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.
Electrify NXT update
The dev is on the case! 1.0.1 dropped today, with the Stroke Machine update it's a good day for grooveboxes
Comments
The update has dropped in and now every time I swap back to the app it relaunches !
This is the case with or without Audiobus
Anyone else having this problem ?
Wouldn't be that bad but it makes the new updated midi settings reset to the default settings !
Also the Audiobus transport is acting wierd as I can't start Electrify with the play icon, probably due to the issue above....
Thanks synthandson, made the correction to Electrify NXT
I got the groove box's name mixed up with a DAW (and an app that fed into it) that I used to like a bit...
Yes, the splash screen is coming up every time I switch back to NXT. Is that what you're referring to, @DaveMagoo? Makes it impossible for me to keep playback going while switching between apps on my iPad 2.
MIDI Sync Sources in NXT is nice! Works well to sync tempo between NXT and Cubasis/ Beatmaker 2, even w/out using MidiBus.
Any way to get a synced start, though? I couldn't get this to happen after trying a few different routings.
@dj8 yeah the splash screen thing, seems the app is restarting when switching back to it as all my midi settings are reset !
Are you seeing the reset of midi options ?
For example if I select bm2 and NXT in Audiobus I set my midi in NXT to clock/sync master over bm2 and then when I switch over to bm2 and switch back to NXT it restarts and the midi setup has gone
@littlewoodg You probably refering to energy xt?
@anywhoreadsthis Still plenty of bugs. One thing that irritates me right now (no disrespect to the dev, I'm loving nxt.) is the way stored clips are handled. I can see plenty of unused empty clips pilling up slowly in the clip browser. Just wondering if there will be a better way to managed all of this cleanly. Right now it's a pita. Let's say you have like 50 songs with plenty of trial and error, this will be impossible to manage and get pretty messy. There's no way right now to know which clips belongs to what song except for the name of the clip. This needs a manual and some clarification on how this is handled.
Have to agree on the handling of User Samples. At one point I had ten copies of one sample showing. I deleted all bar one. The next time I opened the program there were three copies
...?!
The inability at the moment to rename the samples doesn't help. That said the original Electrify App had reasonable sample management with some editing and the ability to rename samples so I'm sure this will come.
@paradiddle, definitely send an email over to the developer There's an email page on his website @ www.electrifynxt.info re: the file management issue. He's been very responsive to input so far…
File management issues is the main reason that I've pretty much jumped ship from BeatMaker 2 over to Cubasis… Definitely needs to be improved.
I will send him an e-mail. I have more suggestions in mind too. I was kind of hoping he follow up on thread.
In the modulator section, i would like the lfos to sync to the beat with a possibility to manipulate the phase of the lfo. This could be interesting to manipulate beats.
Knobs or sliders should show values and we should be able to reset them by double-tapping them.
Ect...
On sale for $12.99
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/electrify-nxt/id771185854?mt=8
Very tempted at that price but does anyone have it working ok on iPad 2?
Too bad that it is ios 7 only ! That is the real deal breaker! Yawn.
Are there any user videos or reviews of nxt? I was hoping Doug would make one but I have not found any other reviews and videos even on YouTube
I am not looking for a techno use only app... Or a glamour ours DJ type player... Would this app be useful for a composition tool for various recorded snippets and loops pasted from other apps?
What is the lowest Bpm it can go to and would it be useful for some ambient noodlings?
Yes, I too am getting over the whole groove machine thing quickly also. If I did not want to make my own music to some degree I would listen to others play. Maybe somewhat for backing but please make it more than one or two genres.
NXT goes down to 20bpm. You can use your own loops, but I believe the only way to get them in is through iTunes.
You can also paste them in, using audio copy.
EDITED: for typos
I must have missed that! Thanks for pointing it out @dj8.
Yeah, they end up in the User folder (button on the bottom of the Session screen).
You can then drop them directly onto the Session screen to create a clip. (Or access from within a sequencer screen via User button)
Don't know why this could be labeled has a techno machine only. I'm certainly not using it that way. The audio clips can be anybody playing any instruments and using it to accompany yourself. Any tool can be used for anything.
Just some audiobus input and some basic trim/crop normalise function with more resolution in the seq and maybe some live midi recording will take this app to another level. It's pretty much new so plenty of time to grow fully.
@Tritonman2 said:
Well, one criteria for a Groovebox is to be able to create your own sounds and music.
