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.
A tip to help speed up the process of sampling IAA synths/instruments
I wanted to sample Sopranotron so that I could use the sounds with an ADSR envelope in NS2 or BM3. I came up with this setup to speed up the process and I thought it might be worth sharing.
Launch KB1, then bring up the iOS dock by swiping up, you can then add Audioshare as a split screen app on the right-hand side. Then open the Audioshare recorder, select an IAA app as the input, and connect KB1 to it as well. You can now sample and save everything without having to switch screens: just press record, hold a key, save and name the file and then rinse and repeat.
Comments
That rocks!
Thank you.
Deff a great solution!
Good tip Richard, thanks. I haven't got KB1, but was able to launch Layr, and then sample that with Audioshare on the right, using Layr's keyboard.
Another relatively fast sampling option is using BM3 to record all audio in an audio track, auto-slice it and save the sliced samples in one step. BM3 will put the individual samples into iOS [Files] under "BeatMaker 3" > "Samples" > "Sliced " where you should be able to import from any other app supporting [Files].
This is especially useful when working with a lot of samples.
Yes, if your goal is to get the samples into BM3 then wouldn't it be easier to skip Audioshare and just use the BM3 sampler?
What I had in mind is a more universal workflow for sampling a larger number of samples, including a somewhat automatic process for trimming them and then using them in any app, like AudioLayer for example.
Of course, when staying inside BM3, you'd just load the instrument there and do everything inside the app.
But even if you’re going to use the samples elsewhere wouldn’t it still be easier to open BM3 and load up a midi track of notes, record the synth, and slice to pads? You can then copy the samples via the Files app.
I haven’t done this yet for a full synth patch so genuinely interested in the answer. I have ZedSynth which I’m interested in sampling one day as it’s no longer available and quite unique.
Great idea- thanks. I have just opened AUM with Audioshare on the split screen- recorded a loop- watched it appear in Audioshare- then had it playing as a file- much quicker than I had before. I know it shouldn’t really make a great deal of difference- but it somehow feels more comfortable and compact- you can see exactly where to look- as you have seen it arriving-so there is no uncertainty with all the numbers etc.
@richardyot - you’ve got me going with this. I’ve been meaning to build up some samples for a while but kept putting it off. Having Audioshare along the side makes it really quick and easy. Just been grabbing some Layr stuff, since that one kills my iPad, and will nab some Synthscaper later too. I can then load them up in NS2 and keep the CPU happy. I’ll do some AUMing as well like @robosardine
You own AudioLayer, right? This is a great tip for sampling without AL. But AL in the FX slot is the dead simplest way to sample and play.
Sure, you can do that, in fact that's what I do on the desktop when sampling instruments with multiple velocity layers. If you're just going to record one sample per key, I'd simply play the notes on the keyboard live so I can choose how long to play each note (depending on how the sound evolves) and how much space to leave between samples (depending on FX decay or release time). Recording using a MIDI track would require a custom MIDI track for each sound, and that takes a lot of time.
@richardyot cool tip. I may video-ize this tip if that’s ok.
I’ll check it out, but if I remember rightly you have to create a new layer each time, and then save it in the AL system.
With the AS method you can see straight away where it’s gone, and it’s automatically cleared and re-armed for the next one.
I’ll test AL, but I think the AS method removes a couple of steps.
Sure - go ahead
It depends on how you define your end point, right? If you want files in AudioShare then you are correct. But once they are in AS you still have to do something with them? Make layers in a Sampler/rompler, etc to play them back?
I'm not that advanced with sampling - I just record the audio and save it, and then open it in whatever I'm going to use it with. Since I don't use AudioLayer much and most use will be with NS2, I'll just save the file as best I can in Audioshare, and then when I import it into NS2, make any required tweaks there. Since NS2 doesn't have audio tracks, my samples won't have a definied start/endpoint - these will be determined by the song I'm working on, and set using Slate.
If I was building a nice, proper sample library then I'd probably use AL and set them all up properly. But I'm a rough and ready, dirty, messy kinda guy so they're just thrown into an old carrier.
Just to add a tip to the tip: if you sample a bunch of notes using the method in my first post, and you name them using the "instrument name --> note" syntax, once you've named about 3 the iOS keyboard will remember what you've been typing and will offer it in the autofill options, so basically you no longer have to type in the instrument name, just the note:
So this combined with the split screen apps makes it very short work to sample a range of notes from a software instrument and correctly name the samples. Once the notes are sampled and named accordingly, you can import the entire range of notes into Obsidian in one step by using the "automap samples" option.