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 Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Chameleon AUv3 Sampler Plugin by 4Pockets.com

1246789

Comments

  • These are probably the developers who can dare to do a drum sampler like NI battery on iPad.

  • @gregsmith apeMatrix comes with an AUv3 Sampler app which you can load audio files from within the AUv3 using any audio files available to the Files app. You can host the Sampler app in any AUv3 host app.


  • Does Chameleon have velocity layering?

  • edited April 2019

    Only ‘downside’ with the ApeMatrix sampler is that there seems to be no way to make the sample start playback from start or last set start position on a new note, it just continues playback from the last position.

    Otherwise it would be a good alternative...

  • McDMcD
    edited April 2019

    @espiegel123 said:
    Does Chameleon have velocity layering?

    Just a quick peek... No layering offered.

    Just "Root Note", "Range Start", "Range End" all Manual Selections.
    Tried importing a folder of samples and in 8 seconds it reported 15 loaded and then
    displayed 95 samples did not.

    I think I heard 15 was the max.

    The Grand Piano Preset is made from 10 samples with these Ranges:
    C0-F1
    F#1-B1
    C2-F2
    F#2-B2
    C3-F3
    F#3-B3
    C4-F4
    F#4-B4
    C5-F5
    F#5-B6

    Sounds thin.

    Plan accordingly. Imported Samples get truncated around 10 seconds, I think.
    Did try recording any.

  • It is possible to layer samples in Chameleon by setting the same key-range for all samples but only one envelope.

    I wonder why Chameleons ‘Vibrati’ sounds more like ‘Tremolo’ and no rate can be set?!

  • @InfoCheck said:
    @gregsmith apeMatrix comes with an AUv3 Sampler app which you can load audio files from within the AUv3 using any audio files available to the Files app. You can host the Sampler app in any AUv3 host app.

    Thanks! Can you load it as an au effect as well as an au instrument?

  • edited April 2019

    @gregsmith said:

    @InfoCheck said:
    @gregsmith apeMatrix comes with an AUv3 Sampler app which you can load audio files from within the AUv3 using any audio files available to the Files app. You can host the Sampler app in any AUv3 host app.

    Thanks! Can you load it as an au effect as well as an au instrument?

    Sampler is a player only. A good one two punch would be to use Enso to record, save the loop, and import the loop into Sampler for playback.

  • @Samu said:
    It is possible to layer samples in Chameleon by setting the same key-range for all samples but only one envelope.

    I wonder why Chameleons ‘Vibrati’ sounds more like ‘Tremolo’ and no rate can be set?!

    Are you seeing a 15 sample limit?

    So, you would layer samples over all notes and do something with the envelope? Can you
    be a bit more specific. This will help for a lot of synthetic sounds that can survive the multi-octave pitch shifting without sounding bad. Pure wave patterns are the best candidates and not something like an spanish guitar. Flutes without vibrato maybe. But public domain samples always seem to have vibrato or tremolo which makes pitch shifting sound fake.
    I'd pay for a cello without vibrato and add one with an LFO. Oboes seem to get clean recordings and clarinets are taught to NOT use vibrato. Saxes are the worst woodwinds...
    I'm looking at you "Sensual Sax"... that player "loves" his sax a bit too much.

  • @McD said:

    Are you seeing a 15 sample limit?

    I've only 'scratched the surface' of Chameleon so have not bumped into that yet...

    So, you would layer samples over all notes and do something with the envelope? Can you
    be a bit more specific.

    From what I can see and hear it's one envelope for all the samples in a patch...

    Currently it's very basic when it comes to synthesis capabilities, no filters with envelopes, or way to add pitch modulation (other than the pitch-bend).

    But it is called 'Chameleon' and it got a Vocoder with an update which was not part of the initial release so we never know what future updates will bring...

    I do prefer to use Chameleon over AudioLayer since it's easier to sample and edit the sounds.

