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
Even if a person gets to the secret scroll wisdom (kung fu panda ref) of knowing what a quality amp should sound, it's still a tricky place all the same.
Too many variables. Humbucker, single coil and various combinations of those .. Solid body, semi acoustic or even an old archtop with humbucker on it. Ceramic, alnico, alnico 5...the strings, the room, the speakers/cans, the player... and most of all the subjective ears.
I don't know what a quality amp should sound like but I love my £80 Vox VT20+. It makes the hair on my neck stand up and inspires me to be creative.
All this to say.... like many discussions on this forum: if you not happy with what you have, keep exploring and buy this app to see what it does to you. If you are, pass. If you are an appoholic you probably already have it.
This is not to say that opinions like Flo's aren't valid or needed but nobody will see the world through Flo's eyes and ears no matter how hard they try.
You’re right!I,ve been clear about that.this is only MY point of view.
Do what you think is good for you(and for your ears😉).
REAMP is useful for adding grit to iOS instruments that are a little too clinical sounding. I have better options on the desktop (such as those in Soundtoys) but I find it to be a very useful option on iOS. I prefer Fabfilter Saturn as iOS options go, but that's only available in Auria.
Ref Softube Vintage Amp Room I mainly use it close mic'd to the Brown amp when working with Rhodes/Wurlitzer source material. Adding Soundtoys Radiator, DeviLock or Decapitator can add to the flavour. And I find the results anything but cheap. I've got a Roxy Music remix coming out next weekend where I used variations of that particular combo extensively so you'll be able to judge for yourself.
I believe that Klevgrand fills a perfect gap on iOS. They create instruments/FX with a definitive 'point of view' and a simple set of well-designed controls to interact with. As it happens I view Airwindows desktop plugins in much the same way. Chris is the polar opposite to Klevgrand with regard to the importance of visual design but his products are well engineered and have a specific point of view.
I'd agree with you ref Arturia up to SEM V, since then things have improved a lot and the Buchla Music Easel is quite simply a brilliant achievement. It even received kind words from U-he's Urs Heckman and he knows a thing or two about analog emulation.
I don't get hung up on new vs old emulation techniques. Everything is simply a sound generator/manipulator that you either click with or don't. I like both the native (Softube) amp stuff in Ableton and Vintage Amp Room but I tend to reach for VAR because it provides far more control with regards to mic position. But I'm a soul/funk boy at heart so I don't tend to use heavy overdrive all that often apart from with a screaming 303!
As it happens, all the glowing reports of STARK made me have another go with it today so I downloaded a demo of their Tines EP (very much an FM thing under the hood I suspect) and found I was able to tune in something I liked a lot. The trick for my taste was to use either the Vintage Guitar or General Tube Amp, dial back the Mid and Bass by about 12 dB, add 15% Boost, 2-3 dB of Presence and then find a balance for the Gain and Output to taste (in my case about 2dB of gain and close to maxed out Output). I also used STARK's built-in Cabinet and Ambience (CAB Tight Large and medium Warm Abience). I wouldn't have taken this approach if I hadn't run STARK through PluginDoctor yesterday as that made things clear as to the amount of hype in the bass and mid range.
I'm glad I reassessed things today, as I'm now light of $18 but have a great lightweight iOS EP combo via Tines and STARK. This is actually what I was looking for when I downloaded the STARK demo yesterday. Is it as realistic as Keyscape and my desktop FX chain, of course not, but that desktop combo is a multi GB sample-set, and the FX chain expensive. But I do think that the Tines/Stark combo stands up loud and proud when judged on its own terms and it's something I'd be happy to use in any production, not just when limited to an iOS device.
Lots of good points here, but for anyone who’s been around the block, we know what it means when a knowledgeable guitarist says this sounds like an old modeling unit.
That’s how they should have marketed it! (This stupid idea just came to me… But not much different from the concept of RatShack)
I thought that Zero Delay Feedback is only a technique used for circuit modeling analog filters. How is this relevant to amp simulation? And phasers, flangers and chorus are modulated delay effects, I'm unaware of any modulation plugins that use ZDF.
However, I do agree that some of the more recent modulation emulations such as Native instruments Choral and Phasis are far better than earlier plugins modeling these modulation effects. But, newer doesn't always equal better when it comes to digital instruments and effects. Do we all stop using FM because John Chowning devised the algorithm in 1967?
I get a reasoned argument of something being better than another but not based on the date the algorithm was designed.
