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
Would also be great to hear your thoughts on the app design related to the tracks and sequences.
Do you like that multiple tracks(4 in fact) are managed in the same pattern sheet. Would it be more convenient if each track had separate sheet, like, for example, Gadget does? The negative effect of this will be that the chord pattern could not be seen as a whole like it is currently, but would be spread along multiple pattern sheets. The positive things are: 1. you will be able to make each track pattern of its own length, 2. You will be able to create as many tracks as you want
Do you like the current design of the pattern editor? I mean do you like these dots and lines? Or you would prefer more traditional design with square grid and events?
@Dmitry_Klochkov Maybe i’m already stuck in my ways, but the two sets of four sheets, as you call them, are good for me. Not too much or little. It’s just enough for me to wrap my head around for sketching purposes. And I like the lines, dots and clearly delineated colors, as they allow me to easily discern which track is doing what, even on songs I haven’t messed with in a while. Now, it would be nice if you found a way for each to have it’s own length, independent of the set, but I would still keep them stacked as you have them.
Don’t get me wrong- I’d love to see what you could do with a more traditional sequencer, flush with features, but maybe make it optional, or another app. This sits too perfectly in my flow already.
I kind of like the existing method and also the other one you propose. Maybe we could get a mode shift toggle that let's us choose between both methods ?
I agree with the others and really like how it is now. Having the other melody and chord lines visible lets you play them against each other. Maybe a compromise would be to have the current method but have the ability to add another 4 line melody or arpeggiator column. That would allow different length sequences. But I'm not actually asking for that, it is very good as it is and adding more stuff could make it more complex. There is beauty in the ease of use you currently have.
I like it the way it is now.
Seems if you made it AU Midi, it could stay the same, but multiple instances would enable this “independent track” scenario you have described.
I second this. Having AU midi extensions for each would be incredibly useful.
When on the section page with the grid where you connect lines etc I would like to know what notes I’m playing with by note name (A2, C3 etc) rather than the vertical numbers on the left side to relate more to the chords that I’ve picked on the chord page since I know the notes in all those chords (blessing or curse ? of knowing music theory). Also the name of the chord should be displayed on the same grid page so you know what chord you’re playing around with.
My vote is right here.
This really is a very fine app.
It would be nice if Steps and Beats could be set for the whole Section grid page to set the measure or bar of music but have the Rate separated so that each part or color could be set at a different rate or rhythmic value, this would get it away from all parts playing the same ostinato rhythm together. Some parts could play slower half and whole notes and other parts could play faster or other different rhythms (1/16 against triplets) together. Some kind of gate or adjustment of note length would also be nice.
Edit: I figured out where note length is. It would still be nice to allow different rhythmic rates on each part in the same section.
I opened and started a new file and to my surprise, there were the note names I requested a few posts back. I went back to the previous file and the numbers replaced the note names so I wonder what’s going on. I started the first piece on an earlier version of CF so maybe that has something to do with it. Unless I missed a setting somewhere, weird!
Thanks for adding note names!!
Does this app do jazz chords well? Upper tensions, 13ths? 11ths? 9ths! Progressions?
I agree!
Props to @Dmitry_Klochkov for the evolution of this App.
One thing I've sometimes thought of and could be considered a feature request....
?
It would be really cool if you could program the note sequence and then use MIDI input to input chords live.
It could then be used as a kind of monster multichannel arpeggiator.
@yowza
You can do different note lengths with the line tool.
But no mixing straight and triplet feels possible, since you just get one main rate.
If you set your rate to the fastest or shortest note you need, then you can draw longer notes with the line tool to get slower notes. Even one big long note if you want that.
The thing is, it is the main feature of the arpeggio section that you don't operate in the absolute notes but in the relative degrees of a chord. You can think of these numbered rows as if they were stings of some guitar. And this pattern you draw is used only for your right hand(the plucking hand). And having this right-hand pattern you then apply it to any chord. So no matter what you do with your left hand (chord sequence) the left-hand pattern(arpeggio) is the same.
