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 Store

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

Cult of Mac Article - How iPad is revolutionizing Music Production

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Comments

  • I wrote that, but I think the video was already posted here a few days ago.

  • Sweet. Shared!

    And, thanks for your continued support of iOS music, @mistercharlie!

    🙏

  • edited November 2018

    There are true points in this article to which I fully agree, but a lot of nonsense, too.
    The iPad is a great instrument if tactile interaction is well implemented (which is often the case), but looking at the example of 'Blocswave as your main instrument' shows the biggest drawback: timing is all quantized and sounds are retuned.
    You may call this the beginning of new perceiption in sound aesthetics - as you can call it a limiting generator of trash sound.

    IOS music took off quite promising, but surprisingly quick fell back into mediocracy.
    (considering quantity of released apps versus their respective quality)
    Imho maybe 5% are worth considering, the majority is either 'me-too' or trying to port desktop paradigms into a totally inappropriate environment.
    But hardware and OS are (basically) ok to provide the ground for improvement.
    (it's just stunning that this didn't happen yet - within 7 years or so...)

  • They’ll catch up with us eventually.

  • To be honest, I’m surprised that it is still news!

  • I’m in agreeance with this. I jumped back into Ableton for a little while and was just endlessly tweaking things and wishing it was bm3. A rubicon has been crossed in my own mind, gonna spring for a new Pro next year

  • @PhilW said:
    To be honest, I’m surprised that it is still news!

    There's this interesting twist when news becomes promo! ;) Fingers crossed, Apple pushing hard on this story is both a potent magnet for big music production software fish, and a good sign for us users that they want to see the platform blossom.

  • I think it’s fabulous direction, the early days didn’t do much for me...but things are looking really good

  • edited November 2018
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  • iOS contains a wealth of music-making riches. It’s crazy to me that it is a more fertile ground for innovation than the other OSes.

  • To say that the iPad can replace a recording studio is a bit of a misnomer. The studio isn't just the recorder or the desk, it's a complete environment designed for producing music. And the people that operate it are paid to spend weeks on a single project.
    You'd probably find that many major recording studios are quite similar now to how they were 30 or 40 years ago, just with new bits of gear to replace the outmoded stuff.

  • It’s getting better, but in some ways getting worse...

    I can’t take the iOS platform too seriously for a few reasons:

    Constant dongle changes quickly forcing new io and bringing new problems.
    File management is the biggest joke of all times...seriously it’s plain greed...something as simple as saving to a usb stick is not painless?
    Bigger platforms, such as let’s say propellerheads, simply won’t commit or put anything serious on iOS...even though the newest iPad kills a lot of laptops...
    It’s like this is bizzaro world computing where companies refuse to let the old platforms(desktops/laptops) go

  • Mhhh....in a decade an iPad is the same as current laptops but with less RAM and (real) cpu power since the form factor won‘t change.
    Running some loops/samples is the future?
    Maybe for some genres but in a lot areas it can‘t even replace 10 years old laptops.
    IPads are great but not the holy grail.
    More innovative and powerful tools are missing for me. App store isthe future? Idiocracy...

  • 😂 weird place this is...a mobile music forum where seemingly nobody actually believes in it.
    Thank you, next.

  • @realdawei said:
    😂 weird place this is...a mobile music forum where seemingly nobody actually believes in it.
    Thank you, next.

    I agree with you Personally I will never go back to laptop - ipad all the way

  • edited November 2018

    @Max23 said:

    @MonzoPro said:
    They’ll catch up with us eventually.

    ^^
    iPad shines if you are just using a standalone app and all you want to do is happening inside that app, but as soon as you have to mange files or want to connect devices the headache begins ...
    lets not talk about editing audio - its a nightmare without a mouse and keyboard shortcuts
    I also dont want to write more then a lines on iOS because text selection is awful

    maybe we'll see mouse support sometime in the future, all new iPads support a pointing device - the pen. Why not support a mouse too, now?

