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.
Thinking about the upcoming 2018 MacBook AIR
Paired w my 2015 iPad Pro it could be orettynsweet . Plus w Apple’s upcoming Marzipan.. it will be my first laptop.. I think I’m throwing in the towel on the All ios idea. I think in conjunction w Logic Pro it would be a winner . Although I really love that new Studio One 4 Harmonic editing feature a d that chord track .
Anyone else considering that new “AIR”?
Comments
This new beauty will be a dongle lover. We can only imagine what apple has in store for the dongle business for this device
I'm more worried about 'drivers'. For example the Yamaha/Steinberg drivers are in their current state not compatible/certified with/for the upcoming macOS Mojave. (I will be very vocal about this if it's not fixed once macOS Mojave drops, I'll give the a few weeks 'grace period' but after that BOOM).
@mAxjUlien : Yeah, me too. I’m considering getting Studio One in it . It won’t talk to my iOS apps but oh, the features on it!
Sweetwater has has half price sales on Black Friday but remember also that Logic PRO will be supporting Melodyne’s ARA protocol so Logic will be doing some of that stuff if you get Melodyne . Plus yeah , Logic catch up in the future
Why the switch from Ableton?
👍👍
I had been planning once the new iPad Pro and MacBooks drop to buy one of each however I’m starting to think that I’ll just pick up a MacBook of some description as I’m finding creating in iOS is still too filled with compromises compared to working on a computer.
Xact! Me too
You know, I am now totally confused. I was set on acquiring a new Pro, but I see with an audio interface necessary, the price of a 12.9 is not much less than a MacAir 13, especially if you add in a case, a pencil, and a keyboard for the 11" Pro. Do I love making music on ios? Yes. Am I happy with the results? Yes and no. My production techniques could be better and give a better result, I am sure. However, as much as I am grateful for the instruments, I listen to Kontakt library's acoustics and am crestfallen. I can make great jazz stuff on iOS, no problem. More layered acoustics? Problem!
I don't look at a MacAir and think, Fun! I think "click". I think big learning curve. I think lots more money. Then I think maybe it is just my ego that wants more and better sound quality.... But when I have to freeze tracks in a submix, add tracks one or two at a time, the "mush" factor is all too evident in the result. All those great standalone sounds, where are they? If I knew how much better a result I could get with iOS with practice and a better iPad than I now achieve, that might solve it, but how do I figure that out without getting a new ipad? ( I have an ipad4).
I have an easy answer . Get the new upcoming MacBook Air : Upgrade Ronan iPad Pro next year .
Learning curve : There is an excellent 15 hr course on Logic Pro for beginners on Udemy for like 10 or 12 dollars uSD. Learning curve problem solved. Heck I don’t even know how to run Mac OS but I found a great video series for that too on Lynda.com..
Thanks @Telstar5. Ok, I can learn it... what about the cost of the sound libraries? Any thoughts there?
Problem with all those lush Kontakt sounds and Komplete synths is they take more processing oomph, so you might end up freezing tracks anyway.
I’ve been trying to record Maschine driven synths into Reason today - one track at a time, straight to audio, on my old MacBook Pro and it’s been crash city with warnings about lack of processing power. I gave up in the end.
Admittedly I’m using a six year old laptop, but it was a relief to get back on the iPad.
@Monzo Pro: Probably not if you had a six year old iPad, lol!
That’s nearly four years old
I need new kit!
Aargh! Caught inside a mobile with the Memphis blues...AGAIN!
Wow the air is my fav, hope there will be an 11” option!
Heavy...
I made some significant hardware/software purchases over the past few years and while I am now glad I did, it is only because I eventually abandoned my initial expectations/plans for how I was to use them and shifted things around. Things like Monzo mentioned became significant, as well as the (relatively speaking) unfun clicking you pointed out, plus iOS experienced a feature surge I did not anticipate (BM3/Cubasis 2.5/Synthmaster One/ProQ2 etc). Anyway. We all have different desired outcomes and fetishes etc so I won't go into the specific details of my deal but I would say, get the power you crave/seek but maybe just go with the flow in terms of exactly what to do with it... enjoy the ride. (Err, if that makes sense...)
Basically running new software on old kit is a PITA, whether it’s an iPad or a laptop.
At the moment my iPhone, iPad, laptop and desktop (9 years old) are all past their sell by dates. Me too.
@AudioGus : Didn’t you just wrote a post a few weeks ago about how much easier it was to edit audio in your Samplitude program?
Indeed I did. Why do you ask? Also, why do you quote Monzo? and why am I confused right now?
I was going to get the macbook pro this year but when I saw its price, I decided to wait cause as it happens, I might be able to get the new ipad pro 12.9 and the new macbook air for less than the price of a macbook pro.
@AudioGus : Because I don’t know WTF I’m doing w the quotes, (Monzonpro) that’s why, lol.😜🤪 Sorry ‘bout that....
