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
I admit my first reaction to the Meris Enzo was - "so what? I have synths already - IOS, hardware, analog, digital..." but then I realized I could augment my guitar stuff with it in some fun ways.
Context: (Harry Enfield / Loadsamoney)
0-Coast is pretty sweet for the price, there’s a lot there to really take you in crazy places. Bit of a Swiss Army knife of audio processing and generation too. I had tons of fun with mine just getting lost doing random weird things for the hell of it. Never managed to use it on a song, but it made me think of audio synthesis in entirely new ways which is why I had one for a time.
OB-6 is....drool worthy too, and worth the long wait to save up the money for one. Easily one of my favorite purchases of all time, and likely one of th last things I will ever part with.
Heh! 😁🇬🇧👍
Why did you part with the coaster?
The think is....what are you looking for?
In terms of sound, IMHO, we have on iPad every type of VA synth, the only thing that I miss is "not-touch" the screen, so here is the interface.
So, one thing, "knobby interface".
I'm in love with this controllers, I want it so bad
http://sound-force.nl/
On the other hand, the typical analog hardware. With this budget, you have limited but interesting options (Minilogue, Bass Station...)
And, of course, you have modular / semi - modular options.
I'm assuming to fund the 3000$ ob-6.
All joking aside why'd you sell yours ? You actually inspired me to buy mine
I had two primary reasons for getting the O-Coast initially. Wanting to learn a little more about the West Coast style of synthesis, and seeing if perhaps going a bit deeper into the modular synth world was something I'd be interested in. The first reason was perfectly sated by my time with the 0-Coast, I learned a lot and had a lot of fun doing it. But, it also became pretty apparent that for me, modular synthesis just wasn't something I needed to explore further.
As much as I enjoyed using the 0-Coast, at the end of the day it never ever made it into one of my tracks. I'd spend hours making a patch I liked, but if I didn't have song it would fit in (or get an idea for a new song), then the 0_Coast was just sitting there since I was afraid to lose that patch if I tried something else. Taking pictures of the patching sorta works, but often it was near impossible to get exactly what I had back from before.
It's a cool little box that does a lot more than you might expect, but at the end of the day I was spending hours just making atonal bleeps and drones and really not getting actual music making done. Better for me to sell it to fund something I would actually use in my music, instead of keeping it as this quirky (but cool) little science experiment.
And? So what replaced it?
Nothing directly, that money went into my ongoing studio fund. I guess since then I’ve purchased Maschine mk3 and Omnisphere 2.5, so in a round about away I suppose those count?
Man I was all ready to purchase some software this month but now this thread has got me looking at a Roland se02 or a used Moog SlimPhatty on CL haha... dangerous
That SE02 sounds amazing, really liking what Roland did with that one.
I understand, I'm not interested in going down the modular rabbit hole either, I'm wondering if your reasoning could also be my reasoning for getting one and not going any further as I just want something for a mild experience and the external signal processing more than anything else. I still haven't seen much organic processing though, everything is about distortion or being metallic etc...
To be fair I didn't jump down the modular rabbit hole. The 0-coast is pretty much everything I need. Specially cause I already owned a beatstep pro and that gives me all the CV modulation I want that isn't included in the 0-coast. Even if you completely ignore the sequencers on the beatstep pro. Using the 2 pitch CV outs on the beatstep and the midi to CV on the 0-coast you can basically automate 3 parameters on the 0-coast from a Daw. That's fantastic in it's own right. Add the 8 CV outs from the drum sequencer and I really don't need more modules.
Regarding audio processing I haven't really used the 0-coast in this manner myself I'm afraid so I can't tell you how useful it is for organic processing
plus I'm leaving for my US trip soon so most of my studio gear is all packed up currently. So won't be able to check till mid November.
For the next month I'm going to be purely IOS
might even record some modstep stuff let's see.
thanks GK, gonna have to get my hands on an 0-coast to figure it out one way or the other but I'm definitely intrigued
You won't get much normal processing out of it, aside from tremolo. West Coast synthesis tends towards the electronic avant garde.
Agreed, it was definitely not an all around processor so much as something aimed at destroying signals.
This reminds me of a thing that now and again irks me. Most of you know that I know my shit when it comes to synthesis. You’d think I’d really be into modular synthesisers, and any whacky synthesis method that comes along in a box.
Yet it turns out that synthesis isn’t the goal, for me. I thought it was, for several decades, but it isn’t. I’m far more interested in making a good memorable song. I think I always was and synthesisers were just the way to do that. I’m noticing that I’m steering away from things that are interesting and indulgent but aren’t going to help me make a song.
When I mean a song I mean something that people remember years later, can whistle or hum, and has within it some small set of words that even children can recite annoyingly. The things that help me make a song are actually fairly basic and straightforward and simple, which is disappointing, but I think I’ve got over that realization now.
There are so many distractions in the technology that aren’t going to give a person their desired end result. I think we have to be a bit careful. Going ‘no hardware’ really is proving a good move for me (if I ignore the old synths I still have but don’t use).
Another thing related to this pursuit is the recognition that too much music theory isn’t going to help me make a simple memorable song, it might even make it too clever, too complex and less easy for listeners to take with them.
👍
Perfectly said, very wise words.
That's the one Roland really very well sounding. Read somewhere it's done for most parts by Studio Electronics. Doesn't matter, what counts are the sounds. And they sound very well, the best of all the little Roland boxes to my ears.
Another well sounding one is that one from Malekko, Manther, in about the same price range and future proof for someone who is building his set up because of all the possible connections.
Last one in about the same price range which also sounds well to my ears is that new one by Pittsburg, their Microvolt 3900.
Really last one then, the Erebus V3. Probably will be their best sounding and best selling yet.
Four synths not that expensive and all four very well sounding. For me they didn't need to incorporate sequencers but alas.
Which one did you buy?
I've spent more money after reading this forum than anywhere else on the net. Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.
Making music with synthesizers is addictive 😀 There are so many nice synths these days!
avant garde is good but I'm just sick of the distorted, over saturated, bit crushed etc... simply put have blown my brains out enough with that for several lifetimes, now I'm looking for space, timing differentials, warmth as in gooey, the butter, the sweetness, bloops and bleeps and everything in-between are fine if they sound good next to al greens voice
For what it's worth, I have bought too much lately, but these are keepers:
Digitakt. - sounds great. sequencer is worth the entire price. And you can sample your other gear. The D/A converters on it are incredible. It has punch that other samplers lack. BTW Guitar center coupons work for Elektron gear, at least for now.
Moog Grandmother
Moog DFAM
Arturia Minibrute 2S awesome sound, awesome sequencer, much better than the first brutes.Great to sample into Digitakt.
Great affordable synths from the past:
Studio Electronics SE-1X, better than SE-02.
Kawai K-5000S, K-5/m, K-3/m
Casio CZ anything
Blofeld
I had a Roland JP-8080 but every encoder was going bad, so I got rid of it. But System-1/8 has same JP-8000 lineage so a used system-1 for the supersaw.
Just noticed on Sweetwater that Behringer dropped the price of Deepmind by 30% ... Deepmind 12 Desktop now only $599 -- or $540 for the store display/demo @ SW ... Barely $40 more than your budget gets you an insane amount of synth capability.
A good tune is a good tune whatever it is played on and simplicity is the key to memorability.
OT but a good point. Although I've had some joy using great sounds on otherwise boring-sounding ideas which made them much more enjoyable, albeit not necessarily more memorable
You can get “normal” sounds out of the o-coast, very nice ones. Check out pies are squared videos.