  • McDMcD
    edited April 2019

    @Samu said:
    I do prefer to use Chameleon over AudioLayer since it's easier to sample and edit the sounds.

    It's good to understand the context for "sample and edit".

    Samplings has so many meanings:

    1. one-shot wave forms (very short)
      Scythe Synth - free right now.
    2. live instrument recordings across its playable range (Salamander) 1-10 seconds?
      Audio Layer fed by SynthJacker
    3. audio clips - 1 to 10,000 seconds?
      AudioShare

    and loops (which apply to the above as well to keep the waves comin'):

    1_loop (wavetables)
    2_loop (sampled digital keyboards - Kurzweil was the first popular model)
    3_loop (samplers like the Akai's)

    There are "Samplers" and "Loopers" focused on all three levels and the extra features of those hardware products are assumed when someone buys a sampler.

    I think Chameleon fits between 2 and 3 as a useful tool. 15 samples won't get you
    a software Kurzweil. Kurzweil is the AI Guru that invented the idea of a singularity and
    made the original Kurzweil Keyboard based up the needs of Stevie Wonder. Before that
    he made braille machines for the blind so Stevie bought a lot of his products.

    Sample editors also are picked to match the target use case. For the Kurzweil case Chameleon won't cut it. No layering? 15 samples? But for triggering audio or mapping
    a wave form across a few octaves... It's fast and easy to use.

    By the way: I found a 10 second audio recording limit. Import anything longer than that and it stop playing after 10 seconds. So, probably a lot like some easy sampler hardware systems, I would guess. I bought a Peavey hardware sampler once thinking it would give me #2 and was never able to do much with it. Not my thing.

    (Cut and paste to KB).

  • @InfoCheck said:

    @gregsmith said:

    @InfoCheck said:
    @gregsmith apeMatrix comes with an AUv3 Sampler app which you can load audio files from within the AUv3 using any audio files available to the Files app. You can host the Sampler app in any AUv3 host app.

    Thanks! Can you load it as an au effect as well as an au instrument?

    Sampler is a player only. A good one two punch would be to use Enso to record, save the loop, and import the loop into Sampler for playback.

    Problem with Enso is that I think the buffer limit is too small. I need to be able to play the whole wav really (it’s a full reference song)

    I definitely think there’s a gap in the market for an au wav player that can be used as an effect :)

  • @McD: what do you mean by Scythe being a sampler? It's not. It can generate a wavetable from a sample. But I don't think that it could be considered a sampler in any way. It doesn't play back the sample you construct the wavetable from.

  • @gregsmith said:

    @InfoCheck said:

    @gregsmith said:

    @InfoCheck said:
    @gregsmith apeMatrix comes with an AUv3 Sampler app which you can load audio files from within the AUv3 using any audio files available to the Files app. You can host the Sampler app in any AUv3 host app.

    Thanks! Can you load it as an au effect as well as an au instrument?

    Sampler is a player only. A good one two punch would be to use Enso to record, save the loop, and import the loop into Sampler for playback.

    Problem with Enso is that I think the buffer limit is too small. I need to be able to play the whole wav really (it’s a full reference song)

    I definitely think there’s a gap in the market for an au wav player that can be used as an effect :)

    Unless there’s some sort of disk streaming going on with the AUv3 audio there might be an issue with recording long files due to Apple’s AUv3 memory restrictions. I really have no knowledge about how feasible this is, but it would be a nice way to resample audio after it’s gone through effects or to build up layers through looping.

  • @espiegel123 said:
    @McD: what do you mean by Scythe being a sampler? It's not. It can generate a wavetable from a sample. But I don't think that it could be considered a sampler in any way. It doesn't play back the sample you construct the wavetable from.

    I consider it to be a (micro) sampler but probably just to annoy you. :D
    It's probably best to just ignore my posts on historical hardware and software trends from
    1980 to 2015. I was busy the whole time raising kids (actually working so they didn't live n the street).

