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
I know classic fans, that completely refuse to listen to opera records at home - because nothing compares to a great concert hall.
(this applies to instrumental classic music, too - it looses a lot in transmission)
For less purists recording engineers do a great job to compensate as good as possible, so that a reasonable home stereo system can give a good impression of the performance.
But noone expect it to sound 'real'.
it's not a room in a room in a room,
but that room's response at one particular position,
with decreasing fidelity due to signal loss with every playback/recording step.
Sounds funny, but is right what you'd expect from the plan.
ps: it's a simple setup, so you might use the method for a rough check of your own acoustic environment...
I love using different reverbs and delays in a songs, sometimes you don't want cohesion, you want everything to be in it's own space. I use global send reverbs and delays in projects too, but as an effect and as a way to play with placement and imaging, it can be cool.
I also tend to use the delays and effects that come with a synth first too. I like my instruments self-contained, so I have no issues using effects from a synth preset if it fits the song.
@Max23 it's not about precision at all, but it will give a fairly good general impression.
(for those not used to tell it by ear or a microphone recording)
After all the process demonstrated in the video is simply feedback in steps - and feedback is based on resonances within the room
On topic: I prefer individual reverb/delays as part of a section's sound design.
But I might use one or two as glueing tools, too, either via bus or in master output, preferred wet rates 5-30%.
Yeah, it really drives me crazy that most plugins have tons of built in FX (and rarely sound very good). Really appreciate instruments that focus on good sounds and leave the FX for dedicated plugins.
Since this is the AudioBus forum, can I throw out a request for send effects in AudioBus here? @Michael
Yep, coming
Organ music never really sounds the same at home no matter how good the system. That's partly the bass, but reverb has a lot to do with it too.
Thing is (and people are guilty of that on this forum), people will often judge a synth negatively if the presets don't have tons of built in FX applied to them. I rarely use presets (mostly just use them as examples of sound design for educational purposes) so this doesn't bother me enormously, but there is kind of a balance between marketing and providing presets to the folks that want them.
iVCS3 has a nice IR plate reverb. Though it's also available as an AU3. I think there's another synth which has a pretty decent reverb, though I can't think of it right now.
yeah, I get the reasons.. but I can't help but wonder how people actually make music with these presets that are drenched in reverb. I guess they sound ok if all you plan to do is demo presets and fiddle around, but for actually making music, they turn into muddy mush (imho
) and as mentioned earlier, having reverb and delay on every instance of every plugin is likely the reason we run into CPU problems on ios.
I was admittedly a bit hyperbolic above, there are many great synths on the platform that have inbuilt fx, some of them quite good, like those in Zeeon. But Zeeon is super CPU hungry and patches with fx cause huge spikes for me. Like yourself, I don't use presets, so I just bypass the fx the majority of the time. But I can't help wonder how much more efficient things would be if that FX page in zeeon was its own Auv3 that I could slap on a bus in AUM.. Yeah, I get that the market is fickle and that the majority of users just want something where every patch sounds "huge" right out the gate, without having to learn a thing, or know how to program it etc... but I hope that as the platform moves to a more modular approach, that those apps aimed for the masses stick to standalone and that Auv3's and more "pro" apps ditch the gimmicky fx panels. Unlikely, sure.. because um well.. capitalism? But a fella can dream, right?
I do like to keep the synth and the FX separated, but we don't always have the choice.
When a preset is drenched in reverb or delay, things are quite easy and obvious, but sometimes the FX are an integral part of the sound: An IR reverb adding a certain "body" character, a line of short feedback delays to add sympathetic resonance, multiple bands of parametric EQ to shape its sound further - what you need and what you don't want is not always obvious without a song context.
My take on it is to leave all synth presets as they are, learn where to change FX settings in each synth and only touch them where I consider them disturbing or muddying up the mix.
Gadget was the first sequencer on iOS where I started using the FX automation because it's so easy and fast to use with all the different synths.
The one biggest culprit really is reverb... it's the most CPU hungry effect and there's almost no reason why it should ever be included in a synth preset. Except when used as a very special "sound shaper" as @rs2000 mentioned, but that's the exception.
@palm: In my experience, "fiddling around" is by far the biggest use for music apps on iOS (much more so than doing full productions), so actually, synth makers are probably right on the spot with their FX drenching from a marketing perspective
haha, spot on! It's clearly the case, and the fact is that the problem is getting worse, not better.
