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
@brattcave : NO SUSTAIN PEDAL SUPPORT? Can that be for real??
It is until someone can plug one in and tell me they have got it working. You're pretty much the first person that's reacted like I have! Assumed it was user error and still hoping it is. Someone else replicated the issue using Korg Nanostudio. I've tried a range of Roland (FA-08, FP-7) and Novation / Akai controllers with no luck... There's a thread over on NS2 on it. Most people don't seem that bothered. Perhaps not many of us use larger keyboards with iOS rigs???
Whats a sustain pedal? 100% not joking.
Sustain pedal support was a request I put in from the NS1 days. Added my 2 cents to the post in the NS forums to get that fixed. With all the Auv3 support, it really seems a lot more necessary now.
And speaking of which, not being able to access the mod wheel in Auv3 instruments also seems like a pretty major oversight. I'm planning on using a ton of Synthmaster One in NS2, and it feels fairly hobbled right now with being able to use the mod wheel. Hopefully that's also an easy fix.
Yea, that sounds like a 'game over' omission (that's thankfully probably not too difficult to fix). The sustain pedal is as important a part of a keyboard instrument as the keys itself (possibly more! I actually perform a lot of keys parts using a pad controller and sustain pedal).
It seems like a fundamental feature for any keyboard based app to listen to CC64 for sustain on that instrument's channel? I've been very happy with how sustain pedals work in BM3 -- for example I have a single sustain pedal that sends CC64 on channel 1, then I'll have a variety of pads (lets say 2-4, 15 & 16) that listen for their pad channel for MIDI notes while all listening to the same CC1 pedal for performance in addition to CC64 on their own channels, if that is set on their sequencer's control data tracks. Allows a lot of flexibility in performance and sequencing, and I would be forced to drop BM3 instantaniously if that functionality was not present.
Yea, wouldn't a missing modwheel totally destroy a lot of AU synths? I can't imagine using Model D without it? I don't know the specifics of this as I'm not an NS2 user. I'm kind of assuming though that when the AU is just listening for CC1 on it's channel, that operating from a controller will work fine?
Anyway I don't really know anything in reality as I haven't used NS2.
yeah, absolutely +1
Sustain Pedal support is essential! For me its part of DAW-Basics.
Modwheel also!
Must have before buy!
@Fruitbat1919 : I am still learning the ins and outs of Cubasis and Auria Pro. Can you say a little about why you prefer Cubasis to Auria Pro for the tasks you mentioned up-thread?
Was starting to think I was going mad... THANK YOU!
@peanut_gallery
glad someone else pointed this out. Surely these are absolutely fundamental features?! It's actually got me thinking that I must be an alien on this platform... the beta testers cannot have missed these things - they must just have thought it wasn't important.
Yeah... also noticed this Mod wheel omission but I'm already coming across as the 'crazed sustain guy' -
To the theme of Braveheart:
They may take our home button.
They may take our head headphone jack.
But they will never take... oh, they have. They've taken our sustain pedals and mod wheels as well.
Fair question. The reasons I’m keeping Cubasis are for:
Why I keep Cubasis for jobs when I have Auria Pro:
1. I find Cubasis easier to do basic jobs than Auria
2. Cubasis freeze makes an audio track that can still be edited.
3. Cubasis has baked in keyboard and drum pads specific to the Roli Noise app.
4. IAA use in Cubasis is imo more simple to use than Auria
5. Auria does a lot, but has a higher level of complexity to it than Cubasis imo.
6. The AU midi setup is a pain to use in Auria.
Why I keep Auria Pro:
1. The shop of plugins like Fabfilters is just outstanding.
2. Mixing in Auria is far nicer from the mixer itself, to the use of the Fabfilters, to Auria being used in portrait orientation with long throw faders, to its sub groups and busses.
Just for @AudioGus... A pic and a vid link below, even though I know he's 'tooling'.
But to really understand sustain... you have to listen
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lL4kJL_NDR0
100% not tooling. I honestly thought it was maybe a guitar fx pedal thing. I am totally not a real musician. I know what sustain is as a sound phenomena just didn't know it was next to the clutch.
I haven't read the whole thread, but can't you just map CC 64 to Release?
Lol it was a 50/50 thing if you were or not. If you're not a musician there's a chance you haven't seen 'Spinal Tap' then. After seeing that you count as a proper muso
Glad you posted that re: Automation of AU FX. It was driving me bonkers trying to figure out how to get that to work. I'm so used to automating FX in everything else I use, I guess I just expected it to be there.
I would abandon every other iOS daw if it gets full automation of everything and track freezing...everything else I can take or leave.
Such a wonderful start though, I'll still be getting a lot of use out of it. It's like a master class on interface design, something I hope other devs learn from.