    You’re joking, right? The mouse is antiquated. It was invented to enable humans to select and move objects around a computer screen. The touchscreen has the same capability but is so much more intuitive and enjoyable. Giving the iPad support for a mouse would be like using a Tesla electric car as a horse-drawn carriage.

  • edited November 2018

    You’re joking, right? The mouse is antiquated. It was invented to enable humans to select and move objects around a computer screen. The touchscreen has the same capability but is so much more intuitive and enjoyable. Giving the iPad support for a mouse would be like using a Tesla electric car as a horse-drawn carriage.

    So why do so many apps insist on things happening behind my finger, so I can't actually see what's being done?

    Touch control, move it, take finger off to see what you've done ... It's hardly intuitive to me.

    Better: Touch control, keep link between finger and control when your finger is moved away, make movement more precise the further away you get.

  • @pauly said:

    You’re joking, right? The mouse is antiquated. It was invented to enable humans to select and move objects around a computer screen. The touchscreen has the same capability but is so much more intuitive and enjoyable. Giving the iPad support for a mouse would be like using a Tesla electric car as a horse-drawn carriage.

    So why do so many apps insist on things happening behind my finger, so I can't actually see what's being done?

    Touch control, move it, take finger off to see what you've done ... It's hardly intuitive to me.

    Better: Touch control, keep link between finger and control when your finger is moved away, make movement more precise the further away you get.

    That’s an issue with the software and the app developers, rather than the hardware and it’s touchscreen interface. A lot of apps, in fact most of them, allow you to do what you described; tap a control, move your finger away to see what’s going on underneath whilst retaining the link.

  • This mouse thing will never go away. People don’t like change. But for them, there’s the Mac. It’s not going anywhere! You can buy it if you need a mouse etc.

    Back to the topic. iOS still has plenty of limits, but I don’t even think of using the Mac for music. And some of those limits have been great. AudioBus itself was created to work around one big limitation in iOS.

    I like Blocs Wave too, and I love that you can easily get stems out of it. It’s a perfect scratchpad for many folks.

  • For the future, I'd bet on touchscreens, and there will be new music-industry-standard devices that were born out of the iPads of today. The touch UI's will be much better for all applications, and file management will be both secure and flexible. Today, desk/laptop for me is still main production, and iPad for sketching/playing/controlling. With younger producers and newer music, though, I'm sure there's a lot more gravity pulling towards the studio on a tablet, making it work for them. Let's face it, the aesthetic is changing. If one can make it work for their music, who's to argue against it? For those waiting til the technology matures, it should be an easy jump when it's ready.

  • Kilroy was here...

  • Don't ruin iPads by making it mouse compatible. It sounded like a terrible idea 8-9 years ago, and it remains a terrible idea today. I'd bet that Apple is never going to do that.

    If somebody wants to use a mouse, go buy a laptop, and then you can even run desktop apps on it and have a desktop file system.

    It seems to me that many of the features and things that people want for the iPad already exists elsewhere on other types of devices like laptops and desktops, so why use an iPad in the first place?

    I personally don't have anything against mice, I use them all of the time on desktop, but not with my iPad, thankfully. That's one of the things that makes iPads great.

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  • edited November 2018

    If people talk about 'mouse operation' they don't necessarily refer to the physical device.
    It's about particular actions that are at least 4 times faster than current touch operation.
    Not because touch is worse or slower, but because developers didn't yet implement it properly.

    You'll see it sooner or later, either in software or as a hardware addon - it's that simple ;)
    Of course 'mouse operation' is rather pointless if just beats and readymade loops are arranged, but anything requiring precise timeline operation is (currently) rubbish in touch mode. And it's ergonomic nonsens anyway.

    ps: to be precise, Apple never got that mouse thing right - the crucial part is the wheel and 1 to 3 function buttons right at your finger tip. It doesn't exist in any native MacOS, but can be added by USB Overdrive.

  • All that precision editing is just as wacky to me. Playing it right the first time would obviate the need for such shenanigans :D ;)

  • W> @CrazySynthMan said:

    It seems to me that many of the features and things that people want for the iPad already exists elsewhere on other types of devices like laptops and desktops, so why use an iPad in the first place?

