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.
Why don't more (any?) app devs put up more of their own work demonstrating how to REALLY the apps?
Here's a thought I've had for a while...
Some of the apps out there for music/audio work are REALLY deep. Some almost deceptively so.
Yet most devs don't have much, if any first person videos of demonstrations of how THEY use the app to actually make or perform music...
At most they may have a "demo" video that's really just a video manual.
But to me, the context of use is important. And who better understands how to use all the features/functions that the dude that made it?
It's always seemed kinda weird that they'd spend hundreds/thousands of hours working on something like their music app, and then totally just bail on doing any kind of in-depth show-and-tell...
If it was me, I'd be doing videos explaining why that pixel over there is blue and then move on from there to get really detailed. 
Anyway, I'd be interested in getting dev's POV on this on why they don't do it...
Comments
Different talents. I can’t make an app and i can’t make a tutorial, i just stammer and don’t move things along. Some devs aren’t even really musicians.
You get it! Now, help us. WRITE A GREAT APP. I'll wait.
This is it. In the recent interview with @Michael the Loopy HD, SampleBot etc. developer he says quite plainly he doesn't play any instruments and his skills are in coding. So the way to get good demos of a developers apps is to get people interested in your ideas and they'll create the content for you. Sometimes developers have to pay to get their apps demoed, sometimes it is in exchange for free codes and most times it is just user enthusiasm.
Jakob from Haq Attaq was getting paid for a little while to demo apps. Not sure if he is in that business so much any more.
IMO., we don’t really need devs to be skilled musicians as long as we have the lovely fingerings of Doug Woods, Jacob Haq and others to show us how the apps sound and play.
I don't know.
YOU define the context. Nobody else.
This forum demonstrates to a great extent how different individual tastes, preferences and workflows can be.
I’ve been making clips on my Twitter but until recently my music/life persona had been kept separate from app dev (for various dull reasons). When I get out of hospital planning new pagefall site which will link to my music too - since the need to keep them separate has gone away ( you could figure it out yourself before that - it’s not deeply hidden).
For me the software writing is an element of my music practice & the first few Pagefall apps are fuller realisations of Max/msp, python or Norns scripts i’ve Been using
However that said i’m Also fascinated by all the things people do with my apps that had never occurred to me. I expect Cality to be more like that - even the small group of beta testers have been doing things that i’d Not tried
Bang on! Spot on and hit the middle! I have been wondering exactly the same thing for a while... I just don’t understand it at all. What on earth is the point of spending months and maybe years developing an app...... and then not taking a few hours to record a YouTube video? Don’t you want to sell it or something?.... and with the next few hours available- why don’t you knock a simple pdf manual together in order that the folks at entry level have a clue as to how it works.
Are we supposed to pay for an app based on the App Store description...... alone? I often assume that maybe they think that it would be uncool to provide this as anyone who buys it will somehow be ‘in the know’.
No..... don’t do that- go to the other extreme- make a pile of all the revelant instructions you have come across during development- we can always ignore them. Never mind those people who say we don’t need manuals- they are in a minority- and they usually have personality problems anyway.
I #£@#*=&; hate it when I buy an app and have to waste time poking, prodding and experimenting to find out how it works.... only to find out that it is actually crap... and I would never have bought it......... if I had seen the VIDEO!
How does a dev know their app actually works if they don't use it to make music? How do you add a feature where you don't know how it should be used? Why make a music app if you know nothing about music? A dev doesn't need to be a musician or have any talent at making music, but they should be able to make some kind of noise that shows the app in action, and how it's designed to make music.
I think the reason we see complex apps that took years to code, but don't see detailed videos of how to use them, is that those are two separate disciplines. There's only so much time in a day. If an independent dev doesn't really enjoy making videos and the time it takes to learn how to make them, it's unlikely they sacrifice valuable time to it. They like coding, so even if they have to practically give away their work on iOS, they still get the fulfillment of doing what they enjoy. Who wants to do something they're not into and also not get paid for it? The videos might not increase sales that much.
If it's my app, I definitely write an exhaustive manual and lots of videos that not only show the app, but show how to actually make music with it. I even like programming, but I've never had much time to be a programmer.