  • McDMcD
    edited April 2019

    @McD said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    @McD: what do you mean by Scythe being a sampler? It's not. It can generate a wavetable from a sample. But I don't think that it could be considered a sampler in any way. It doesn't play back the sample you construct the wavetable from.

    I consider it to be a (micro) sampler but probably just to annoy you. :D
    It's probably best to just ignore my posts on historical hardware and software trends from
    1980 to 2015. I was busy the whole time raising kids (actually working so they didn't live on the street).

    I'm still filling in the gaps. But there are many uses of the word "sample". A wavetable has a sample of sound. (see I'm not willing to budge). Anyway. Teach us the facts.

  • @McD said:

    @McD said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    @McD: what do you mean by Scythe being a sampler? It's not. It can generate a wavetable from a sample. But I don't think that it could be considered a sampler in any way. It doesn't play back the sample you construct the wavetable from.

    I consider it to be a (micro) sampler but probably just to annoy you. :D
    It's probably best to just ignore my posts on historical hardware and software trends from
    1980 to 2015. I was busy the whole time raising kids (actually working so they didn't live on the street).

    I'm still filling in the gaps. But there are many uses of the word "sample". A wavetable has a sample of sound. (see I'm not willing to budge). Anyway. Teach us the facts.

    Samplers and romplers are devices that playback recorded audio files.

    Samples in this context refers to audio files. They are called samples because they arerecorded by sampling an input -- terminology that goes back to the notion of periodically taking a sample measurement of an electrical circuit's amplitude. (Related: sample-and-hold is a circuit that samples an voltage at a specified rate and "holds" it till the next sampling).

    Originally, sampler was mostly used to refer to devices that could record (sample) audio as well as play it back. Though it now often refers to devices that only play back samples.

    Generally, samplers also provide a way to trigger playback from a keyboard or other input device optionally and provide the option to re-pitch samples according to the note played. Old-school samplers could also often load files from floppy disk (remember those) or transfer them in from a computer.

    ROMplers are playback-only samplers whose samples are held in read-only memory.

    Anyway, Scythe doesn't play back audio files. I'll spare you an essay on wavetables and additive re-synthesis.

    There is a lot of variation among samplers and there are interesting hybrid synths that combine sample-based and non-sampled "oscillators", but I think it is fair to say that to be a sampler, a device needs to be playing back audio files rather than synthesizing it.

    "Samples" can be confusing because in digital audio "sample " also refers to the individual numbers that make up the audio stream.

  • McDMcD
    edited April 2019

    @espiegel123 said:
    "Samples" can be confusing because in digital audio "sample " also refers to the individual numbers that make up the audio stream.

    OK. It took hardware to store the data because when you need data for sound you cannot wait. So, put waveforms in a fast device (ROM, RAM, etc). Bottomline it's data you need to keep the sound happening.

    So, wavetables have a small amount of data to work with... I've got it. Play with the start point and play multiple instances. Genius. Scythe does this in software as a tribute to a sound style.

    Later... RAM gets cheaper so more data. New boundary conditions.

    Loading RAM takes time. So, use pre-loaded ROM's and save the boot time. (I'll just skip Flash ROM's). Implementation detail.

    Disks get faster just keep the data on the disk and load it as needed into RAM. (There are many types of RAM but the way but that's just engineering options to build systems: implementation details for SRAM's, DRAM's... why go there?)

    Data stored and used by processors to craft sounds: wavetables, ROM-plers, Samplers.

    So, we can store GB's of data and play it back when I press a key. Now we know my iPad has 2GB of RAM so moving data to from storage is involved. The hardware allows systems made like this. AudioLayer and Lyra can do this with "disk streaming". Really when you consider what wavetable means it's 40 years of memory access improvements. 40 years of Moore's Law and the Powers of 2. Like walking versus the Concord only closer to the speed of light today... we have hit that physical limit in the chips. Multi-core is there only new implementation detail left really.

