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
For synths and keyboards (as well as guitars, etc), the Speaker Cabinet and Room modeling options will make something passing through it sound more lifelike. It's a lot like ReAmp with an IR reverb to put that sound in a room of a selected size. It makes 2D instruments sound more 3 dimensional using good models for the reflections.
You can audition the Amps to add any extra saturation or tone pallet and either use the internal FX or just add more AUv3 FX.
It won't be $10 forever. It should go to $20 soon.
Good! Bias is already a great metal amp sim, so it’s neat to have something that’s stronger on clean guitar sounds.
Also, ToneStack is an AU host, right? Just sayin...
Cheers @lukesleepwalker
When Enso came out I thought: mmm, looks nice, only 6 quid, let’s have it. Used it twice.
This, not sure. The attraction is there but I prefer complete guitar solutions instead of aggregates. If it ticked all the boxes I’d cave in right away. As is I’ll probably cave in anyway...just not this minute
IMO the tones are really nothing special. I think you can get better guitar tone form BIAS or the newer Fender pack in Amplitube. YMMV of course, but I do find the highs a little brittle, even on the clean amps.
At this stage in the game I would rather see a higher-end amp sim for more money rather than more of the same old humdrum.
Well you brought me out of the underbrush...I had to go buy Stark now. I played around with it with my roomate and used only the bass presets so far and have yet to try to play guitar through it yet, which I will today and weigh in. It's gonna be tough though, because plugins on PC are getting pretty damned good now , like Th3, Tone Forge, Fortin, and of course Bias, but really, nothing beats my Kemper profiling amp to me as far as pure joy in tone, effects and play-ability. I think over the years I've grown accustomed to the latency of playing through computer and suddenly I really enjoy the feeling of almost zero latency again, going through a hardware amp, however I'll still always record with the amp sim in real time so that no distortion is every actually printed, because it just allows one to rescue the tone, years later, without ever sacrificing the playing or magical once in a life time moments. That said, from a pure tone stand point, I'll weigh in later today.
I agree, although I was able to dial the brittleness out with a few tweaks... which I usually have to do with any amp sim so no big deal. Honestly, the reason I'll use this is that it's an all-in-one-screen AU that makes it quick/easy to spice up something in a mix that needs it. I had an organ thing going today that felt a little flat so I put the "Wet and Broken" preset on it and boom. Exploded out of the speakers. (Had to take out the delay because it sounded spiky, but that was super easy given that it's all in one screen.) I'll use this, for sure. But if I was replacing my whole guitar rig/setup with this, I'd approach with a fair bit of circumspection.
I just tweaked from scratch. I think I used the vintage amp, with the stereo width a tiny bit wider than default. I pulled the boost down halfway. Kept the room wet knob to zero for the most part and would bring it in and out to hear the difference. Then I got weird and put vibrato in the first effect slot and reverb in the last. Eventually expirmented with a few thing in between that I can’t recall, but everything made me very happy!
I’ll probably try with guitar at some point, but I’m not as picky since I rarely record guitar on my iPad.
Curious to know your thoughts as well!
Opinions are a lot more balanced today, it seems.
I bought it last night before some of the more negative comments emerged, but I’ve not been disappointed. Not used it a whole lot yet, and I’m not really a guitarist, but I think it will be a useful - not to mention convenient - addition to my toolbox.
I’ve enjoyed using it with auGEN X, SquareSynth 2, and KQ Dixie. It’s nice to have all of these effects in one AU app so you can tweak the sounds until you find something that appeals to you. With AU, you can then save the setup and recall it later and not be limited to Audiobus apps with state saving.
Stark is especially good at taming the output from BitWiz into something more interesting and useful. I don’t have to switch out a bunch of different AUv3 apps in my setup as a lot of musical effects can be drawn upon with Stark.
I am using it om Geoshred and like what I hear
Ha. I was totally over enthusiastic when this came out. I don’t even play guitar lol. Nice to see a balance of feedback though. It might push Klevgrand to update the sound if found lacking.
I did think it was quite a play swooping in there with the AUv3 amp sim move though
I'm testing and making a list of Auv3 FX to augment Stark:
DC-9's for overdrive inputs
NYCompression which really does the opposite from compressing the sounds for me
Beta IR Reverb (in FlightTest stage) as an alternative to the Cabinet Simulator
Alien Box (Mu-tron Uni-Vibe like tones for that Jerry Garcia sound)
Bark Filter (shows the frequency scrum of the output and let's you change it or compress it)
Adverb 2 "guitar plate" is pure gold
@flo26 used iConvolver and the internal Overdrive and Distortion FX'es with the "clean" Amp settings to get quality sounds as demo'ed in another thread. He does not like the "drive" settings at all. I tend to never leave "drive" turned on as a rule. That's not where I tend to live for guitars. I just like clean tones as a rule. But I love sustain... infinite sustain like a bowed instrument.