    Agree 100%

    This forum is full of people hoping/wishing their iPad was more like a laptop. I don’t get it. The iPad is a different device with different features and different strengths. I don’t like making music with a trackpad or a mouse. It seems distant and fiddly. And I have to sit at a desk. The iPad is tactile. I can hold it whilst sitting on a sofa. I can twiddle more than one knob at once without a separate controller. I can take it anywhere.

    As for the filing system, which also features in a lot of frustrated comments on this forum; I don’t particularly find it restrictive. Quite the opposite. I can design some drum sounds on a synth on my phone whilst on the train ride home. I can record them to AudioShare, trim them, etc. I can then pick up my iPad when I get home, open Electribe Wave and import those sounds straight in. It’s brilliant!

  • edited November 2018

    It’s not only asking for laptop replacement @Beathoven...
    In some cases the promised land of ditch your laptop in the new post-pc era mantra has been a lie.
    IOS11 was a totally mess from perfomance POV just to get Files, split view and dock. These are amazing from workflow POV but gone wreck from performance side and GUI priority still cause crackles and pops where in iOS10 all was fine.
    If you add this to the fact how expensive are getting iDevices and there is no clue of Logic for iOS (adapted of course) then you have a bad taste in your mouth...

    As I stated before I hope Apple finds its way again but as full iOS user I was, dissapointment is the sweetest word I can say.

    Apple tries to sell us a PRO device which it isn’t in any way, not for the comparision against desktop/laptop but by the perfomance lacks and workflows against them.

    I bought a logitech bt keyboard this black friday to use it in junction mac mini and iPad. Writting this from it ATM and recovering my peace using a true keyboard with chances to select text and add markdown easy way. It’s not a matter of adaptability, it’s a matter iOS still didn’t get a better interaction way to do this and do it with voice could be a joke with my english speaking and Siri Artificial Dumbness :lol:

    So I can understand people asking for something like mouse to edit things (even not my case) and I believe stylus could be that device or almost part of it but touchscreen...? Mmm I want to believe but it’s a pita trying to do these fine adjustments in audio.

    About file system and big libraries, I ditched mine the day I gone full iOS and nowadays I supply them with dedicated hardware or Mainstage. Apple failed too replacing these...
    Also using BlocsWave and online sample packs seems useful to me only if they come with management file system attached to them.
    Search over thousands of Future Music samples back in the day was so tedious that I never get any profit of that digital diogenes syndrome.

    I’m not saying subscription neither but Blocs is still useful in my workflow for that plus Ableton export where I can get ready my tracks and send them to mix/mastering if I need it.
    Mac mini bring me back that possibility let me finish tracks by myself. Apps like BM3 or Garageband have made me go sick for basic tasks like editing, exporting, no external control... it’s like there isn’t one true checking all the tic boxes!
    I’m trying Stagelight due it seems promising but I bought it due mac version (and crossplatform if you ask me) because just iOS would be a no-go for me nevermore.

  • @TheDubbyLabby You’ve just confirmed my point. Like I said, the iPad is a different device with different features and different strengths.

  • @Beathoven said:
    Like I said, the iPad is a different device with different features and different strengths.

    Indeed. Laptop replacement does not mean "offers same experience as laptop", it just means you can use for similar purposes, but possibly in a different way.

    Motor cycle = car replacement, but doesn't offer the same features nor experience. If you like getting from A to B quickly, with a bit of drama while enjoying being exposed to the elements a motor cycle is an excellent car replacement. If you need to drop three kids off at school, it's a terrible car replacement. Yet nobody would complain about motorcycles not being good car replacements for that reason...

    iPad is a pretty good laptop replacement if you want to make music quickly, with lots of accessible, affordable creative musical tools in pretty much any location, context or timeslot. Takes no time to startup, setup and get something going. It's a terrible laptop replacement if you want to micromanage sample-accurate fades in dozens of drum samples which subsequently need to be sorted in a structured folder system (sounds like work, yuck).

    The iPad is like 7-league-boots for making music.

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