I actually can play, and the reason I originally got into music app development with Loopy was cos I wanted to play with it myself...but my problem is I ended up finding the development more interesting! Every spare minute I just wanted to put into that instead
Cmon @Michael, playing French Horn is like riding a bike! Time to dust off the chops and put out Loopy vid with 5 French Horn parts and a running monologue of your whole experience!
Haha
Thank you for focusing on making tools for us rather than making bad videos that show us you are just a human like we are. We want our programmers to be god-like and not bumbling idiots like {your favorite bumbling idiot here}. I am MY favorite bumbling idiot. You don't want to see my videos either... remember Chatroulette? Me neither. That wasn't me. Just a look alike.
A video that really teaches an App would be 8-10 hours long and take a week to create/edit, etc. Do you want @brambos to spend 3 months making videos? or working on Ruismaker Funk?
Opps, sorry Bram. Too soon? Is the beta ready yet? Just curious.
If people would pay for the training (which is what is really needed - demos just don't have enough information and leave out too much) then Doug @thesoundtestroom would do a series on the Top Apps as determined by asking Forum members what they can't live without:
30 Audioshare
23 AUM
12 Rozeta Suite
11 Auria Pro
11 Korg Gadget
10 BeatHawk
10 Spacecraft
8 Audiobus
8 Model 15
7 Beatmaker 3
7 Cubasis
7 Nanostudio 2
6 Synthmaster one
5 Egoist
5 Animoog
5 Patterning (2)
5 Ravenscroft 275
4 AudioLayer
4 Audiokit SynthOne
4 Turnado
4 Ruismaker
Doug! Get to work and give me access for the Patreon fees. I'd pay $5-10 a month for such a series. No joke. Start with Gadget and do a module on each Gadget and it will take you a year or two. There are 6 more Gadgets coming. The people that hate AU's will leave you alone with questions. So, just the really stupid people to start with and learn to teach. Cool Beans? Brilliant? Top Job.
The Ravenscroft 275 videos could teach us to play the piano like the @LinearLineMan for example. I'd pay $100 for that skill. You up for it?
Those that can do. Programmers can. So they do. They write code. They often don't document or repair their code. They are addicted to writing code. Sad really.
Oldie but goodie
I thought using loops was cheating,
so I programmed my own using samples.
I then thought using samples was cheating,
so I recorded real drums.
I then thought that programming it was cheating,
so I learned to play drums for real.
I then thought using bought drums was cheating,
so I learned to make my own.
I then thought using premade skins was cheating,
so I killed a goat and skinned it.
I then thought that that was cheating too,
so I grew my own goat from a baby goat.
I also think that is cheating, but I’m not sure where to go from here.
I haven’t made any music lately, what with the goat farming and all.
Yes, that last paragraph sums up a (significant) part of the dilemma.
Only a very small number of apps has been written with workflow in mind.
Most are more or less feature collections spiced up by (supposedly) cool graphics.
Animoog has an almost annoying sound engine, but it's among the most successful apps (it was one of the earliest, too).
You really CAN make music on it and get into the flow - and it showed how to translate touch sensitivity into sound dynamic on a flat surface.
Audioshare does a pretty good job dealing with a file system, that doesn't even exist(ed).
My most adored IOS interface element is SamplR's reverb control: 2 circles of different size, position and shade provide access to wet/dry, roomsize and decay with 1 single finger drag - and it immediately visualizes the setting.
Some developers check touch response of certain actions and scale it for optimal handling, but most seem to ignore this (in fact tricky) aspect.
Tbh it's not surprising, as most developement generally follows the feature paradigm, desktops are flooded by this.
Btw... my question was not some passive aggressive trolling (nothing passive about my aggression 😜) or a slam on devs that don’t do it.
But honestly, aside from some simple AU fx, so much of music, especially more complex music comes down to process. Application workflow, for better or worse, has a huge impact on process. So yea, I’m not saying there’s anything keeping you from driving nails with a wrench if that’s what floats your boat, and yea cool stuff can be had by misusing or abusing tools, but having a more clear idea of the dev intent seems important.