There are to kinds of sequences in the app. Melody sequence and arpeggio sequence. In melody sequence you have a grid of absolute notes. In arpeggio it is a relative grid where your draw a pattern which will be applied to your chord sequence.
I have a task in my TODO to implement chord recognition from MIDI input. So you will be able to play chords live over the current arpeggio pattern and also record the chord sequence you have played.
If you want a pattern with triplets and 16th notes at same time you can use 1/32T rate for it. With this rate selected you have a whole beat split into 12 sub-beats. A triplet note will be equal to 4 sub-beats and 16th note to 3. Like this:
Excellent! I stand corrected.
Thank you for the hot tip.
Thanks I had already figured out that there are two different sequences Melody and Arp and once I did it started to make more sense. You might want to visually differentiate between those two things a bit more because even though you have Melody and Arpeggio written above the sequence, it still looks like it’s all the same long sequence not two things.
One thing I’m still not clear on is sometimes the chord changes don’t seem to be happening because even though the sequence is playing and progressing through the chord blocks it sounds like the same notes are playing and notes are not being transposed or changed to fit the chords. When I play the chord audition button on the chord page it sounds like the right chord but not when that chord plays in the sequence. I’ve tried the chord wheel both unlocked and locked and it’s not working like I think it should so probably user error on my part again unless it’s a bug.
I’ve reread the explanation for the chord wheel page and that’s still not making sense for me either so more explanation would be helpful. Do you have a manual? I couldn’t find one.
Thanks for the triplet vs sixteenth tip, I thought there might be a way to get the math to work out but hadn’t had a chance to look at it yet.
@yowza
You probably figured this out, but just in case, the Melody sequences don’t transpose with the chord changes. Just the Arpeggio sequences transpose.
No, I had not figured that out yet so thank you.
I see now thats exactly what it’s going on but that’s not how I look at it because to me everything comes from the chords, including both melody and arppeggio (which is literally the broken chord) so I’ll have to rethink how to use CF.
Coming up with the chord progression and arp first then writing the melody to go with that might make the most sense but that’s not how I’ve been trying to do it so far. Back to the drawing board.
Thanks again
@Dmitry_Klochkov One thing that would be really helpful on the sheet editing screen would be a window at the top showing the entirety of the sheet and highlighting the current viewing area. I could then jump around the sheet more easily by tapping on this window. As it is, very little of the sheet actually fits on the screen of my phone especially, so I have to two finger scrub all around to get where I'm going, and it can be disorienting.
If this would be too difficult to find room for, another tactic I've seen work to help with the same issue is to have off-screen notes stick to the edges of the editing area. They're not editable, but stick there as hints that notes are in that direction, and become unstuck once you get to them.
I've seen both of these techniques in other apps, but I can't come up with their names at the moment, sorry, but I think something like this could really speed up workflow.
@Dmitry_Klochkov
I think I have found a minor bug.
When I start a new project, the instruments don’t behave correctly at first. Sometimes I can’t hear them, sometimes they play at a low volume. Also, the new instrument volume faders don’t seem to do anything.
To fix this, I have to open the instrument selector and choose an instrument. Even just picking the same default piano works, but you have to tap an instrument and load it.
Often the volume suddenly jumps to the correct level, and the instrument faders then work as expected.
I am using an Air2 running iOS 12.1. This was occurring using ChordFlow in standalone mode without a host.
Big props to the new note velocity sliders. Those really work great and add a lot to busy, multiple sequence projects. All of the recent added features are fantastic. Thank you.
Cool, I look forward to seeing what might develop
FWIW, I'd be happy for fairly simple (?) MIDI input where you can input a triad or 4 note chord and have it trigger the note sequences.
i like them all on the same sheet. helps me to visualize rhythm and melody among the different instruments.
Options for velocity and aftertouch similar to bram bos ‘s bold/circled beat method would work well.
