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.
Bismark bs 16i on the bus
Bismark bs 16i updated with Audiobus support. Sorry don't have link, just saw it in my app update.
Comments
This is awesome! I just tried it out with Cubasis, which I purchased today and it works great. Controlling midi to bs-16i and recording audio straight back into cubasis, then mixing individual tracks down and finalizing in Auria. This is a kickass combo!!
bs-16i is a very cool ROM player. Yesterday I dug out my old Soundfonts and made a couple of customized banks and I'm almost about to kick Sampletank to the curb!
Everything Sampletank can do, bs-16i can do better, given you have decent soundfonts.
Great stuff!
I agree totally. I just tested it with Cubasis. Flawless.
Great! Too late for me to play with it tonight though. I'll have to sneak away from work tomorrow ;-). Just learned about Soundfonts a few weeks ago, and I'm enjoying a few that I've found.
@AH-MediaDesigns is there a manual or tutorials for bs 16i anywhere on the web?
There's his Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/bismark.jp which includes a video of the new version with loopy. Not a manual as such.
Slightly disappointingly there is only a total output. Hopefully an update will give separate outputs like loopy or thumbjam.
Am I right in thinking that its not possible to paste your own samples directly into BS-16i without creating a sound font and using iTunes file sharing?
yes, it only takes SF2 files. You can get them in if zipped on the ipad, but your own samples would have to be converted first
This looks very cool, though I must admit I've never delved into Soundfonts before. Could someone explain what this app can do that Thumbjam doesn't? They can both use multiple samples across a scale, and TJ can sample natively. Am I right in saying that bs-16i can have 8 instruments playing simultaneously? (vs TJ's 2)
Yes and no. It is 16 part multi-timbral, so yes it can have 8 instruments playing simultaneously, but it can play another 8 on top of that.
The orchestral instrument sounds are lovely, there is a huge selection of quality workhorse sounds in the default soundfont library.
I love Thumbjam, but it's definitely worth having this as well.
Does anyone know a freeware wav->Sf converter for mac?
Here's a basic lowdown on Soundfonts. The format was developed by EMU systems (later to become Creative Labs) and was used natively on Soundblaster Live soundcards. With software made for these cards you could make your own Soundfonts and upload them straight to the cards' memory, kinda like you'd do on old school Hardware Samplers.
The format was popular until we had software samplers that could stream massive livraries directly from disk.
A Soundfont is actually like a container. It can hold several banks, which can each hold up to 127 patches. Each patch holds the wav files, key mapping, all your basic filter and envelope settings and controls for reverb and chorus send.
There's a lot of freeware software out there to build and edit complete Soundfonts from scratch.
Hope this helps
I'm going to hijack this thread for a moment and plug Gestrument, another fantastic app on the bus that can use soundfonts.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gestrument/id576235482?mt=8
For the experimentally adventurous amongst us, check out the YouTube videos of Gestrument. It's a lot more interesting than the description manages to convey.
@AH:
thanks for the info.Of course i did a LONG research before asking but unfortunately i'm really not able to find any free converter for mac(!) besides the very expensive chickensys Translator pro.
Awave can strip the wavs out of Soundfonts.
here's some info on free tools to make Soundfonts from scratch. Complete from editing the wavs to building custom SF2 banks. Links below
For editing Samples to be used in SF2s, use Wavosaur.
For editing Soundfonts, use Viena. It works on any soundcard, has auditioning and let's you load wavs, map them (velocity and range) and edit the filters and amp envelopes.
For editing Soundfont banks, use SoundFont Librarian. Easy drag and drop, load multiple banks and drag and drop presets from one bank to another.
Links:
Wavosaur
http://www.wavosaur.com/
Viena (not to be confused with creative Labs' Vienna, which only works with SB Live cards)
http://www.synthfont.com/Downloads.html
Soundfont Librarian
http://connect.creativelabs.com/developer/SoundFont/Forms/AllItems.aspx
I've used all the above software to make some new Soundfonts from VSTi's from scratch. Just fire up your DAW, midi record your VSTi's in single keys with the velocity you want and bounce everything to a single audio track, then cut apart the individual waveforms and save seperately, naming them appropriately (i.e: C1-G#1 Velocity 100.wav). It's all a bit tedious, but the results are very rewarding.
i really appreciate your help but i have to repeat myself:i need something for MAC OSX ;-)
If found this sides as well but it's all for windows.
and i don't want to edit existing soundfonts,i'm more looking into simple converting of existing Sampler libraries into SF although i would purchase bs16 in a second if i would be able to create own drumsets without absolving an informatics study.Maybe i just give up on it for now and wait what the future will bring to iOS in terms of Software Sampler.Thanks anyway!
I'd be surprised if those utilities would not run under a Windows emulator on a Mac.
maybe,but i don't have such an emulator.They all cost money,right?Probably wine is the only freeware.Maybe 'll give it a try when i have a lazy day.
There is also a free version of Translator, but I have no idea what it can do.
pretty useless,you can't save anything.
maybe http://sonicamigos.com/polyphontics/ is what you are looking for `?
Ok...this is 132 mb....but there is a lovely acoustic piano soundfont here... http://musescore.org/en/handbook/soundfont
I know @Crabman is looking for a free solution that works on OS X but in many years of searching and testing I've found nothing that works for me. I personally use Extreme Sample Converter via my Windows 8 partition using Parallels on my iMac - http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun10/articles/esc.htm - It's only €69 and best of all allows you to convert your favourite VSTi's and hardware patches to any format you want including Soundfonts. It's so much more powerful than a simple sample format converter.
The thing that makes the Bismark BS 16i so perfect for IOS workflows is it's negligible processor hit when being run as a multi-timbral instrument. When you couple that performance with your own favourite synth timbres be they from hardware or VSTi it makes for a very powerful combination.
A near perfect Audiobus synth.
@SpaceDog: holy shit,guess you sold me on BS16 now
How could this slippend through my google search...?
Aah,nice free day i'm coming...
edi:not for free again.Too bad.don't misunderstood me,i pay for good software but i just want to be able to convert some samples and map myself a couple of drumsets.60$ is just too much for what i wanna do with it.
edit 2:it seems theres an older version (1.6.6) for free...have to try this.
@AH_MediaDesigns
Thanks for the Soundfont library link. That was exactly what I needed to link these fonts. Cheers!
Some nice free soundfonts here. http://www.hammersound.net/
Some work if the expandd soundfont is an.sf2, others not so much.
I took the plunge and downloaded Bs-16i. Impressed so far but I'd love the LFO to be routable to filter and amplitude in addition to pitch. A delay, even as an alternative to the reverb, would be nice, but overall can't complain and should come in really useful with AB.
Quick question has anyone found a decent free soundfont full of synth samples rather than GM sounds?
You could route the output through Nlog/Magellan/Live FX/Jamup etc. in the effects slot to get delay and LFO filter/amplitude effects.
For synth soundfont files take a look at the links on the soundfonts.com page posted further up this thread.
@PaulB Thx. The attraction of BS-16i is its multi-timbral functionality and low CPU hit. As soon as you pass it through an AB effects chain all of the output gets effected. Now multi AB outs.... that would be nice, but I'd need mulit ins to!
I've already downloaded a few sound fonts from the links. There are however a lot to trawl through! I'm looking for one that would give some decent synth background sounds to reduce the number of audio tracks required for heavy weight synths in the foreground. Just wondered if someone might already have hit upon a bank that woul fit the bill...?
The sooner Cubasis or Auria get a sampler going the better......I can but dream