Here’s an example... I’ve recently been revising some older apps that I didn’t “get” a few years ago. Now as I’ve done more stuff in iOS, going back and looking at them, with this context, I now see some aspects of the devs brilliance in their design choices... but I never in a million years would have noticed if not for randomly going back to apps that were essentially one leg in the delete bucket!
In EVERY case, if the dev would have just done a 5 minute shitty YouTube video of how and more importantly WHY they did what they did the way they did it, I could have been using and benefitting for at least a year...
I just think devs are doing themselves a disservice by not doing more show-and-tell stuff
The nature of iOS music-making is more of a DIY platform. You get an inexpensive app, play around with it, explore, figure it out, and see where it takes you. I think if more devs knew they could make a better living from their apps by providing video tutorials, they'd consider it part of their job and just do it or hire someone to do it. The evidence suggests they don't believe this to be the case. Instead, they rely a lot on users to provide it for each other.
Most apps, even from big companies, rely on 3rd party education. Take Logic Pro. There are thousands of videos, free and paid. If you want to learn, the training is out there. It's just more limited with iOS. The companies I know of that provide education for a cost barely touch iOS because, apparently, there isn't enough demand for it. I guess most people aren't willing to pay significantly more to learn an app than it cost to buy it. I'm surprised and pleased that so much free iOS app information is available on platforms like YouTube, but that's how it is these days. We get so much for next to nothing.
I agree with you 100% OP. Many, many times I’ve been frustrated with a lack of even a semi-expansive manual to explain some things that are going on, bipolar LFO functions and how they behave according to the knob that’s being modified setting, and so on...yet they can find the time to write 2-3 pages on saving, importing and exporting presets, processes which a 4 year old could do without any assistance. I’m a huge fan of manuals, and it’s really frustrating when a great app doesn’t immediately give me the full picture of what it can do.
Even Klevgrand for example, one of my favorite developers, tells what the knobs do and nothing else. I would like a little background on HOW the functions...function.
Oh and I’m not buying the 'coders just gotta code' excuse. Writing a concise but still clear manual about something you created is definitely a skill (see brambos for the ultimate in iOS manuals), but at least attempt it for god's sakes; you're only helping yourself out. You spent so much time making this thing, and odds are you made some unique design choices along the way; why not highlight what you've put thought into.
I use semicolons way too much, gotta work on that.
Auria Pro has a great manual as well as Lynda .com w a four hour video series.
As I posted , Stagelight just came out with their wonderful “1 to 100” tutorial series and Pete Johns saves the day for Garageband . I was recently considering sticking with it for that reason, until Stagelight came out w the new series...anyway As for the other apps If not for Doug Woods we’d all be up sh-ya creek w no paddle.
Open labs to my knowledge is the only company to my knowledge that’s fully committed to this concept .
NS2 has also done a fine job right out of the gate and Jakob Haq’s fine 40 something minute video has made a great contribution.. and he’s said there will be more .
Many many years ago before being spoilt by apps I was very fortunate to gain access and eventual sound engineer/producer career. Many of the machines cost more than many of your cars back then For instance a Revox B77 or a Fairlight etc etc ..Videos were on VHS and not easily available . The excitement was often finding things out myself. There was no internet to contact devs by email . There was no youtube but yes there was that Roger Linn Akai MPC60 and EmuSP1200 a turntable and MY mind ..but also the appreciation that without a “dev” showing examples of their machines I humbled myself for having access to be creative with what I have my mind. Just saying . Damn we are spoilt these days but I hold on to what was before the days of the now modern Daisy age . Peace
Not to be rude or harsh but why has the OP Not “REALLY” worded the title of their post correctly “ANYTHING”
First - it depends on what kind if app.
You don't need to be good (or even average) musician and/or to have presentation skills kung-fu level like @jakoB_haQ for example, to be able create great sounding EQ, reverb, delay, even synth, which other can use for making great music.
Next - Lot devs are introverts and they fo not enjoy to make videos for wide audience, they don't want to expose their real face or even voice to masses - they just doing their best job, and they wants stay "in shadow" that's all..
But of course some coders are actually pretty good in making music..
And don't forget also about cool tutorials made by @StevePAL , who also made all NS IAP packs - extremely talented guy !
https://www.youtube.com/user/platinumaudiolab