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
Has anyone found any buggy behaviour with Photon where it sometimes had loud volume increases after changing host bpm?
Great app though. Has anyone figured out if it is possible to do live loop overdubbing? If so it would have great potential as a midi looper, but I can't quite get it to do what I want in that regard.
Also, has anyone had any success getting hold of the dev, Anthony, this past few months?
I think Atom works better for MIDI over dubbing with loops, you set a loop length, put it in loop rec mode and keep recording until you’re done.
I use this exclusively for midi export - it excels at that.
@midiSequencer pops in from time to time and hopes to come back to this project at some point. Fingers crossed, as Photon justifiably captured the hopes/dreams of many forumites.
Thanks guys. Indeed! I'm using Photon in a tutorial I'm putting up shortly about using midi out from Piano Motifs. I think Anthony Saunders is really a master of midi. Would love to see more from him. But certainly I'd love to see Photon having state saving. The lack of it is a right pain in the ass. Still, a wonderful app.
True enough. Much (virtual) ink has been spilled on the need for state saving. So close, but yet so far!
@Paulinko didn't realise Atom could do that, will definitely be investigating, thnx. Could definitely do with a good midi looper.
Again can I repeat my question from yesterday: has anyone found they suddenly get louder than normal volume jumps when working with midi loaded in Photon? I’m curious if anyone knows why this happens, and has found a way to stop it happening. Cheers!
It hasn’t ever happened to me.
Thanks Edward, I’m trying to see if I can isolate what the causes might be. I seem to sometimes get it when I load I right and left hand midi together from Piano Motifs into different pads. I don’t think there is a problem with the midi from Piano Motifs, it plays fine in AudioShare, If I load in just one track (say left hand), even into several pads, it doesn’t seem to be happening. Weird...
I've not seen that either.
I had a weird sudden volume increase glitch in Rozeta Cells last time I used it. I never did track down the cause. A disturbance in the force....
So I am still investigating what is going on in Photon for me. I found that if I just record directly midi from a keyboard into photon, it plays back fine. If I load fast passages from piano loops into it, I get crazy blasts of feedback from time to time. But I don’t think there is an issue with the midi from piano motifs, because when I just play the midi file exported from piano motifs in audioshare, it plays back fine. Anyone got any clue as to what on earth this could be caused by?
@Gavinski It's funny but although MIDI files are stone old technology, that doesn't mean that every app processes them correctly. I had several apps that needed quite a number of fixes from their developers before the MIDIs played correctly.
Just a wild guess as I don't own Photon.
Huh...it’s hard to imagine this not being able to do it correctly as it is its whole purpose, and Anthony really seems to know what he is doing.
As I noted earlier in this thread, when streaming a Midi file into Photon, I could make it invariably crash and had to stream and record that content in chunks. So I learned not to trust this app on the recording side. (This was when one could not load Midi files into Photon ca. iOS 13.1-13.3!)
Between this and having to re-load and re-start the buffer (weird idiosyncrasies in operating this AU!) when pulling in an AUM save with Photon, this app just gives me this not-quite-finished vibe and I have never been able to warm up to it.
Hi everyone,
Photon is due an update soon so will check out host timing issues, airPlay import etc.
I'm also going to complete that stateSaving I'd started.
The app relies on Apple framework code to store midi events - so odd issues might be fixed with an update.
Tony
Yay, still the best AU at recording midi I think, state saving will be great.... so that you don't have to keep loading the files each time.
there's the complexity - its not state saving files but buffers (e.g. recording a midi stream isn't yet saved as a file). I will continue working on this though as so many people want it.
Hi Tony,
Great to see you active again！Massively looking forward to the update, please don’t keep us waiting too long 😉
C> @midiSequencer said:
@midiSequencer
Woohoo!
Welcome back!
You have been missed.
😁
Are you saying that the state saving won't save the buffers as part of the state? I hope that I am misunderstanding, because the buffers are what I need saved
Another major need is a setting that locks it to the host transport so that starting and stopping the host will start stop Photon playback.
“Start on bar” and “start on beat” do that for playback, and “Next bar” for record. Is there something about those options that doesn’t work for you?
[edit] Host stop doesn’t work until the end of the loop, I see.
@midiSequencer Dear Anthony, I have some issues with frequent crashes while recording. As I don't have FB, what is the best way to get in touch with you to provide additional details and receive support?
Thanks,
Alessandro
Hi all, I’m new(ish) to iOS and the Audiobus discussions. I have two instances of Photon AU in the same MIDI channel in AUM. Each Photon instance has MIDI loaded in PAD1 that has been generated by Piano Motifs, one for the right hand and one for the left hand. Each instance of Photon is routed to separate instances of Ravenscroft 275 each in its own audio channel. It’s a really simple, straight forward setup.
My question is regarding the tempo in AUM. For some reason the tempo I have set in AUM does control one instance of Photon but not the other. It’s really strange. If I change the tempo whilst the transport is running, ONE of the instances of Photon follows the tempo but the other does not. Both instances of Photon are set up the same, and both start and stop (on bar) by AUM transport control. I have read the Photon manual (which was well worth it) but it doesn’t really mention much specifically related to tempo and transport in AUM. Why would one instance of Photon be linked to the tempo of AUM and not the other?
Photon is awesome otherwise and I have found a workaround by just setting the tempo in AUM to the same BPM as the Piano Motif was generated. Seems to work fine and both instances of Phototon stay in sync with each other just fine. It’s just odd that one of the instances is affected by the tempo set by AUM and the other isn’t. any advice anyone has would be super appreciated. Many thanks to all.
Not sure what is going on there, but due to various issues with using Photon to play piano motifs (doing weird things with sustain Ccs being the main one) , Atom 2 is now my choice. The new Atom 2 update which is currently on beta not only records all cc messages but also allows import and export, so you will now (once the next update is released) be able directly import your piano motifs into Atom and they will play back perfectly. They will also save state properly like Photon does not do. I am so happy as I have been looking for an elegant AUv3 solution to this forever, and it is finally here.
Thanks so much. How odd you mention ATOM 2. I was just looking at a demo of it right now. Many thanks for the info. I really do like Photon, but I really need both instances to sync to the tempo of AUM. I’m going to try ATOM 2. Many thanks sir, I really enjoy your channel and your music as well. Thanks for taking the time to think about this. Aloha from Hawaii.
Just wanted to follow up on this- Wow ATOM 2 pretty much just fixed the problem and then some. There is a lot of potential with this app. Many thanks for the suggestion, problem solved, potential created. Aloha
My pleasure!, amd glad you like the channel. I was super excited to see Atom get this update. I have a walkthrough here, though it has had many features added since:
Enjoy!