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
Strange, on my Mini 2 it uses very little CPU.
As far as using Cality, just stick it after anything that generates MIDI, like your DAWs piano roll, or one of the new MIDI AU sequencers like StepBud, Atom, or Fugue Machine. Autony can 'manipulate' itself, so something that generates a more 'static' MIDI pattern may be good to start with.
With Cality's default settings, it will pass the incoming MIDI unchanged. The Cloud section doesn't kick in until the Notes knob is great than 0.
In the Cloud section, start with something tame:
Turn the Notes knob to 1 or 2 , keep the Resolution knob at a higher division like 1/16 or 1/8, Length below 100%, Blur Off, and adjust the Attack and Release knobs so that the Cloud effect is tamed a bit (~200ms or higher for both, but not too long or the Cloud effect won't kick in).
That should be a decent starting point for spicing up static MIDI patterns. It's pretty cool on drum patterns too.
slow bpms work well too
From my experiments Cality is best (traditionally) at:
at Low trigger rates with high (6-12) notes and resolution (1/16 to 1/4notes) and note length between 50-150%
Seems to be the sweet spot for non expiremental rhythms and sounds.
Wow, Cality is the smallest app on my iPad at 586kb! 🤓
Loving it and Midi Echo for spicing up vanilla Midi.
It’s great for cheating on chord comping. Just point a bass line, or even drums at it. Dial in the scale type and root, and 2 - 4 notes in the cloud section with little or no blur and 1/8 or higher resolution, and output to a suitable rhythm patch. Maybe adjust the probability a bit, and away you go.
Or, to really have minimum creative influence of your own, point your drums at it and modulate the chord parameter with something like Rozeta LFO with a slow S&H LFO shape. Set the LFO to 21 - 127. This makes sure that the Chord will always be at least the I.
Sold.
Respect for your preferences and fully agree with you in that there is always someone who "is going to like it better another way" but, buttons or not buttons, it is still difficult to control those "controls".
I'm talking about Autony here: On iPhone (7+) is almost impossible: touch, release and the dial will end up anywhere, usually at max or min level. On iPad is a bit better, usually problems when releasing: say you want an 8 steps sequence, upon releasing it is 9 or 7 or 10... do you want a probability of 98%? Forget it, anything around has to be ok. Do you want a Dorian scale? Try the next on the alphabetical order.
Speaking of which and excuse me I insist but, scales on a knob? And on scales degrees? There must be a UX "law" out there against it (I'm trying to imagine now a synth with a pitch knob instead of a keyboard, play Greensleves, good luck with that). Unless of course you have a MIDI controller to do the job (which I don't, the iPad is the controller).
Anyway, if you like knobs so much, at least I'd like to ask you, please, to fix them, so they respond more accurately.
I'm not a sequencer person, but the ideas Autony comes with at 90-95% are, in my opinion, great, really inspiring. Real time tweak and you get a really "alive" sequenced music.
Anyone got more videos showing how it changes things?
I'm planning an update to Autony with the new Cality knobs (they are totally new code). I'll look into what I can do with scales/degrees. At least the new knobs seem to be working for people (this is why you do beta programmes ;-) )
However I'm mad busy at the moment - as well as the music software I'm trying to get a new day job company off the ground AND a ton of other longer term projects so you'll need to be patient (oh and I started writing a little effect AUv3 after reading a thread about the guitar pedal scene whistles innocently)
On february 25 you wrote (after other 'complaints' about the 'crazy' knob-behaviour in Autony):
"sorry if you don't like the design - it is deliberate
I was in hospital for most of January & I've not started work on the apps again. I totally rewrote the controls for the new app (Cality) - I don't think I've back ported them to Autony. However beta testers are still not quite happy with them (although I'm now struggling to tell the difference between it and other apps I use - I could see what you all mean about Autony ones)
Design wise the new app is similar to Autony so you aren't going to like that either.....
For my next app I'm going to take a very different approach to the layout so we'll see"
I was one of the Cality beta testers back then and indeed 'still not quite happy' with the knobs (mainly those that have more than - say - 50 values to dial). I (and others) made all kind of suggestions (for Autony and Cality) like edit boxes after double tap, rotation speed slower/faster depending on touch distance, listviews for scales, etc., but you decided to stay 'deliberate'.
It's the main reason I didn't buy Cality: you go on without care for what you 'published' before. I hope your guitar pedal effect AU has no knobs to dial...
the knobs are completely different code - & they do have some velocity scaling. I'm sorry they aren't working for you - like I say it's tricky - some people have written to say they find them fine. Others, like yourself, appear to hate them - I suspect that's the nature of the beast. things like double click to set values - which other apps do that? I've not got any I don't think and I guess I'd rather my controls worked like others rather than requiring special measures because the underlying control is broken. That said I don't find Cality that different to other iOS apps (and I strongly agree the ones in Autony are less good than they should be to be clear)
I will be exploring other UI paradigms in future. List views for scales are definitely a thing I'll be looking at
Anyway - like I say - sorry they don't work for you and others. I'm also sorry you don't feel I'm trying - I've actually spent considerable effort on this and totally rewritten the code base from Autony because of this
@pagefall
To be honest, there is most probably a bug with Autony, at least on my iphone7. When you turn a knob, after maybe 2 seconds there is some kind of reset and the value goes immediately at full scale (100%). This means that you have to find the value in less than 2 seconds...you can imagine that this is a bit frustrating
I was set to buy this, but must admit I’m getting put off by the direction this thread has headed...
