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
@jonmoore i would hope so. i'd splurge another $50 when/if that comes. i'm really digging everything i've seen with Cubasis. having Auria buyers remorse right now, it just doesn't perform as well as i'd want it to and the interface is an eyesore. Cubasis looks snappy and from what i gather is less resource intensive.
None of them do. The best you could do is create a guide track in time based mode using a drum sequencer that can do tempo and time sig changes (or drop these in) and play all your other parts to that.
Does Cubasis do time stretching?
No, I'm afraid not. You would have to export to an app that did and then import the result.
I think my gushing review came a bit too soon, I can't get Cubasis to sync with anything. It appears that it doesn't send or receive MIDI Clock (I can't find any reference to it in the manual, in the settings or on the Cubasis forum). For a sequencer to be useful for anything other than live recordings it needs a Midi Clock, and for this feature to be missing from a Steinberg product never even occurred to me.
So even after giving it an initial thumbs up it turns it that it's pretty useless to me. It seems that Beatmaker is the last hope we have of a product that will enable us to record multiple takes of sequenced music and keep it all in sync.
Very disappointing.
@hypoetical I doubt that Auria buyers are having any buyers remorse unless they are using iPad 2 or earlier and even then you can still do a lot with it.
I own both and I really like both. Each excels in different areas. Cubase has a lovely interface but the poor midi implementation and the lack of midi clock are more than a little frustrating. Whilst midi is its big feature against Auria, Cubasis internal instruments and effects are poor. Theres also a group of users concerned about the lack of 24 bit audio, but that's not an issue for me. I think it will be great in the long run and currently it's a lot of fun to use because of the slick interface but its not there yet.
Auria's interface isn't so good but it sounds better and its effects you can have access to blow Cubasis away. (Playing the guitar through FAB Filter Volcano is outrageous fun!) in addition automation allows you to do so much more with so much less. I also suspect some interesting midi implementation will be here soon. My concern would be how that will sit with existing heavy CPU usage. That said freezing tracks makes a lot possible in Auria you just have to sort out your workflow.
Why Steinberg didn't upgrade the midi implementation on Cubasis is beyond me. Even running a drum machine that can play your own samples in time using midi clock, like Molten, would have added a lot of additional option and given them more of an edge on Auria in the midi domain.
It's the old story both these Apps have so much going for them but we still want more.....
@Skipp
100% with you on your assessment. There's a part of me that thinks accurate inter app midi clock on IOS devices isn't possible as nothing has yet surfaced that can pull off this trick. And I'm very frustrated with myself for not checking out the facts first with regard to Cubasis's capabilities in this area.
I'm able to get Cubasis or Genome sequencing multiple apps in perfect sync (and am only restricted by the capacity of my CPU) but for IOS sequencers to truly become effective (for sequenced music, not live performance recordings) we need to be able to record multiple takes and keep them in sync with previous recordings. If this isn't possible it serverly restricts many of the benefits of Audiobus for electronic musicians. I know that the Beatmaker team are aiming to deliver on this promise so I'm personally really hoping they can deliver something workable.
Guys, every developer on iOS currently agrees that MIDI sync is really crap. I've basically talked with every single one. They all agreed 100%. We're working on it.
@Sebastian
It's great to hear this in public from a developer as it's something I've long suspected. We're not looking for the earth here, it's a very basic feature which the most toy-like of desktop sequencers deliver so our frustrations have to be understood especially with a premium application such as Cubasis.
If it turns out that this is a challenge that can't be overcome we'll all find other ways to work around the problem. I'm already devising workarounds for Cubasis that will enable me to sequence multiple applications via multiple takes without relying on midi clock. I just expect greater transparency from developers that the problem actually exists so am thankful that you've confirmed my suspicions.
"we are working on it"
oh,what?
but i agree,Midi clock was quite useless to me with most apps.Best results i had with the Finger stuff (Bassline)but the biggest disappointment is Beatmaker.It even runs 1-2 BPM faster when i try to sync it with Logic on my Mac.tried it with different interfaces...such a shame but i don't count on Midi clock.Currently.
We can but dream.....
Seems strange though what you've been able to achieve with AB and the complexities of handling audio ..... but we're struggling to get Apps to sync?!
i'm more interested in the live recording options, and on an iPad 3, Auria just feels clunky when you get more than 4 tracks going. navigating the tracks view is pretty painful and slow. how does Cubasis fair in the UI response department when you have a bunch of tracks/waveforms on screen at once?
@hypoetical
As a live recording app Multitrack DAW is still the most streamlined (and bug free, Cubasis still occasionally loses the Audiobus track and starts recording the mic).
The Cubasis demo track has 13 tracks (10 audio, 3 midi) and it's busiest sections has 11 tracks playing at once. The song contains at least one effect on each track and two send effects throughout (although these effects don't match the quality of Auria they're far better than those included with Multitrack DAW) and the most my iPad 3 processor hits is 30%. Pretty impressive stuff. You also get none of that laggy screen performance that you encounter with Auria and the workspace is a far more pleasurable place to be.
