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.

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Comments

  • edited December 2013

    Yep... sorry for people who bought it. It has just been very unpopular and I didn't want to let such a unique app die because I can't really market it. So I made it free for a bit now that it has IAP's. Here is a video of the new features:

    ...I couldn't resist playing cars again

  • Request: Please add AB FX slot, so the app can be used as a general audio 2 midi interface.

  • Sorry to hear it's been unpopular. The app store is just weird... Such a great app.

  • No need to apologize. I bought it and thought it was well worth the money.

  • No buyers remorse here.

  • I bought it for 69p/$1 and it is one of the best audio to midi converters I've tested on IOS and the synth doesn't sound to bad either. I even prefer this to MIDImorphosis.

  • I regret I didn't buy it, but I'll grub the IAP! (5 stars rated!)
    I had much fun using my voice->Jamsynth->Animoog->Turnado ,so maybe you can optimize it for vocals too.(Although the tracking was already very nice for my terrible singing!)
    Another idea is using jamsynth for converting random strikes on surfaces (desk,pillows,glass etc ) and send them to BeatMachine. (by tweaking the algorithm and restrict midi out to a 16 semitone range?).
    Well maybe I ask for another app but it's just a suggestion!
    I'm curious to test jamsynth with bass.I'll post the results tomorrow.
    Thanks!

  • App Store, here I come.

  • edited December 2013

    Hey, I bought this a while ago and just got the IAPs as well. I think it's very cool and the new harmonizer is really useful. I still would love a poly mode and also midi learn for all the faders and stuff. Also for mute/unmute. I'll keep recommending this app to people and I hope you'll be able to sell it to more people.

  • I'll do another video with the new features, I'm really surprised it didn't do the well, the first video has done nearly 1000 views, and got some great comments and feedback, thats quite a lot of views for an app believe it or not, and is usually a good indicator of a popular app

  • Cannot believe it hasn't proved popular. I bought this on the strength of Doug's video and think it well worth the money at the time and no regrets. About to buy the IAPs so a fresh video would be really useful.

  • Thanks. I think it's just too esoteric for the typical synth user. Or guitarist I guess. The money doesn't really matter at all, but seeing it only get one download in a week made me sad because I think it's got some potential. If it's only going to make 0.99 cents a week might as well make it free and allow people to buy extra features.

    The pitch to MIDI is working quite well now, and I can probably still tweak it more. The pitch bending seems perfect now, but I don't know about fretless slides because I only have fretted guitars. I still need to get a handle on virtual midi routing though, but once you can get it sending midi data somewhere it seems to work. Please let me know if you have any problems with midi output (besides virtual midi routing) like wrong / stuck notes. If it sounds like it's having trouble choosing a note, make sure your guitar is in tune. That is the only problem I had. The algorithm for generating midi data from the tracking output will mess up if your guitar is only about - / + 20 cents out of tune, but it has to be that way in order for the pitch bend to work. Sometimes turning midi on while a note is playing might cause a stuck note, if this happens just turn it off and on again. I never got any stuck notes while playing.

  • ..this struck me as odd as well. I think you might have nailed it @dreamless that your target users might not fully understand what it is or is capable of offering. Doug's vid seems like a great way to help advertise, but I guess that getting that out to the potential market is another part of the equation. I hope this takes off for you, since I really feel this offers a lot...especially for the price!

  • edited December 2013

    This is a great app. I enjoy both the synth and midi sides of the app plus Audiobus, it's really a fun app too. Picked up the harmonizer IAP, very nice.

  • For fretless testing, try using a bottleneck (or an AA battery) on an ordinary guitar.

  • oh yeah... why didn't I think of that?! It's probably just going to think it's a string bend and get stuck on the note you started on after the pitch wheel is maxed out. The algorithm must be improved further!

  • Don't break it. :)

  • edited December 2013

    Wrt marketing, as a guitarist I have to say that this app sounds confusing from the get-go. It makes me think: is it an audio-midi convertor (let's call that AMC) or a synth? Sounds like it's both. The next part of the question is: are each of those pieces competitive in their categories? I.e. does the AMC compare favorably to the other apps in that space (MIDImorphosis, TJ, etc)? How does the synth compare to the few hundred other synths out there? And then there's the over-arching question of why these two pieces are tied together in one app, rather than being separate AMC and synth apps. Is there something about the AMC that lends itself to this particular synth? Is there something about this synth that lends itself to being controlled by this particular AMC? Can I use the AMC to send midi to other apps? Can I use other apps / controllers to send MIDI to this synth?