XUI (the UI library used by Xequence and its derivatives) supports single-tap to enter value, and double-tap to reset to the default value.
that does sound like a bug - are you able to record a video of it doing it - and a bit more detail about the setup you have? (as noted I certainly do think there are issues with the Autony knobs - I've totally rewritten them - I'll see if I can do a small update to change the knobs in the near future - it's been delayed because I wanted to add a few more features but perhaps a simple knob change update might be quicker and wiser)
I have had no issues with the UI that prevent me from being delighted by the results that I get from Cality.
things like double click to set values - which other apps do that?
Too many to list. You're right there are apps that don't do this, but this is an annoyance. At best it makes it slow and annoying to dial a value in on sensitive knobs (as removing your finger for the screen changes the value) - at worst it makes it impossible. If people are frustrated when using your app, they're not going to like it (or buy future apps).
There are other things you can do to improve knobs. Some apps (Forget which - Moog maybe) set it up so that as your finger moves horizontally away from the control the sensitivity goes down. That works well. But at the very minimum, allow people to change the values by double clicking.
I do software/ux for a living and I get the defensiveness. Being told by the users that your design sucks is never fun (especially as sometimes they're wrong). But sometimes you're just wrong about something and it's best to accept it with good grace. I think this is one of those times.
@pagefall I like Autony and it’s wonderful to be able to talk about the app with the developer. I understand you’re busy and believe app development is not an easy way to make a living.
One of the best UX I’ve had was with sliders appearing on touch, moving on the screen while sliding the finger, never blocked by my it. I can’t recall the app’s name: skrum??
Blamsoft apps circular sliders get bigger on touch. Arturia had also some nice solutions. Xynthesizr has buttons in Roman numerals for scale degrees, so easy to make chords progressions on the fly like that. It has also panels or screens for the different modes
Touchscreens are a pain for their lack of feedback. That’s why I’m never going to play keyboard on a screen. You have wonderful ideas. Good luck with the challenge.
Fair enough. I'll make new controls for the next app - beta test them there and back port them
Graceful.
I haven't really followed this whole thread... but which app are some saying wasn't designed well? I don't have Autony but it's on my list. I did test Cality from nearly the beginning. The first versions of it were a bit janky to adjust the knobs, but mid-way through I thought they were good. Around the time of launch, I thought it all worked pretty much perfectly.
If it's Cality some are complaining about, what about it exactly? I found it's design to be clean, responsive, intuitive, and well-balanced.
Ah ok, good to hear thanks. Back on tonight’s list.
Yeah, if you like what you see in the videos, go for it. I love it and use it frequently. It's an easy way to get some natural sounding chord comping going with single notes. Can even get some boogie type stuff going with the swing setting. It's the closest I've heard to having a keyboard accompanist playing along on a track--complete with different chord voicings and velocity, etc. As noted, it can get some wild and wooly results as well if you're into that stuff.
Captain Monzo? Wild and wooly? The very idea....
‘Wild and Wooly’ is my middle name Boss.
Same & finally got it after a bit of umming & ahhing, primarily off the back of how much fun Autony has been for me. Took me a good few attempts & a fair bit of fiddling before I achieved anything listenable, mostly with the help of the settings suggestions in this thread - so thanks !
Have had a fair few instances of the DSP topping out, crackling audio, etc.
Running Autony >Cality>Digital D1+Synth One wasn’t happening - with instances of cpu overload, the DSP @ 100%+, clicks, distortion, audio breaking up, etc.
Swopped out Synth One for Phosphor 2 & it’s then working fine with DSP @ 50-60%.
Assuming that this is presumably just down to synth demands & preset requirements ? - Air2 128GB 12.0.1.
Cality itself doesn't load the CPU BUT it can generate an awful lot of notes at a time which can of course push CPU usage right up.
I would also suggest that it can push the amount of notes way outside anything that a developer might have considered 'normal' usage too - so for synths that are quite CPU heavy to start with you just need t try it and see. There are synths on my iPad Pro that I can push above and beyond using it (and interestingly one or two synths reject the very short notes you can generate too )
Cality is a really creative app. No regrets getting it. I recommend it highly!
@pagefall I do think this is a fair usability discussion however. E.g. I was really trying to dial in 20ms of attack today and I just couldn’t land it. It would have been much quicker to type the number in. Thanks for listening
As noted in another thread (I think - might even have been this one, I lose track) - I'm going to have a further revision of the UI - will be adding a box to type in numbers as well as something like the Thor popup UI for controls perhaps. (If this is a topic of interest - I'm planning on using my new effects app to do UI development and then back port the UI improvements to Cality and Autony - there will be a beta so feel free to give me a shout when the time comes)
I do note with amusement the discussion in another thread where no one agrees quite what the standard for any of this stuff should be - so whatever I do will be upsetting someone. However I do agree there are further improvements to be made