Even with my disappointment ref Midi Clock, I'd still rate it as the best IOS DAW. It has plenty of well documented weaknesses but as an overall IOS experience that's not trying vainly to be a desktop app (guilty as charged Auria) I'd have no hesitation in recommending Cubasis for your specific requirements.
re: Cubasis still losing audio connection: Ugh, better report that to Steinberg so they can fix it.
The first night Auria went on the bus I sat and recorded 9 stereo tracks of heavy weight iOS synths freezing each as I went or recording with effects in place. Compressed, EQ'd and through a decent reverb, it was the best sounding thing I'd ever recorded on iOS and as I was only working with one "live" track at a time the interface was fairly sprightly.
With Auria workflow is king and you have to sort out something that suits you, but it is capable of great sounding results using an iPad3.
Cubasis has a great front end and with the tracks minimized in height you can navigate swiftly. However as with Auria in this state you can't see all the track data you might like. I have however had to reboot it three times so far today having pushed it to the point of instability using AB and I've crashed it twice....
On the up side I've been able to record Animoog and Wavemapper as midi tracks, tweak the timing then record to audio through AB, which I can't do in Auria.
You pays you money and makes your choice.....
Anyone been using the MIDI clock sync in Meteor?
Does cubasis have per track volume automation? That's the one thing i could actually use that MT Daw doesn't have.
@Ryan no it doesn't but Meteor does.
@Ryan
It has no real automation features full stop, never mind per track volume automation (although I don't believe this will be the case in the long run) - Auria is still king here especially if you make judicious use of the freeze function so that your not putting your iPad under too much pressure (although I will add that I don't recommend using Auria in combination with Audiobus full stop as the interface response just becomes too sluggish).
Yet again Beatmaker does offer relatively sophisticated automation features but we've yet to see how it performs via Audiobus.
The Steinberg team seemed to be under the belief that most Cubasis users would be new to the world of DAW's but they got a shock when they posted a survey in their forum which showed that only 2% of Cubasis customers no not use desktop DAW's. I think this has shaken them up a tad and made them realise that Cubasis needs to offer more than lowest common denominator features.
But as much as I've criticised Steinberg for the stripped back feature set I'm glad they've built something that's streamlined for IOS use, I just think they could learn a thing or two from the Beatmaker & Genome IOS development teams with regard to how far you can reasonable push an IOS processor.
@jonmoore. I agree with your statement about Steinbergs initial belief. I think they thought Garageband and the likes was the competition, but it turned out (because of that survey) that they were competing with desktop daws including their own.
@mgmg4871 Yeah, I saw that.. Wasn't sure how well it worked though. Meteor seems to be the top choice for my needs. I bought WaveMapper instead this week but now I'm thinking I should've just gotten Meteor like I had planned. oh, and FYI I calculated the total price of Meteor to $67.88 with all IAP's. :-)
@jonmoore That's good info. Live and learn. Personally I'd love to see them bring "the grand" to ios. I love that piano VST. LOVE IT! Besides that though I haven't liked any of their products but that's just opinion. :-))
@Ryan sorry about the excitement I generated that provoked you to buy WaveMapper, but I'm thinking you would have bought it anyway. Lol.
Really interested in this. I have found auria to be pretty unusable with audiobus.
@mgmg4871 no problems man. :-)) I'll get use out of it for sure. :-))
Yeah still waiting on an auria demo video with AB. One for cubasis would be nice too.
can anyone tell me how Cubasis compares to Meteor as far as workflow, midi implementation ,wave editing etc. I've been having much better results using Meteor with the recent AB & IOS 6.1 updates but I still get sporadic audio clip dropouts and really low volume levels when I record from other apps (even their own Synergy studio). I like Meteor but I just want to know if Cubasis is more solid and feature rich. thanks !
@Jomazz,
I'm not sure if you'll find anybody here that has purchased both Meteor & Cubasis but as for the specific problems you've been having with Meteor, Sebastian has mentioned that Cubasis is the best implementation of Audiobus he has yet encountered and I can confirm that the workflow is very smooth. If anything it's probably safer to drop the levels coming from your sound generator apps slightly to avoid clipping. The midi editing within Cubasis is the real winner, that coupled with the automatic creation/deletion of the accompanying Audiobus routing for the audio tracks. Whilst it doesn't offer sophisticated editing options for control data the actual workflow for entering and editing note data is second to none.
I had my reservations regarding Steinbergs commitment to IOS apps as their previous efforts were left rattling around with the tumbleweed and saw no further development after launch but I'd say Cubasis is pretty critical to their product portfolio and expect it to get lots of enhancements in the coming months.
In saying that I always judge an app on the 'jam' it delivers today rather than it's promises of jam tomorrow and even when considered in that manner it's still a a highly recommended product.
some good impressions by the folks at discchord:
http://discchord.com/blog/2013/2/1/cubasis-updated-with-audiobus.html
i still think about a Cubasis purchase.Thing is,i love Auria a lot but nobody knows when Midi arrives and the Cubasis GUI is very tempting to me.How responsive is the interface btw?Smooth scrolling/pinch zooming?
But my goal is it to work only in ONE seqencer app someday and since i spend a lot of money for Auria IAP's it should be Auria then.Would be wasted 50 bucks just because i don't like to wait.And because i like the Cubase workflow.Damn first world problems...
You could always do this:
Oh yeah!