Oh, I am on a level of music snobbery that sits high above such lowly common mass-media entertainment. I do hide it well in public however.
Whoot, oh yah I have seen it!
Yep, that's what I've suggested over on the NS2 forum. Not elegant but it works. However, you can't seem to access this on the AUs yet though and that's arguably where you might need it the most.
Am I missing something? How can NS2 replace any DAW when it doesn’t record any audio tracks that I can see ? It does sound amazing from what I’ve heard demoed , and I own every DAW practically on IOS? Why ? Because 20-50 bucks ain’t shit .. I can buy 10 DAWs and still spend less than one good one costs on a desktop . Those people that argue a desktop DAW is better, is kind of like saying , I’d rather just have huge RV and then park it where I can never move it than have an RV and a commuter car. Both serve different needs. However , I’ve actually found that while I can do more and faster on a desktop , there are just too many cool touch based instruments on an iPad and touch based innovations period , and the portability factor has me making music on the crapper , at the DMV, the doctors office , my moms house, in a traffic jam, at stoplights and in bed. So bottom line ... I record and finish more music . Now there is one pet peeve . Developers need to give us the option to lock certain areas of the screen to prevent accidental deletions or moving things we didn’t intend on moving , and event specific history undo if you can’t do the lock thing . Nothing worse that realizing two hours later that half of your intro tracks got deleted or shifted around and now to undo the damage , using undo , would make you forfeit all the work ... or have to manually reconstruct the mess.
Beats me. The app description avoids the word DAW... so I dunno... people eh?
I am just exporting my first batch of couch composed stems (holy slow export though, how the heck is BM3 so much faster than NS2 and Cubasis at this??) and will be exporting the midi as well to desktop to see just how well that workflow goes. The first sketch was bloody fast and I think Obsidian holds up not bad next to the bigger guns... but yah... I think this has amazing productive waiting room/crapper potential.
@bedheadproducer I think there is a bit of a workaround if you import or record the audio file onto a pad in 'Slate'. Apparently it can handle audio of up to 2 hours worth. I feel you though...
One of the best and most logical descriptions of why iOS music that I've read.
Only thing I'll throw in is this:
On desktop (Windows, Mac, Linux) you can often pick up Harrison Mixbus -- the greatest DAW for MIXING that (at least) I've ever used -- for $20-50. I got it for $20 myself which is unbelievable. It smokes any iOS based solution (but doesn't replace, for reasons given by @bedheadproducer ) for an iOS price point. It's the perfect destination for mixing/mastering projects that start their life on iOS. I actually run my iOS channels through the mixbus channels/busses in realtime using an iCA4+, so that I can make my mix tweaks in advance and print to the timeline before final export.
I didn't just mention this to rant and rave but to show that there are equally priced options on all platforms that operate at the highest possible levels of functionality.
Does anyone know if 'Slate' allows routing of velocity to 'sample start/offset'. Couldn't find any mention of it in the manual...
OT
@OscarSouth I’m curious if you tried Reaper plus built in plugins before Mixbus on the desktop? It seems like they are both capable of pro mixing/mastering at low cost.
I won’t be abandoning Cubasis for NS2. That wouldn’t make any sense. But I’ll keep an eye on NS2 development and check it out another time.
Slate feels very very clunky to me for this. Particularly because it demands that you crop the audio and also when I select a pad with an hour long audio file to edit it the samples plays... and plays... and plays... and I have no idea how to stop it, lol. So I cannot edit long sound files as I don't want to wait an hour for the sample to stop playng before I edit it. Could be I missed something... ummm, pretty sure I must have missed something.
I tracked a few projects using the trial of Reaper a few years ago but never did any mixing. Too in love with mixbus's propriety DSP for mixing these days.
Did you write those points on the NS2 forum?
If not, please do so.
Matt is very open to feature requests as soon as he understands that many people want something.
So, do i just wait, post there!
I’ve never really clicked with Modstep...I’ll give it another go though
If you use it as MIDI only, it's basically a highly flexible timeline/non-linear clip launcher for AUM with a few extra bells and whistles (including tempo/time sig changes + polyrhythms) tacked on.
I’m sticking with GarageBand for now. I know it so well that I don’t really have to think when I’m using it. I can concentrate on making music instead.
NS2 looks neat, but until it’s finished (audio recording) then it’s no good to me anyway. Actually, it looks beautiful. I would love to stare at this instead of GB, which is looking pretty dated these days.
I’m following it with interest, but changing DAW is a huge deal in terms of the amount of time required to learn it. Add in all the workarounds I’d need to do just to arrive where I am with GB already (no Audiobus or IAA!?).
GarageBand certainly has its own list of missing features and oddities, but I’ve already come to terms with those.