    Not trying to denigrate the app at all - the outpouring of support on this thread from a bunch of people I respect greatly tells me that it's fantastic app. But the combination of AMC and synth isn't quite "peanut butter and chocolate" - it's somewhat unexpected and thus confusing. It might be easier to market it as primarily an AMC, with a lightweight synth thrown in for basic testing and for those times when you don't want to do all the work to hook up MIDI. That said, it's highly likely that I've totally misunderstood the point of the app in which case my suggestion is probably way off-base.

  • edited December 2013

    To be clear, the app description does answer some of these questions though it raises others. But my previous post was just to highlight the litany of questions that come into someone's head when they hear about this app at a conceptual level. It's a pretty hard sell to break through that clutter of questions at step 0.

    The description tells me that you can send MIDI out from the AMC part of the app (great!) but it also says that the app internally forgoes MIDI because it's more expressive than MIDI can handle. Which is somewhat confusing and a downer, because anyone who wants to control a synth from their guitar probably wants to control some specific other synth they have in mind (Nave, Thor, Animoog, etc etc), and they want to believe it'll be awesome, not "less expressive than controlling the internal synth". It'd be better to either not say that at all (just say hey it's really expressive!) or even better to clearly and simply explain what the app's internal messaging can do which MIDI can't. The best of course would be to actually find a way to represent that internal messaging format in MIDI somehow. Rob Fielding probably has a PhD by now in hacking the MIDI standard to handle stringed-instrument articulations, perhaps he could shed some light on how to do so for Jam Synth. A lot of folks on this forum are probably expert enough to offer some advice on this too.

    If a MIDI representation can be found, assuming the app truly is as expressive as it claims to be, it shouldn't be too hard to market "the most expressive AMC in town". If a MIDI representation can't be found but it's still the most expressive AMC in town (as the description does say that its MIDI is more expressive than the competition), again it should be possible to market that angle anyway. I think it'd be hard-to-impossible to market the synth half of the app successfully - too many world-class synths on the app store, plus many synth enthusiasts don't play guitar anyway.

  • When Jam Synth first appeared, I was not at all confused as to what it did, but I listened to (or watched, I don't recall) a demo of some of the sounds and was not at all impressed with the basic synth output. It sounded thin and the filters sounded weak. That put me off buying it. Doug's video and the dev's latest demo video has gone some way to changing my opinion and the free download has done the rest. if I enjoy it and get some use out of it, I intend to buy one or more IAPs and support the dev that way. However, it's clearly a guitar synth, with MIDI output as an additional feature included in the basic package.
    As for Rob's MIDI methodology, it's a bit of a dead end, as any app being controlled using it has to have exactly the same methodology programmed into it, which so far includes a grand total of one app, Thumbjam. Other apps have half implemented it, but they don't cope with poly bends.

  • Maybe it's my playing style, but using it as a MIDI controller is a bit hit or miss for me. I also own MIDImorphosis and MIDI guitar, and it's only really MIDI guitar which works well for me. It's a shame because the pitch bending really is unique (and the other apps don't do this).

  • So what is your playing style like? Letting any notes ring out even for a second over another note will break it. Harmonics usually cause this to happen to me when playing fast.

  • I don't play especially fast, and stick to single notes, but it doesn't always pick up every note I play. The pitch bend is pretty cool though.

  • @dreamless said:

    Yep... sorry for people who bought it. It has just been very unpopular and I didn't want to let such a unique app die because I can't really market it. So I made it free for a bit now that it has IAP's. Here is a video of the new features:

    ...I couldn't resist playing cars again

    Haha! I love how you're WEARING the iPhone and iRig like that!
    Looks like it's the most practical way of keeping your hands free though.

    It's a shame it isn't more popular, what we need is some high profile guitarist to do a demo of it!

  • Derek Buddemeyer is looking for paid gigs at the moment.

  • edited December 2013

    I'll continue to work on the MIDI implementation because there are some things about it that may cause problems for certain riffs or styles. For example, a note on is only sent when a new note is detected. If you play a note and continue to pluck the same note, only the volume will change and you won't hear the attack phase come back with each pluck because you're still on the same note. Same with string bends. If you play a note and then bend it up, going back down and plucking the string again won't send another note on. I had this part of the algorithm that would decide to send another note on if just a pluck was detected rather than a new note, but it was unreliable because the natural dynamics of guitar would keep triggering it which sounded worse. I think a short transient detector would sort this issue out.