. I mentioned the Samplitude comment vs you're ‘‘not being able to anticipate BM3, Cubasis 2.5, SynthMaster”. etc. I wasn’t trying to “catch” you although the sentence could have been misconstrued that way. I was trying to jusxtapose that vs the idea that you could get certain things done much quicker on desktop , is all. I’m trying to work this out in my own head as I’m writing as many of us are. No harm, no foul.
Another user checking for mac. In my situation looking at late 2012 mbp for run garageband/logic/mainstage, Ableton 9 and probably Traktor (not necessary the new) just for audio purposes. Video will be carried by my newold win10 desktop with dedicated graphics card.
I’m finding certain bargains around 400€ (also some maxed mac minis) and I’m not sure what to do...
Obviously my range budget is at that numbers more than 1K but maybe I should look for other models? I hated battery problems on my old polycarbonate macbook c2d and promise myself never gone with all soldered macs but maybe I can just buy an air?
I’m not going to use kontakt or similar but maybe a seaboard will arrive sooner than later...
Help? There is any help for someone like me?
Ahh gotcha, no worries! I was just overlaying the Monzo quote and trying to figure out my response then heard a fizzle/pop in my head, an errant spark flew and bounced off the wall, leaving a rorshach shaped scortch mark that reminded me of a turtle on it’s back baking in the hot sun... etc.
Anyway, for me ‘Mobile vs Desktop’ could really be reframed as ‘Mobile vs Stationary’. So lets back up the word truck, shall we?
First up, ‘mobile’ for me means I can use my iPad on the go, standing, walking etc. Not limited to taking it somewhere and just sitting with it. I use it like people use their phones. When not raining I walk down the street with it and weave in and out of crowds at the train stations etc. I find it actually better than my phone in that I do not need to hold it right up close to my face and am more aware of the periphery (semi trucks etc). I can get in around 2 hours on the ipad this way, door to door, home to work and vice versa. With a laptop this would be cut down to just one hour with it sitting in my bag half the time, and I may or may not get a proper table on the train, in which case chop it down to mere 30 min (why bother) or elimate the day all together. iPad also lets me get in the ocassional 5-10min coffee/lunch/plumbing/water cooler breaks etc. Not to mention when I get home there is an hour on the couch or bed. So in that context iPad clearly wins in terms of actual usable time. This is also why I will never get the 12”.
Anyway. I sit at a desk 40hours a week. i have a standing desk at home with a kick ass powerful desktop (I barely use) and a bed/couch rig for my laptop that works pretty good but the whole keyboard/mouse click/ tiny UI icons etc thing... ugh, yes it is powerful for editing (plus the sonic palette is vast and inspiring) and I can work quickly on a desktop but it does indeed feel like work. If I didn’t just spend 40 hours last week in this desktop situation I would be in absolute heaven using desktop daws/vsts etc this weekend, but I tried a couple hours on the laptop yesterday and meh/cognitive overload/physicaly not cool. When I have had a few days off not working (damn those memories are fuzzy, FML) and I then sit down with Vsts in Samplitude... OMG, it is ecstatic and sounds wonderful. Will I ever again be rested enough to want to do this for any extended period of time? Doubt it.
So anyway, I would be doing desktop 80% of the time if it fit my life, ie. retired or trust fund etc. My iPad and a couple hardware bits would fill out the remaining 20%. (My current ratio is 10% desktop and 90% iPad, again, not because it is objectively better in some technological way but because I am getting OLD and my body and mind hurt
)). If I didn’t have to work I would likely just use my iPads as creative sequencers and focus on realtime desktop jams that I then go in and edit after. But dammit, I don’t even want to think much about that as even writing that sentence got me super excited and then I felt that pit in my stomach that it will likely never happen. When I think about the past 1.5 years of iPad evolution though... well I will just stay focused on that excitement; come on Fab filters and BM4 (not a thing yet) etc.
So anyway part 2, one thing to consider is that if there is a learning curve ahead of you just imagine where iOS will be in that same amount of time and whether or not it is worth just staying focused on that. It is different for everyone.
But yah if I were 21 again with no commute and OK with sitting at a desk more than 40 hours a week, I would be hitting the desktop hard yet again. Curse you sands of time.
@AudioGus , sheez , that was epic.. I hope everyone read that.. Wow! I’m semi retired or trying to at this point and also have some down time at my job. So a MacBook AIR w Logic/iOS is doable . My wife has the 10.5 and it is sexy.. in fact they both are
Oh nice! On various fronts, heh. Oh yah, I would love to Apple up my whole thing. Being able to Air Drop to a MacBook and do midi over lightning easily would be awesome.
Yeah, that’s why I’m waiting for that Apple event on Wednesday w baited breath (new thin MacBook) A d why I’m spending more time in Garageband in favor of Cubasis