Still, testing. Have you found anything that complements Stark well as a "Modular Rack Rig"?
It's probably time for me to insert GeoShred as as the sound source and see what results.
Then Thumjam, Roli's Noise and iSymphonic instruments. Maybe RC275 to make it darker?
@McD : are you using that IR Reverb beta as a reverb or using a cabinet IR with if so that it functions as speaker sim?
It's a Cabinet IR app that comes with a list of standard Cabinets. I was right on the fence today to add iConvolver for $7 and I decided to wait. I'll have to buy the IR App when it ships.
Someone could endorse iConvolver and I'd fall off the ledge. I really like have tools to choose from. I didn't find another app that seems to fit well with Stark today. I went through my IAA FX and the best was the "Crystalline" reverb. I should test some delays with the dotted 8th capabilities.
Fiddlicator is free and works fine for cabinet IR’s as far as I’m concerned. But it would be nice to have an AUv3 app.
@mcd: if you have cabinet IRs, the free Fiddlicator will work just as well as iConvolver or AltiSpace. So, no need to buy those if you are going to be buying your preferred AU solution.
It kinda sucks that there’s no built-in preset manager.
I’m definitely going to get mileage out of this though. I’m not going to complicate it by trying to turn it into the ultimate tone machine. It’s fine for me for those “shut up and play yer guitar” moments capturing ideas (or even ... practicing ...ha ha) without a bunch of distractions. I always record dry, so polishing the tone later is fine with me.
BTW, Stagelight is great for this quick stuff. I can get up and running with a beat to jam over and start looping riffs in no time.
+1 on on that, hope it will come in an update...
ok, ready for my 2 cents on Starks ability to compete with Bias? ok, here goes. Not even in the same league. It only sounds good for fuzz tones cleanish tones, barely distorted tones, but in no wy can it keep up with any of the good sounding metal patches on amp kit, Bias or Amplitube.
It has a weird stereo phasing thing going on at all times...like a kind of chorus I can't seem to get rid of, the distortion at high gain levels without a virtual pedal isn't enough gain and with the pedal it's too much and totally fake sounding. I hate to be the bringer of bad news....and I don't like being negative at all, but I'm also all about being honest. If was forced to replace my current options with this, I'd be totally bummed. Kind of like I was when I bought the last boss modeling floorboard, except I spent hours trying to get that to sound real because it was almost there and this I could tell in 15 min that it's no where close, and I used every combination of settings possible to no avail. There you have it...from a guy who has been searching for (and finding) good guitar tone for 37 years.....back to the drawing board Klev. Sorry Charlie, this ain't chicken of the sea.
Biggest gripe I have, by far!
Maybe I have simpler needs, but I really like Stark so far. I was initially disappointed with the presets but after a bit of tweaking managed to get a variety of tones from clean ambient to death metal that I’m satisfied with. It’s AU, has a small footprint (21mb) and doesn’t require being online to access tones like Tonebridge.. all for $10. Happy customer.
Nice. So are you using the iPad headphone out into the Apollo or can it be used as an actual iPad interface? I went with the Apogee Duet for iPad and Mac because it can be used as an iPad interface. I would have bought the Apollo if it can be used as an iOS interface. I have a MacBook Pro too so it would be nice to have some uad plugins.
For me There are better sounding iOS amp sims for sure, but none of them are audio units 🤷🏽♂️. For me stark is going to be about throwing down quick ideas when I don’t feel like using Audiobus or IAA, or like I sometimes do, using AmpliTube or Bais Amps/Fx on my iPhone, into my iPad via my Apogee Duet. If I end up with some good and keepable sounding track from Stark that would be cool too.
It definitely brings a lot more to Cubasis guitar sound wise than the internal amp in Cubasis.
This. I've found in general I get better results from plugins that make experimentation quick and easy.
@bedheadproducer : tx got sharing your thoughts. Not that this would make Stark more suitable for you (or anyone going for a real amp in the room sound), but I was curious if you checked out the impact of turning the cabinet emulation off and running the output through a cabinet IR just to see if that had the same dramatic impact on quality as it does in @flo26 's second demo. It seems like Stark's cabinet emulation might be its weakest point.
Has anyone heard whether there are any plans to make this app universal? I'd love to use it on my iPhone.
If Klevgrand is gonna make a universal app, it's always been universal upon release. I cannot recall a single instance of them updating their apps for universality, additional features; only bug fixes. I get the feeling they release finished products and immediately move on, since they release pretty regularly.
But that is not confirmation, just a trend.