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
@skiphunt - cc #123 is the "all notes off" message. I suspect KB-1 is sending all notes off when it goes to background or something. You might want to try just setting the CC you want in AUM manually rather than using midi learn.
I did try that (I think) I tried several things over about an hour and then gave up. I'll hit it again later with hopefully a clearer mind.
No, I haven't. good idea though. I'll check that later. I just wanted to see if anyone else could get it to work like it's supposed to so that I could rule out possible user error.
Are you using KB-1 as a standalone or AU within AUM?
Try manually setting AUM to the CC you are sending. This will eliminate AUM picking up CC's that KB-1 may send out when the context switches.
I tried both. I also tried just setting it to whatever the default in KB-1 was.. and then setting the same in AUM.
Are you able to get it to work? There's always a possibility that I've missed something basic and that it's my own user error. I just want confirmation that the cc controls are working like they're supposed to after updating to the latest version. If it works for you and you've got the latest version... then it's likely something I'm doing wrong. I used to beta test this... so I'm pretty familiar with it. Will try a hard reset later and see if that helps.
As I mentioned, it crashes for me -- and because I have quite a few setups, I don't want to delete and reinstall since that will result in my losing my existing setups. (Deleting apps usually deletes the data associated with them). So, I can't test it.
It should be easy enough to test in AUM by routing the output to a MIDI monitor. If you don't have the Blueveek MIDI Monitor. You can download StreamByter for free which has a MIDI monitor in it.
Sure, I'll look into it for the next update.
@skiphunt @espiegel123
Sorry about that, I was sure to have fixed that crash, guess I missed something... I'll look into it right away.
Yes.. I've got at least a couple midi monitors, and there's one that's built into apeMatrix too.
Hadn't thought of losing the setups. If you wanted to solve your crashing problem by reinstalling... you could try going to iPad storage in the settings, then select the app, then select "Offload App". This is supposed to delete the app without it's documents or data. Then reinstall.
Mine isn't crashing after a delete and reinstall. I'm just having trouble getting the cc controls to work on anything. I've only tried controlling stuff in AUM though, ie. channel volume, toggle play, etc.
I'll play with it more later this evening. It's entirely possible I've missed something basic. I was just asking here for confirmation that anyone else can get the cc controls to work after the recent update.
Works fine in my test setups but of course that doesn't mean all that much. If you can check with a MIDI monitor that'd be great but either way, if you can't get it to work let me know.
Will do. Does it make any sense that if I'm doing midi learn from KB-1 for the AUM controls, that AUM would be filling in cc 123 every time instead of the cc # that I'd selected? I tried in standalone and AU... and it just kept sending that #123 setting for each of the cc controls I tried.
What are you doing that triggers the cc 123? You say "every time" but without the specific steps, it is hard to know what might be triggering it.
By sticking a MIDI Monitor on KB-1,I see that it sends that message when you change presets (makes sense : it makes sure that you don't have lingering notes stuck on).
When I use the MIDI CC, knobs KB-1 is sending what I expect.
I suspect that if you stick a midi monitor on that you will instantly see what is happening. Of course, I can't test the momentary stuff at the moment.
It doesn't seem worthwhile speculating more until you've checked it with a MIDI monitor.
If things don't look right, you'll be able to provide a step-by-step recipe of the actions and the results.
Not sure why it keeps sending cc123, can you describe how you do the mapping? When I try to map anything in AUM the dialogue will dismiss whenever I try to wiggle a control in KB-1 in order for the learn to happen. So basically it never learns anything.
EDIT: I should note thats when using KB-1 an an AUv3 inside AUM. When using the Standalone the learn dialogue will also dismiss when switching from AUM to KB-1
@ka010 I got it working both in standalone and in AU if I set it manually. I can't get midi-learn to work in AUM with the AU or standalone. I'm not getting that #123 any more, but I'm not sure why. I used your midispy app to monitor and it looks like KB-1 is sending what it's supposed to.
@espiegel123 I've been trying to set one cc to toggle playback in AUM. I'm using the second one to cc control volume in the channel. This isn't something I'm trying to do for any particular reason. It's just that I'd been requesting a toggle switch in KB-1 for awhile and was happy to see it make it into the update. I was only testing to verify it works.