    But a Wavetable Synth is not a Sampler. OK. Samplers arrived a decade or more later.
    I'll concede calling a wavetable synth a sampler put time in the wrong order. Calling "samples" wavetables would probably also drive you crazy...

    Storage
    Data store
    Processor

    Implementation details. There's a pattern just implemented over 40 years with
    optimizations based upon the parts available to build electronic equipment.

    Data gets used to generate sound. A digital tour of music made with chips and parts.

    I will await your reply explaining why words are important and should be used with precision. I like patterns and there's one at work here. Data becomes sound in a dozens of creative implementations. But the pattern is what makes any computer work. Everything you're thinking is important is an implementation detail. It's not really important except in trivial pursuit to label a product.

    Multi-core is the next important implementation detail to keep the music flowing from the
    datastores. Details best left to engineers but fascinating to attempt to consider using analogies for the layman and the user. Open the door to multi-core and your head explodes because it's not linear... it's parallel: like melody and harmony. An additional dimension of complexity. So very hard to implement. The bugs also grow exponentially.

  • edited April 2019

    @mcd: samplers/ROMplers did not first appear a decade after wavetable synths. The timeframes were similar or sampling may have slightly preceded wavetable synths.

  • McDMcD
    edited April 2019

    @espiegel123 said:
    @mcd: samplers/ROMplers arrived pre-wavetable (or rather pre-what we call wavetables). There were sample-based drum machines

    Sampler/ROM-pler before 1980?

    Then, in 1980, Wolfgang Palm (PPG) introduced a new concept, dubbed "wavetable synthesis".

    I thought it was all Oscillator based before that. Hmm. What's it called. I've been wrong so many times this week I'm ready to just make more music.

    The LinnDrum is a drum machine manufactured by Linn Electronics between 1982 and 1985.

    Implementation details. Both engineers need mass produced IC's to make products at consumer prices. So, it's like Tomato, Potato... (one is actually not a vegetable... the Linndrum for me. Put me out of work. It's a spud.)

  • @McD said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    @mcd: samplers/ROMplers arrived pre-wavetable (or rather pre-what we call wavetables). There were sample-based drum machines

    Sampler/ROM-pler before 1980?

    Then, in 1980, Wolfgang Palm (PPG) introduced a new concept, dubbed "wavetable synthesis".

    I thought it was all Oscillator based before that. Hmm. What's it called. I've been wrong so many times this week I'm ready to just make more music.

    The LinnDrum is a drum machine manufactured by Linn Electronics between 1982 and 1985.

    Implementation details. Both engineers need mass produced IC's to make products at consumer prices. So, it's like Tomato, Potato... (one is actually not a vegetable... the Linndrum for me. Put me out of work. It's a spud.)

    The Fairlight was released as a product in 1980 and had precursors.

    Anyway, my initial point was not about historical precedence but that sample playback and wavetables are different technologies and approaches to sound generation.

  • @espiegel123 said:

    @McD said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    @mcd: samplers/ROMplers arrived pre-wavetable (or rather pre-what we call wavetables). There were sample-based drum machines

    Sampler/ROM-pler before 1980?

    Then, in 1980, Wolfgang Palm (PPG) introduced a new concept, dubbed "wavetable synthesis".

    I thought it was all Oscillator based before that. Hmm. What's it called. I've been wrong so many times this week I'm ready to just make more music.

    The LinnDrum is a drum machine manufactured by Linn Electronics between 1982 and 1985.

    Implementation details. Both engineers need mass produced IC's to make products at consumer prices. So, it's like Tomato, Potato... (one is actually not a vegetable... the Linndrum for me. Put me out of work. It's a spud.)

    The Fairlight was released as a product in 1980 and had precursors.

    Anyway, my initial point was not about historical precedence but that sample playback and wavetables are different technologies and approaches to sound generation.