    As for the synth engine, it's classic 80's digital phase distortion like the casio cz series. The "filter" actually just distorts a sine wave into a different shape and isn't a filter at all. When they were around in the 80's they were considered thin and abrasive sounding compared to earlier analog synths, but excelled at their own uniquely digital sounds (detune everything for best results). They are still considered cheesy in a very moog-centric synth world. Pretty much the complete opposite of an analog synth. Jam Synth appears to be the only phase distortion synth in the app store? At least now people can try out phase distortion on iOS and cringe (or smile) at its anti-analog sound.

    http://www.hollowsun.com/donations/casio_cz101/

    I think I'm going to add a granular synth as an IAP because it would allow you to add whatever sound you wanted and control it with a guitar. And it would be different. Analog modeled synths are everywhere and there's no way I could top Animoog or Sunrizer (IMO).

  • Before seeing this post, I saw that this app was for free and I thought it was only a synth. I didn't find the deisgn very appealing so I didn't touch it. BUT NOW that I read and saw the video, I will try it out.
    I'd suggest changing the first screenshot to something that visually shows or represents what your app can do.

  • @PaulB said:

    However, it's clearly a guitar synth

    You say that as if "guitar synth" is a fairly standard, well-known category... is it? When I think of "guitar synth" I think "a synth that creates guitar-like sounds" (like a drum synth is a synth that creates percussive sounds). Jam Synth doesn't sound like a guitar at all, unless I'm mistaking its intent (if it did it'd be kinda pointless, why have a synth that sounds like a guitar and requires a guitar as its controller - you could just play the guitar instead).

    If it's an interesting and unique phase distortion synth (and/or granular synth with IAP etc) then it'd make sense for it to be made playable from a standard keyboard controller since that's what most synth enthusiasts are used to. Or at least some controller that doesn't require the user to have a guitar and know how to play it. E.g. taking in input from iFretless. Speaking of which, that's another series of apps that do (I think) handle the Geo-style MIDI (in and out, correct?) Perhaps that's along the lines of the suggestions you guys had that it be usable in the AB effects slot, but it'd probably be a lot better to just have it receive MIDI if possible. Again, I'm not sure exactly what about the internal data representation is not possible in MIDI... but even if it were compatible with Geo/TJ/iFretless that'd be a big step up than absolutely requiring a physical guitar as its controller...

    Seems a shame if an app that a lot of people clearly find very unique is just not finding its market because of overly restrictive usage requirements...

  • edited December 2013

    Hey there, I'm in your target market as I'm a guitar player as well and am recording some songs where i need a unique sound. I actually had my eye on this when it was first posted but the reason I passed was that i thought the end result would be a bunch of synth sounds. so while it's cool to play cars and other synth sounds from a guitar, the end result is that ppl who listen to my recordings will think i played a keyboard. Now! if you add that granular synthesis and any other weird unique effect that could not be replicated via hardware, you could really get on the radar for a lot of guitarists who are looking for unique sounds. Personally, I've already grown tired of bias, jamup and others as they're basically just sounds i got from actual pedals and live amps before. Familiar sounds that have been around for decades and nothing new. So if you give me a new way to express new sounds from my guitar, oh man! I'd personally pay $5 to $10 for that kinda app (if it delivered on that)

  • Well, thats what it is. It doesn't sound much like a keyboard to me when you start palm muting and sliding and bending strings. These techniques clearly come through when using the internal synth (cheesy casio sound aside). With MIDI all you get is note on / note off / pitch bend / volume. That's a pretty limited data set. You're also at the mercy of how the receiving synth handles the MIDI messages (note on always retriggers attack phase which might not be what you want when palm muting or sliding). Bends seem to translate pretty well to MIDI pitch bend though. Guitar to MIDI systems have never worked very well, regardless of what the people selling them tell you. The concept just doesn't work. Guitar synths have also historically had poor tracking and have been very expensive. Definitely not like what you get with Jam Synth.

    I'm leaning heavily toward making lots of esoteric guitar effects because I know how and I like them. There has barely been a market for the pedals in the past so I don't expect a huge market on iOS. I think most guitarists know what a "guitar synth" is, and if they don't they eventually become educated:

    http://www.vintagesynth.com/korg/x911.php

    http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/pigtronix-mothership-analog-synthesizer-guitar-effects-pedal

    http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/red-witch-synthotron-guitar-effects-pedal?pfm=sp

    http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/electro-harmonix-microsynth-xo-guitar-effects-pedal?pfm=sp

    http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/earthquaker-devices-bit-commander-octave-synth-guitar-effects-pedal?pfm=sp

    http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/dwarfcraft-thumping-double-squaresnakes-synthesizer-guitar-effects-pedal?pfm=sp

    http://www.zzounds.com/item--LINFM4

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