've stumbled on an area where Xequence could use a tweak.

    I am running a 6th generation iPad with whatever the last iOS 11 release was.

    Thoughts?

  • @Kühl said:

    @SevenSystems said:

    EDIT 2: The office cat is a bit in need of affection right now, first things first! :)

    Respect! The pussycat comes first. I hope you give it delicious food :)

    I love this forum.....GEAR.....AND CATS!!!! 😍

  • @Michael said:

    @wim said:
    AUv3 automation. Unless I’m missing something, AB3 doesn’t have a way to map cc’s to AUv3 parameters, does it? If not then AU apps that don’t publish cc’s need to be in AUM.

    Hopefully @Michael has something planned to address this?

    Working on that as we speak =)

    Michael, you are too good for this world 😆

  • @wim said:
    My fav setup.

    • Xequence in the MIDI input page, one lane for each instrument (channel) I want to use.
    • Target apps (AU or AB3 Midi compatible receivers) in the output for each channel.
    • For apps that can't go into an AB3 midi output slot, first load the app in the audio page, then add a virtual midi output pointing to it on the midi page.
    • All appropriate FX in their lanes on the audio page
    • AUM in the output of each audio lane
    • Remaining bussing, FX, etc in AUM.

    I love things set up this way. I haven't felt this smooth with iOS in a long time. State saving an entire setup like this is awesome, and being able to send an AB3 session between iPhone and iPad and pick up exactly where I left off is awesome.

    Sounds fab. Do I need to buy midiflow as well for all this to work as yiu describe?

  • @Tronlady said:

    @wim said:
    My fav setup.

    • Xequence in the MIDI input page, one lane for each instrument (channel) I want to use.
    • Target apps (AU or AB3 Midi compatible receivers) in the output for each channel.
    • For apps that can't go into an AB3 midi output slot, first load the app in the audio page, then add a virtual midi output pointing to it on the midi page.
    • All appropriate FX in their lanes on the audio page
    • AUM in the output of each audio lane
    • Remaining bussing, FX, etc in AUM.

    I love things set up this way. I haven't felt this smooth with iOS in a long time. State saving an entire setup like this is awesome, and being able to send an AB3 session between iPhone and iPad and pick up exactly where I left off is awesome.

    Sounds fab. Do I need to buy midiflow as well for all this to work as yiu describe?

    As far as I can tell, the new virtual MIDI of AudioBus removed or reduced the need for MidiFlow Adapter.

  • I'm using LumBeats (Luis Martinez Drummers and iBassist) more and more. I really want to control Start/Stop and AUM isn't there yet. But I love AUM's primary mixer interface. I just need a way to MIDI trigger Audio. (Any clues for the right solution for this. MIDI event to start a long Sample Playback?).

    This workflow is probably the only way to get a single-button press transport (Start/Stop)
    to function and offer options for almost any App to work. It's complex but combinations of Virtual MIDI, MIDI Clock sync, IAA MIDI, AudioBus interfaces and Ableton Link could be required.

    I haven't had the patience to master it yet but frustration over Start/Stop as I settle on my favorite tools will probably insure I use AB3 for Start/Stop and App switching.

  • @mcd: AB3 with AUM solves that problem and is simple to setup.

  • Has anyone put up a video for this:

    Xequence (MIDI Channels) + AB3 (AB Channels) + AUM (MIDI + AB Channels)

    use case?

    PERSONAL GOAL: Optimize the ability to import a set-up and then just work primarily from AUM using the AB3 Transport "sidecar".

    I think Xequence operates outside of both AB3 and AUM and allows Apps to be the targets for MIDI Channels. Is that the case? A good video would really help navigate the "unknowns" of AB3, IAA, Core MIDI, Virtual MIDI, Bluetooth MIDI, AU FX, Audio Routing and the proper order to "save work in progress". I'm sure there are gotchas.

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