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.
Should iOS music app devs stop making so many synths and make instrument modeling apps instead?
I love synths as much as the next guy, but I think the market is over saturated with synths at this point. Do you guys think there should be more apps in terms of real instrument sounds with great expression options? I'm itching for real sounding violin/strings with my own expression (vibrato, etc.) added and not just a sample like Thumbjams (I like it, just wish I could control it more). What do you guys think?
Comments
I agree, however it is really difficult to do well though. The only example which I know of as usable is pianoteq piano for Mac/Windows.
Yes, very difficult, or you’d see more such apps.
I agree, I'm speaking more specifically about iOS. ROLI has SWAM on Noise which is the closest thing to what I'm talking about, but they limit it severely compared to it's pc counterpart. Maybe it could happen collectively, as one dev might be strained with such a large undertaking.
Are these prevalent on desktop? Or maybe implemented in hardware units?
Or, in other words, do a lot of these modeled, highly expressive instruments exist already, just not on iOS?
(Deleted)
Yes, they exist on desktop, not so much on iOS
Example violin:
This is the only thing that's making me consider using desktop software, because if iOS had it to at least half the level to desktop, I would not even think about using desktop.
If you took away the bad synths we would be far from saturated. There’s lots of room for improvement and that’s why i remain excited and hopeful when I hear about a new one.
But yes there is also a huge vacancy for natual sounding instrument apps, again good ones.
@christianrod97
Holy crap, that was mighty impressive!
I dig the breath controller thing that guy was using with the modwheel.
And the ability to change up the feel on-the-fly was really cool.
Yeah, more of this on iOS, please!
On a side note, I see the guy in the video is using a breath controller. Does anyone know if there’s a breath controller for iOS yet?
Sounds like a plan! If you can get them all on one room well tell them to get right on it.
(Just kidding).
For a developer there are already "sound/synth engines" in the common development environments like AudioKit. So, a lot of Apps use these engines and the code available.
There are a few commerically successful Modeling Apps and the code is highly valueable.
We must wait for that code (or similar code) to be implemented in an IOS App. It won't be too much longer. Maybe 1-2 years. Probably Modardt's Pianoteq or another current desktop product seeking additional revenue to offset the sunk costs of engineering the code.
Now... some brilliant college student might make a modeled instrument for a PhD and decide to make the code "open source". Then we'd see version get ported to IOS. Maybe that's already in process.
But the idea of all developer's moving from Oscilator based synth code to Modeling software is somewhat like all of us running marathons this year. Not likely.
FingerFiddle
Aww, and hosted in Samplitude! Not that it matters for this of course, just nice to see to see my sweetheart.
There are no great modeled styled synths like Logic pro’s sculpture on iOS...so indeed bring it on and pass the beers
ROLI Noize isn’t exactly state of the art but it’s a good begining . If they brought it up to desktop spec at least somewhat in future iterations I’d be glad.
I would definitely prefer as many high-quality instrument-modeling and sample-based instrumental apps as possible. Orchestral, “world”, and pretty much anything. I’m mainly writing music in notation right now, and unfortunately not even all the common instruments available in Notion exist elsewhere on iOS, either at all or in sufficient quality and with sufficient articulations available. This reminds me, the American Acoustic add-on pack in SampleTank iOS is admirable in this regard. Different playing methods and really good sound.
If anything, the market is over saturated with subtractive VAs, but not so much when you only count high quality apps.
Personally I’d love to see more unusual synthesis techniques, including physical modeling. And I’m still waiting for a proper AU sampler. Not to simulate „real“ instruments, but to modulate the hell out of weird waveforms.
I think the SWAM engine is pretty much state-of-the-art, and unlikely they're going to sell it for iOS prices other than as limited promotion. I don't know how well the average iPad can deliver the power they want, either.
I have been thinking about this stuff a lot... Not that I plan to do anything about those thoughts except think them. But i have begun to change my attitude about it..
I participate in the PianoWorld forum, and it IS another world, but, in a way, the same battles are being fought there. The continuous discussion of whether a dp has approached or can approach an acoustic piano. A difference here with iOS is that the dp's action and its resemblance to a good acoustic Is a mainstay on PianoWorld and at least half of the discussion (relatively much less so discussed with iOS users). Then there is the sound created, either onboard or VSTs ( sorry guys, we and iOS are all but ignored in these "stratospheric" heights). The same desire for "realism" in feel and sound is much desired. There are those radicals who say things like "When will they stop making those eighteenth century contraptions of wood and wires and fulfill the promise of newer technologies ( my paraphrasing)"? Hopefully never, but they do have a point.
So where do the audiob.us and PianoWorld discussions coincide? IMO I believe it is 1/ in the lack of distinction between art ( as we interpret it today) and replication of what we have heard as the end goal. And 2/the function of the tools at hand for creating original art or the replication of what has gone before.
I am not saying one (original art) is better than the other ( replication of a "remembered" sound for musical constructions). What I am trying to get at is how difficult or easy, warranted or unwarranted, it is to satisfy each category's needs.
For the creation of original art one is better off, IMO, not clinging to the desire to have an acoustic orchestra at one's fingertips ( even though this is what I have wanted!). If you can accept that then the tools available on the iOS platform and certainly desktop VSTs and synths are more than adequate to create anything new one can imagine... To the very edge of the creative envelope ( for our time)..