It doesn't bode well for the possibility of iOS becoming a platform for real world, professional use. Despite the appearance of Fabfilter plugins and other very high quality software (such as your own
), the avalanche of apps aimed at the lowest common denominator of dabblers and fiddlers, apps that offer the sensation of "making music" without any knowhow ("Now you too can make a hit with one finger, all whilst sitting on the toilet!").. can't really fight it I guess.. it is what it is.
I have the utmost respect for developers who find clever ways of making great sounding tools that are useful to dabblers and pros alike. I do think it's possible to strike a balance without aiming straight for the lowest rung.
With respect, why shouldn’t someone “make music” with one finger? Thumbjam is a fine example being used in schools to encourage creativity in music and who knows where that early start can lead. Maybe you didn’t but most of us started on the “lowest rung” when learning an instrument.
I make music with one finger all the time. Hit the play button on the stereo. Did I "make" the music? perhaps.. but I find it much more fun to get a little deeper into production than pressing the play button. sure, you gotta start somewhere. Even presets and soundpacks, sure they're fine cheats to get kickstarted doing something.. can people make great music with presets alone? sure, anything is possible.
I'm a fan (and a user) of Thumbjam, as well as countless other creative tools for making music, but apps make it impossible to play "wrong" notes, and where everything is quantized to rigid pitch and rhythmic constraints, it can offer false confidence, not to mention a very limited concept of what it is to make music. Personally, I'm glad I didn't learn how to play scales on Thumbjam by dragging my finger up and down a touchscreen. I used slightly earlier technology of a keyboard and human voice, and eventually math, which helped me "hear" how musical scales are put together. Getting to that understanding through thumbjam would have been much more difficult. Thumbjam is a cool tool for doing modal music, I'm not trying to disparage it as it's not the type of app that I was even referring to. pointing more to things like: https://gizmodo.com/these-music-making-apps-turn-anyone-into-a-musician-1790086252
which (back to the point) contribute the this problem of "reverb on every preset", a likely culprit for the regular complaint about crackling ipad pros that frequent these parts. Not the end of the world, but just something worth noting and hopefully educating those interested in moving past the dabbling phase into something resembling production, that it's highly advisable to turn off those onboard reverbs unless you're going for a muddy, underwater sound with everything you do.
I had an organ teacher when I was in highschool who jokingly called the reverb switch the "talent" button.
Training wheels are useful for learning how to ride a bike, but you don't see too many pro bikers using them..
I'm not anti-wheel. Never have been. All I'm getting at is that I'd like to see more apps without training wheels that can't be removed.
Fair comment. As a musician who came to iOS music making - and home recording in general - fairly late on, I have appreciated this thread for pointing out there is an ‘off’ switch on most apps for effects. I have fallen foul of the ‘talent button’. Cheers, cheers, cheers.........😉
@palm valid remarks that are spot on the situation
@Max23 I beg to differ
for me, the space is part of the production, not the preset! So in almost all cases, it is better to have 2 or 3 reverbs on the sends that are the ONLY reverbs used in the song. It also makes the production use a fraction of CPU, which is appearently something that's badly needed given the amount of "crackling" threads here 
But of course, everyone's entitled to their own opinions and way of working.
@palm: Very well summed up IMHO. I'm too lazy to get into so much detail on the phone keyboard
But yeah, "Now anyone can" is a trigger phrase for me that gets my blood boiling too. There's NOTHING that "anyone" can do, apart from shit and die. (sorry mod! But it's true! 
).
I'm getting that it is important to target the biggest possible market with your product, and if that involves "anyone can" marketing and drenching your presets in reverb, that's OK. BUT a global REVERB BYPASS switch would probably be easy enough to add for those customers who have their spaces set up already and want to be able to use more than 3 sounds at once!
And again, no offense against the marketing! I just happen to be the exact opposite and eg. I try to market Xequence specifically to the SMALLEST (read: most precisely targeted) possible audience (just read the App Store description intro!), to avoid having to deal with one-star reviews from "Joe Anyone Can"
I think you missed the point entirely in your effort to come across as... not sure what you were going for.. snide? rude? well anyhow.. nobody is talking about not using reverb! ever heard of a reverb plugin? 99 times out of 100 they sound better than the ones on the synth! go figure.. and also, no crackles when using a dozen synths.
..boooring.. are you still communicating using written words? yawn! and over the internet?? what is this, 1981?
(hint: if you're so bored, you don't need to chime in)
sorry, not trying to be a jerk, but your comments sometimes come off as fairly rude to me.