    We're getting closer to agreeing on terms. I'd would say, different implementations using the same technology (Integrated Circuits) to produce musical audio. I'm generalizing to the point that you might say I'm just splitting hairs. Maybe there's some analog technology in the Fairlight to create the distinction but ROMpler, Sampler, Drum Machine, Wavetable Synth are digital implementations to me. I hope you enjoyed hitting the ball back and forth. I like
    thinking through the (I hesitate to use the term, it's so negatively loaded) "argument".

  • edited April 2019

    Feature request to retain file names when importing samples? And an undo? A much-appreciated app!

  • edited April 2019

    @McD if you want to learn about wavetable synthesis, you can read about it. It is significantly different than audio sampling and trying to equate the two as similar distorts the realities of each. Wavetable synthesis produces only harmonic content due to the fundamental nature of wavetable synthesis. This is not the case for sampling nor for romplers. PPG’s Infinite app is a hybrid synth as it adds non-harmonic synthesis methods. None of the other PPG apps do this and use only wavetable synthesis.

  • @InfoCheck said:
    @McD if you want to learn about wavetable synthesis, you can read about it. It is significantly different than audio sampling and trying to equate the two as similar distorts the realities of each. Wavetable synthesis produces only harmonic content due to the fundamental nature of wavetable synthesis. This is not the case for sampling nor for romplers. PPG’s Infinite app is a hybrid synth as it adds non-harmonic synthesis methods. None of the other PPG apps do this and use only wavetable synthesis.

    Cool. If you had to can you think of any pure digital implementations before
    wavetable (PPG) or sample-based (Fairlight?) implementations?

    I got a lot historical context from the Roland History video and was excite when I saw the JX-3P which I selected over the Korg Poly 6 (in he same price category) while wishing my credit limit could reach the DX-7.

  • How are the drum pads on this thing? Would it work well as a battery style drum sampler?

  • @McD said:

    @InfoCheck said:
    @McD if you want to learn about wavetable synthesis, you can read about it. It is significantly different than audio sampling and trying to equate the two as similar distorts the realities of each. Wavetable synthesis produces only harmonic content due to the fundamental nature of wavetable synthesis. This is not the case for sampling nor for romplers. PPG’s Infinite app is a hybrid synth as it adds non-harmonic synthesis methods. None of the other PPG apps do this and use only wavetable synthesis.

    Cool. If you had to can you think of any pure digital implementations before
    wavetable (PPG) or sample-based (Fairlight?) implementations?

    I got a lot historical context from the Roland History video and was excite when I saw the JX-3P which I selected over the Korg Poly 6 (in he same price category) while wishing my credit limit could reach the DX-7.

    The first digital synthesis was done on computers at universities, this article talks about work done in the 1970s and the first digital synthesizers.

  • @dustgod said:
    How are the drum pads on this thing? Would it work well as a battery style drum sampler?

    That’s exactly how I’m using it. The Drum pads have MIDI out and vertical velocity in AUv3 mode.

    I would like to see them take the concept even further and offer audio panning and audio adjustments directly on pads as well as drag and drop samples direct to pad from files app.

    Probably more they could do with a dedicated auv3 drum sampler with pads.

    I hope they have a vision for this...cuz sure as hell no other developer does. ☺️

  • Can you use the pads and hook it up to Piano roll Atom to play in a sequence? That would suit my workflow really good ;)

  • edited April 2019

    @david_2017 said:
    Can you use the pads and hook it up to Piano roll Atom to play in a sequence? That would suit my workflow really good ;)

    It can be done but when routing Chameleon to Atom and Atom back to Chameleon there's some slight phasing since there is no 'local off' setting in Chameleon...

    And if one temporarily disables Atom -> Chameleon the recorded loop won't play before enabling the connection again...

    So it's not 'optimal' yet but in due time I think we'll get there :)

Sign In or Register to comment.