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
Sorry I post this again @elf_audio
@elf_audio possibly consider adding an ERASE button . (Hold ERASE) and Pad to erase notes/hits anywhere within a sequence while sequence is in Play or Record.
Also a retain Performance Fx settings when pressing Hold On/Off in Performance effects.
The Alesis SR-16 drum machine sequencer has a really great implementation of this behaviour.
@OscarSouth yes as well as all MPCs , Grooverider Gr16, BM3 etc
Alesis Sr16 was my first ever drum machine way back in the 80s
It already does that if you hold down 'clear' and tap a pad?!
(it clears all pad events for the tapped pad in the pattern).
Sure you can not use it to erase individual hits but still better than nothing...
Definitely! I still have one sitting on my desk and get a lot of utility from it as a hardware clock and MIDI sequencer:
(Don’t really like its own drum sounds though
)
Can i open a koala project with all samples from my iPad to my iPhone
Yes; use Export / Share Koala Song from the menu.
@elf_audio Any plans for layers and round robin/random per pad? I can see it would be a UX challenge but maybe under Tools?
@lukesleepwalker might be out of scope for now - multisampling isn't difficult to program, I just need a nice way of managing it UI-wise as you say. And if I added those features, there are a lot of other features that would be sort of mandatory, so it does open a big box of work up - would be easier to start a new app lol.
Maybe an extension of the 'link group' idea for a quick/simple workflow, where the linked pad group can be switched between triggering in parallel (layering) or in series (round robin).
Anyway might not be a good idea -- just throwing around thoughts.
Thanks, @elf_audio for the response; makes sense that it feels like a reach. I did think about the idea of grouping multiple pads as @OscarSouth suggests here but, again, some extra UI would be necessary. I also wondered if there could be a "stacked bank mode" where the user could trigger the first pad in each bank in parallel (layers) or series (round robin/random). Spitballin, obviously.
A new app (an AU ) focused on the multi sampling aspect would be grand. People have been dying for an AU that is essentially BeatMaker's sampler. Intua aren't going to do it. Maybe you could.
Or this! This could be a faster path to AUv3 Koala "modules". We already have the FX module as an AUv3. Next comes the sampler AUv3 module... adding multi-sample mode in the process, of course! Maybe you do a MIDI sequencer module later (or not since Atom V2 etc will take over the world by then).
Yeah the modularization thing is an interesting prospect - I don't know if it would be koala or something else... Can I ask about chameleon sampler - I haven't used it, but it seems to have a lot of bells and whistles - devil's advocate: why not use that?
Chameleon is about 70% of the way "there" but the missing 30% is important and I don't see the developer dedicated to creating the best sampler on iOS. He's more of a "thin/wide/variety of apps" dev rather than a "go deep on one thing" guy. A couple of examples of the missing 30%: (1) no multi-layers; (2) no round robin or random; (3) no choke groups; etc.
Ah ok got it. thx for the infoz
Personally I just can't cope with Chameleon or AudioLayer.
Way, way too many steps to actually start using the samples.
One way round-robin could be implemented is to allow multiple slices per pad and then trigger a new/random/next slice each time the pad is triggered.
In Koala this could be done by adding slices per pad and toggling the playback mode between slice & round-robin.
(ie. slices spread to notes on one pad which would theoretically allow 128 slices per pad).
Layering in Koala could be done by 'linked pads' or 'trig groups' similar to 'choke groups'.
Other performance related features would be mapping Velocity->SampleStart, Attack Time.
The 'range' to which the velocity covers could be set in % of the sample length etc. etc.
But the question is, do we really need all these features?
I'd very much prefer to keep Koala 'simple' and put the more advanced features into a separate AUv3.
(Think Ableton Simpler, Logic Quick Sampler or Cubase SamplerTrack to name a few).
Cheers!
Also, you have an intuitive sense for workflow and the Koala UX is far superior to Chameleon. Any user can learn to adapt but Chameleon makes it extra hard to get into a flow. I end up using AudioLayer more than Chameleon--mostly because AL has more sampler features (including chokes, layers, random/round robin) but it's still not the smoothest workflow in the world.
Ah but koala has a good flow partly because it has so few features. An interesting challenge would be something that is simple on the surface that you can kind of progressively access features the more you need to dive. I’m thinking about that a bit
I completely here, though the one feature that I’d kill or die for right now is an ‘external sequence’ mode so that in can edit samples triggered by a drum machine (or other sequencer) without having to stop the hardware clocks.
Unless I’m thinking wrong, I’d be a case of detaching the pink outline (sample selection) from the sample triggering (depress animation) by a toggle, so that the pads can be triggered by MIDI without changing selected pad, and selected by touchscreen without triggering the sound. Am I talking sense?
If you haven't done so, spend some time with Beatmaker 3's sampler/pad pages and learn its features. If one confines oneself to the sampler, it is both deep and easy to use/understand (unlike the overall BM3 workflow). It is a huge whole on iOS. A lot of things have little pieces of it but not enough to be satisfying. I am not advocating those within Koala -- but I think for a standalone sampler it is the app to study not Chameleon or sEGments or whatever.
I can't get anyone in my family to care... I've always wondered if we could test the limits of
family with "adoptions". I could imagine someone with a large library of apps adopting hundreds of impoverished students. But imagining it doesn't mean Apple wouldn't detect the fraud... unlike Netflix that used it as a marketing strategy to great effect.
Is there a good reason for one person to maintain 2 or more Apple ID's?
What's the list of apps that allow IAP Family Sharing? This sounds like a job for the Wiki!
I’ve asked for LK and Koala and both are working perfectly for IAP family sharing.
@elf_audio
I’ve got a small issue with 4 bars sequence not starting on first bar (but on second bar) after playing a one bar sequence, look at this GIF:
This is with Ableton Link enabled or disabled, so that don’t seem to be related.
Hmmm, if you hold down 'edit' and tap on a pad you can edit it without triggering it.
Don't know if that helps...
I did run into that tip. Is handy in specific cases but I don’t think it’s beneficial in this use case as the selected pad wouldn’t stick — it’ll instantaneously jump between other things as the drum module runs.
Do you use multiple Apple ID's or have a musically active family? Like Charlie Manson?
This is only to test fully those apps on my wife’s iPad Air 3, so temporary and occasional usage to see if I want a music production iPad for myself or just stay on iPhone. I’ve bought three iPad Air last year for my daughter, my wife and my mom, but not for me yet... I’ve got big hesitations between Pro/Air and mini. Waiting for march