Similarly, the dp answers all playing requirements, action wise, to create original music and need not be compared to the acoustic piano and perhaps its overemphasized need for an acoustic "feel". And though there will always be a place for the acoustic, like all empires, it must fade away somewhat to make room for the new. MPE keyboard controllers being the logical next step. And the embrace of MPE found here is by no means shared by our confreres over at PianoWorld. For them the keyboard as Beethoven knew it ( with technological improvements at the end of its evolutionary rope where all that is left for today is improving materials for strings, hammers, soundboards, etc) will never be supplanted. But this group will necessarily shrink over the next twenty five to fifty years as the old boys and girls die off ( sigh, there I go and probably a lot sooner!).
So, I guess my point is that while anyone has a right to want exact clones of pianos or acoustic instruments, devs may see that this will be a shrinking demand as the new overtakes the old. Replication of the old ways using new technologies is not to use technology to its best purpose, just as harpsichords and sackbuts (?) diminished with the development of new modes of expression. Certainly there could be a fantastic new harpsichord produced with today's technology, but really, who cares but a few harpsichord enthusiasts?
So perhaps we are caught between two worlds just now, and I cannot help but think that once mastered, the virtual perfection of the dp and acoustic instruments will have mostly economic value ( we won't need expensive Steinways or orchestras anymore). The real evolution, and mass musical tastes, will embrace the new, and concern for replication of the past become much more inconsequential except to a small group of avid musicians and audiophiles.. I have come to this conclusion even though I am a part of that inconsequential past!
No, it is not. There is stil many more synths on desktop.. think about Serum, Massive, Sylenth.. or stuff from U-he (Zebra for example) .. Or full feature Alchemy as AUv3 (not that crippled patch player insid GB)
iOS synth market is still "undersaturated"
Definitely interested in seeing how this area develops. I know it’s not really anywhere near but the audiolayer demo strings sound fairly realistic to me. I feel like audiolayer has a lot of potential when I have time to get into it.
Geoshred?
Imho it's not possible to imitate the performance of acoustic instruments like violin, guitar, sax etc by digital tools.
There are in fact libraries that can to the fake job really well - but it needs (fe) an educated violinist to enter the sequence of notes from properly choosen parts of the sample set.
(which takes much longer than to simply record the piece live)
Human muscle action is a bit too complex to be modelled by a 'controller'.
And (even in the 'simple' case of the piano) the actual 'sound in room' of the real thing beats all artificial approaches.
That's not a problem at all - why would anyone expect to achieve the same as an experienced instrumentalist... just because he or she visited an app store and shelled a few (hundred) bucks ?
Pick up a real guitar and just listen to the variance of tone possible, regardless how sophisticated you play and of the instrument's price tag.
As far as I'm concerned I appreciate 'real' acoustic sounds, as I appreciate synth stuff - it's 2 sides of the same coin.
True. But even synths can achieve really nice similar organic timbres which sound maybe not the same but give you quite the same organic feeling.
I like to mimic weird guitar and sax sounds with modular synths.
But yes, more physical modeling for me too. Not only in iOS.
It‘s not only about mimic real sounds but create kind of artificial acoustic sounds you might never hear from a real instrument. Something an alien instrument could sound.
Chromaphone, Pianoteq, Prism and a few others are very close to real acoustic sounds. My favorite is still Sculpture for the most organic soundscapes i can get.
I dont know. Being someone that actually plays bass and cello, but not violin, I have messed with modeling sets in Kontakt on the desktop. The only ones that I find someone respectable take more memory to run a single instance of than Im sure an iPad has. I think we would have some sounds instead similar to old romplers which I have no interest in.
I think a big step forward would be greater support for MIDI MPE. We could be getting a lot more expression out of the synth sounds we already use. Physical Modelling is great too, but I wonder about how to sequence all the expressiveness we are discussing. I'd like to see iOS DAW start supporting MPE as a regular feature. Perhaps some do, but I don't see it mentioned in the features. I like GeoShredder and hoped that more apps would adopt that technology. I'd like to get a Roli keyboard and be able to use it with all of my favorite iOS synths.
I agree about DAW’s having MPE has standard, I think Cubasis had MPE support now? I really hope AUM gets built in MPE. It’s the way to go.
F.e. this is pure synthesis and already a few years old (but bundled with expensive hardware).
However, someone could tool it even further maybe:
After trying it again, I do love it. Only problem is it's been abandoned and no essential updates have been made. (no AUV3, no midi in or out, etc.)
@christianrod97 interapp audio works with AUM no problem. Have used it in BM2 as well no need for Audiobus. Don’t really know how or why you would want AUv3 as the physically modeled aspect is something to be controlled on the touch screen (unless you have four arms). It would be nice to get the sounds with midi in or out, but again, that would likely take away from the sound produced by the physical modeling. I consider it to be a finished product that performs well. There’s some amazing performances on here of people using it if you search around.
You're right about inter-app. I've also noticed some the sound quality is not as good as it could be (don't know if it's on my end.) Not trying nitpick, but it's the only option we have.