So, when I said it was "doing it every time" it was every time that I tried to midi-learn from KB-1 into AUM's native controls. I also restarted and have not seen the #123 added since. It's just that midi-learn from KB-1 doesn't appear to work.
Unless, I'm not doing midi-learn in AUM correctly. Is there a common error some make doing this? Honestly, I don't use AUM all that much. I mostly prefer apeMatrix. I was just trying out midi-learn in AUM for use with KB-1.
I also have the LK midi cc controller panel. So I tried to get AUM to midi learn from that too with no luck. So, either something is wrong with AUM midi learn, or I'm doing something wrong.
If you try to do midi learn in AUM, it has to be in such a way that you don't have to touch the screen. As soon as you touch the screen (such as to play a note or move a knob on KB-1, the midi-learn dialog closes. It's always been this way and is a limitation in iOS.
To midi learn, you'd need to either use a hardware controller or to have a sequence playing that control from another app. Otherwise, you have to set the CC manually by dragging or using the arrows in the AUM midi learn dialog.
To midi learn from LK, you'd need to set up a pattern with that control (only) playing in it, then go to midi-learn.
Maybe you could post a video of how you are doing the MIDI Learn in AUM. I've not had any problems with it (and I used it often). So, maybe there is something different in how we go about it.
Is AUM not registering the event that you send when MIDI learn is on?
Yes, that's what was referring to earlier. The only way to prevent the learn dialogue from dismissing is to use KB-1 in Slideover mode.
@espiegel123 it's basically what @wim and @ka010 described about the midi learn in AUM canceling out if you have to leave that dialog box. But I don't see how you could midi learn anything that wasn't an external controller if that's the case.
And, I've done midi learn in Fieldscaper from KB-1 and LK without issue at all. I just select to learn the control in Fieldscaper then I switch apps to KB-1 or LK, and move the control that I want to use. Then go back to Fieldscaper and it's learned the control. That doesn't imply that it's an inherent problem with iOS if it works as expected in Fieldscaper.
Still, there could be something I'm missing or doing wrong in AUM.
I don't know how you could set a sequence playing for just a toggle switch, dial, or slider that you want to use to control AUM.
So, let's say I want to use midi learn in AUM. Let's say that I want it to learn a toggle switch cc controller and a slider controller from an external midi controller app and not an external controller. I go to AUM, select toggle play in the midi controls. I make sure it's set for cc and toggle. Then I hit "learn". It turns green. Then I leave AUM to go to the standalone controller app to hit the toggle switch I want AUM to learn. Only this doesn't appear to work. @wim says it's a limitation of iOS, but I can do exactly this if I want to control something in Fieldscaper. What am I missing?
It's not really a limitation of iOS, just the default behaviour for popovers, they dismiss as soon as you tap something outside of them. A dev can choose to keep them open but then you have to specifically close them too which can get annoying quickly.
I'm guessing it works with Fieldscaper simply because theres nothing interrupting the learn routine.
Ok. That makes sense. Not a big deal. Setting manually is fine. Do love me some midi-learn when it's available though.
Yes, that's what I meant. I wasn't very clear in how I said it.
No worries. Still seems like there ought to be an easier way to handle midi learn in AUM via external apps. But, I'm not an iOS dev so easy for me to say.
@ka010 thanks for the on-going evolution of KB-1 and the new toggle options. And all the new arp stuff is incredible! I especially move all the random and chance stuff you included in the the arp stuff too. Thank you for the continued development!
My pleasure
@espiegel123 That crash should be fixed in beta but just to be sure would you like to give try it?
I'd be glad to.
great, sent a pm.
ratcheting works fine on its own, but when i try to send midi via kn1 to my desktop to trigger synths in here. the ratchet feature doesn’t work. why is that?
Put a midi monitor between KB-1 and the output and see whether the output looks right -- that will tell you if KB-1 is to blame or if events are being lost in transit.
no crash for me in the beta!
I'm guessing that has something to do with the synth you're playing, have you tried different ones? If not which one are you using? Also, how are you connected to the desktop? I've been using it a lot with Ableton and hardware synths with no issues so far.
Great, thanks for the feedback!
No doubt I’m dense but how does one use this with Garageband. No problem with AUM or Zenbeats. Thanks.