MIDI input would be an amazing update, Navichord to ChordFlow!
Firstly like others have said - I really like this app and how you’ve improved it while keeping sight of its key strengths - hiding complexity in an easy and visually simplifying and unique interface. I agree with others who describe the results as a bit regimented but I also think that this is a result of the apps design. It runs very nicely on a lowly iPhone 6 and the midi export lets me take the results and add complexity and humanisation elsewhere. I also really like the fact that you use a ‘normative’ file saving paradigm - I dislike the present Mac OS/iOS fashion of forcing every document you work on to automatically overwrite the previously saved version.
You have asked about our thoughts on how to improve the app and while I agree it is tempting to add stuff - please make sure you retain its core USP - simplicity over complexity. By the way are you familiar with the work of Csikszentmihalyi (1997)? He writes about flow from a creative and philosophical perspective…
So these are my personal thoughts:
Similarly, I sometimes am unsure what the note lines are mapping to. If I’ve defined a three-note C Maj chord and then a four-note Am9 and then a five-note Am9/G - I’m not clear how these map onto the chord drawing line tool. Perhaps some more info of what notes are playing would be helpful but maybe that’s not so easy to display.
Transposition. I really like how Xynthesizr does its key and scaler transpositions adding some musical magic to the changes. Perhaps there might be a way to adapt the circle of notes in the chord page so that the rotational motif can be used to perform a scalar transposition of all the chord notes in a similar fashion.
More Jazz chords and voicing please!
Polyrhythms. I note that it is possible to temporarily loop sections in both the ‘Arp’ and ‘Melody’ pages and perhaps this could be a more permanent ‘lockable’ feature - loop sections could be ‘locked’ so that they persist when switching from instrument to instrument adding polyrhythmic loops. Whether this will produce musically pleasing results is debatable but Fugue machine seems to do a good job. Your suggestion on unpacking the ‘arp’ page into 4 separate pages sounds interesting and would allow for different time structures but I worry that you might lose the visual simplicity you have at present.
Could you make the chord note highlighting in the ‘melody’ page a little more obvious. On the iPhone I can find it hard to see sometimes which notes are chord notes. This could be solved by making the grey bars a little brighter.
Maybe take the colouring logic that you use in the chord page to show how in key each note actually is and apply this to the way that the note lanes are represented in the ‘melody’ or ‘arp’ pages. As you need colour to differentiate between the instrument layers maybe use a form of hatching to indicate the ‘in-keyness’ of each drawn note - solid = in key, hatched = out of key.
Finally I was wondering if you could have a feature where it would be possible to ‘lock’ individual note events in either the ‘arp’ or ‘melody’ page so that when you activate the ‘line move tool’ the whole line moves as it does now apart from those note events you’ve locked. This might help us to find musically evolving note motifs. I think the way the app provides a visual drawn aspect to melody creation is its most interesting feature.
Anyway thanks for making a great composing tool.
Really excellent/generous post Mister Boom.
Will check it. Thanks for reporting.
Thank you @samboom for so detailed suggestions.
1. It is possible to show the chords below the arpeggio grid. But as I see it, the most common use case is to have the arpeggio pattern shorter than the chord sequence (it could be only of the length of one chord). Therefore in that case, in the arpeggio editor it will be possible to display only a part of the chord progression. And I think it will look somewhat misleading.
2. Currently I don't see a way to show in the arpeggio editor the actual notes which will be played. The arpeggio is a general pattern, which is applied for any chord of the sequence. So the real notes could not be show the way it is on the melody view because the each row will be correspond to the different notes based on what chord is currently played.
3. There is a little lock button in the chord sequence. If it is locked, the rotation of the chord wheel does not affect the existing chords(the chords are locked). If it is unlocked (chords are unlocked), rotation of the wheel will transpose the entire chord progression.
Will respond to your other points a little later.
Continue answering to @samboom requests:
7,8. Will make the chord notes lanes in melody editor a little brighter.