Grooveboxes are'nt just loop players. You do create your own content from scratch with Grooveboxes, but you can obviously use ready made loops too. Or shop up,slice and dice others loops.
Things like WeJaam, Electrify NXT, CoTracks, MINT.io and Stroke Machine are grooveboxes.
Things like IK Multimedias GrooveMaker 2, Novation Launchpad etc are not Grooveboxes, but straight up sample players (or whatever you wanna call'em).
Roland and Korg started the Groovebox concept with things like the MC series, Electribe etc.
You can get your loops and sounds in via any iDevice file explorer (like iFunBox). Or ACP as mentioned. iTunes works I guess, but that's a hassle..
Or, you can make your own loops with the drum machine/sampler in NXT. It comes loaded with lots of one shot drum samples (kicks, snares, hihats, percs and so on). And then you have the FM synthesizer for making your own noise inside Electrify NXT.
@pinkelefant... I have written a review but no video to accompany it. The mag I write for only uses text but I am going to suggest videos go up too. I'd be happy to share the load with Doug and offer another view :-) Although Doug's vids are now the gold standard so I don't know if I should bother...
Anyway, functionally, although the included samples and set-up seem to encourage electronica, in practice it is much more versatile because anything you can Audiocopy can be dropped right in, bpm tweaked to whatever you want, and therefore you can effectively experiment with tempo very easily indeed without upsetting the apple cart. It's very intuitive. Initially the included samples seem lacking but once you start mangling, the possibilities are, y'know, infinite.
In my first few forays I went for up-tempo breakbeat, then slowed that right down and added a load of really subtle, moody synth sounds, ending up with a canvas of 20 or so parts that work well together, mixing them in and out as required. This is perfect for me and the readership (Film & Game Composer) because it's effectively a composer's soundboard. You could confidently soundtrack a movie with a screen full of clips, obviously putting in the time to get them 'just so'.
The randomise functions are great, the sound engine is beautiful and although there are a few niggles here and there, overall it's an excellent app which is only really limited by the composer's imagination and skill. I haven't even connected it to AB yet as I've just been having too much fun creating stuff. I get gooey at the thought of running grooves through Turnado into Cubasis...
Yes, there are so many uses for Electricity NXT… That's why I was so high w/ excitement on the release day of the app. :-)
Just start off with your own imported or pasted clips and build a song up in NXT, if you choose. The Scene Loop Indicator is brilliant for this! You can now loop an entire song structure. (I don't think you could do this in the old Electrify….) And it's great that you only have to add the clips that are changing on a row. Very efficient and probably cuts down on overhead.
As soon as I tighten up some songs in Cubasis and Logic, I'm going to import the songs in sections into NXT. Then keep using the different effects in NXT to alter sections of the arrangement. Sweet…
Would be nice if alternate time signatures are added in a not so future update. Can probably achieve this w/ some workarounds, now. Has anyone tried this out?
Alright - I'm upgrading to ios7 for this app solely. Hopefully I don't have too many issues...
Interestingly I see that SmiteMatter in his review of Apps for 2013 puts Stroke Machine in at No. 1 for beat boxes.
http://smitematter.com/2014/01/01/best-music-apps-of-2013/
I don't own it but from I've seen on this forum so far it looks interesting but I would have thought E Nxt currently has a clear edge in their current state?
@Skipp said:
Opinions. Smitematter is just another dude like us, using iDevices to make music (that also happens to write a blog). But damn Smite, Stix as best drum synth (sample based by the way)? Did you miss SeekBeats? Dude!
Isn't Stroke Machine so riddled with bugs as to be unusable though? Doug said he wouldn't do a vid until it was in a decent state... So how come this Smite chap has a stable version? Or is he just blown away by the potential rather than the practical functionality?
Gotta say - making beats in NXT and Caustic 3 is keeping me very happy. Very.
Thanks @funjunkie27,@sickmoth,@chrisg
Y'all made another sale ! Going to pick this up right now and start exploring .
I have found Stroke Machine to be unusable on my ipad2. Crashes and can only use a few voices before it maxes the CPU. Supplied presets really kill it dead. I hoped it would improve after the update but I have not found it to be so. Not sure how it made number 1 but I have just ordered an Air so I will have a reappraisal when that arrives.
@synthandson
I love the look and layout of this but just cannot get it to function properly. What iPad do you have it working on? Maybe it's my machine?
@synthandson thanks for the info. I reckon it's just my iPad2 struggling. Air here in next few days as I said, so look forward to giving it a proper run through then.
New update on the app store with a few goodies!