EDIT:
One for the geeks. https://urs.silvrback.com/zero-delay-feedback
I wouldn't be without my Realistic Electronic Reverb. Purchased for tuppence ha'penny in 1983 from a dodgy high street electronics store (Tandy) here in the UK (which I believe was called Realistic or RadioShack in the US).
Strap that thing after a 303 for guaranteed aural heaven.
Respect
In one.
The Kantana doesn’t model an amp as such, it leaves you to set the tone you want. I use the combo live now as the valve(tube) combos etc are far to heavy to cart about, the Kantana holds its own in a live setup and sounds pretty good for an SS. I use it with the sonic port in IOS, a few leads here and there but worth the slight effort. One of the great things with it is, there is no jump in volume between your own made presets, other amps of this nature suffered from this annoying problem, not on this though. Flying Haggis was by far my favourite on IOS, but, I think GarageBand does guitar pretty well too.
I always wonder why Roland/ Boss never got into IOS. Perhaps they did in some form but?
@Wrecked : not sure what you mean. My understanding is that the Katana series amps are amp/effects modelers. One can even sneakily unlock some hidden models not available by their software or the front panel.
No idea on the sneaky amp stuff but there are no specific amp models on the amp, they refer them as brown sound,, crunch, clean etc, the stomp box effects are I believe modled on their staple boxes.
I think Blackstar use the same scenario as in clean, crunch etc. Whatever Roland/ Boss done with the Kantana they did it well.
IMO you can get a ton more great guitar tone from a £35 pedal than anything available on iOS:
The reason they don’t mention specific models is a fewfold:
The original Line 6 Pods modeled specific amps but never mentioned them because they didn’t have permission. ToneStack also doesn’t mention the models they are simulating.
The Katanas are most certainly modeling amp sims...very good ones
Funny that as I have the very same pedal and yep it’s very good indeed. American sound Joyo.
Somebody with better DSP chops can correct me, but the Zero Delay Feedback approach to analog filter modeling is completely different to the feedback mechanism used in all modulation effects.
It's all based on the work of Native Instruments engineer Vadim Zavalishin. He maintains a community paper/ebook (that's constantly updated) called 'The Art of VA Filter Design'. All of the ZDF based filters that have been introduced to virtual analogs in recent years is based on his research work.
You can keep tabs on the latest release of his research work here.
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=350246
Developers that design VA's in the community have of course added their own tweaks, but he's the genius to thank.
They are, however Boss go out their way to say there not. All I know is, they did a fine job with their wizardry. I think the thing is that you can dial in pretty much anything just by using the clean channel and add dirt etc, I can’t seem to pin down any amp sim specific amp, I just use the clean then throw in the dirt, it’s a very straightforward process unlike others I could mention. The acoustic sim/ channel does a good job of it too.
I think that ZDF as a catch-all terminology is being misused by many developers as a marketing tool. Even casual hobbyists have heard of the term and to them ZDF = good, not ZDF = bad. It's not that simple.
If you speak to Urs Heckmann or Vadim Zavalishin for that matter, they hate the term. Its a term used on 2 pages of 'The Art of VA Filter Design'. But the marketers got hold of it and now it's used as a badge of quality. Ultimately, in the end, it's become meaningless.
@Max23 I've just checked the Beepstreet website and there's no mention of Zero Delay Feedback anywhere, not even when discussing the different filter models but they are discussed as being circuit modeled. It's much the same with the FX, yet again it's circuit modeled, for all the FX and the phaser is described as a 'zero-delay phaser', ZDF or Zero Delay Feedback isn't mentioned. I seriously think that somewhere along the way wires have got crossed as I've seen the Phaser in Zeeon described as ZDF more than once on this forum.
http://www.beepstreet.com/ios/zeeon
Google for ZDF or Zero Delay Feedback and find me references to FX based on ZDF rather than VA filters.
I own and use Zeeon and I like it a lot, but it's not the best virtual analog I own, that would be U-he Repro 1/5 (based on the Sequential Pro One and Prophet 5 respectively).
These days 'circuit modeled' is another marketing catch-all. But the trick isn't just to use SPICE to create the circuit models, it's to turn those models into efficient DSP code to run on your destination devices. There are loads of 'circuit modeled' synths available as desktop plugins but very few of them pass muster as great sounding instruments.
Into a Deluxe Reverb? Well, sure!
Now I know where the money went from those Sennheizer HD-650's - towards a little chunk of that there Fender.
This thread is making me question my consideration of myself as a ‘guitar dude’.
You are not alone😂😂.