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
I did some serious tests and didn't encounter that problem, but if you say so, I'll spend my Sunday on fixing that problem, let me know if you catch any other annoying bugs 👍
The step length is the rate
@cem_olcay thanks man!
I've been really enjoying your app btw haven't had any problems.
If I had any request it would be to have a start / stop button for each instance of sb next time it in AUM similar to how atom has that, would help in jamming and recording tracks to stop one sequence and start another! I don't see any way to arrange patterns within the app as that is not it's intention, but start stop would be of tremendous value of which I wild happily pay to have 💰
@cem_olcay StepBud continuously sends out waaaaay too many 'Note Offs'
The sequence
The Gate values
And this is what MidiSpy (From Kai Aras) snaps up directly after I start playback...
And I still do not understand where you got that CC84 is portamento
Ohh, there might be a race condition happening in the microseconds, very good catch, many thanks 🙏
Next update: it'll be fixed
Glad I could help
Suggestion to remove the default Portamento CC84 (where ever you got that one from hehe) It can always be added in the CC panel if needed.
Suggestion also to disable default transmission of CC#1 and PitchBend as it interferes with manually playing the sequenced instrument.
Note, Gate, Rate and Repeat is enough for starters, let the user add the rest in the CC menu.
And finally a suggestion to alter the behaviour of the sliders to avoid the finger covering the value.
Touch & Slide the value up down to relatively change the value when not in Draw Mode.
(Meaning I could tap in the middle of the slider and sliding up would increase the value and down decrease).
For example it's quite tricky to use the slider to set the repeat to 3 since I can't see the value under my finger.
On the positive side, I think I'm done with suggestions for the time being
(MidiTranpose of the playing sequence being the last on the list enabling the possibility to use a StepBud to Sequence another instance of StepBud).
@cem_olcay : I am having weird problems with StepBud that I am still trying to make reproducible that include some synths sounding very weird when triggered by StepBud in Auria Pro (using StepBud as AUv3) or AudioBus 3 (current beta) as IAA but not AUv3. Also when used as IAA, StepBud is triggering a note and a program change when pressing stop in AudioBus.
While trying to figure out what might be going on, I fed StepBud to a MIDI Monitor and am seeing lots of strangeness:
For example:
The problems in Auria Pro seem to be triggered by some combination of the mismatched note ons when gate is at 1 and the strange pitchbend message that gets sent even if all pitchbend steps are 0.
@espiegel123, as @Samu mentioned about a few posts before, I think I accidentally screwed up on MIDI sending logic after adding the MIDI CC support. Sorry for being so enthusiastic about adding more features to the app before enough beta testing but luckily, new app versions released in 24hrs after uploading to the App Store, which encourages me to make more updates daily instead of making them monthly as it was before.
In a very short amount of time, we are going to make this little app the most stable and most reliable AUv3 MIDI Sequencer app, I believe (which is not was my intention anyway but I'm very happy and grateful).
Happy 4/10/good friday/easter/weekend everybody, please let me know about the possible "Bud" apps that you think I can pull off with one-screen, embarrassingly-easy UI/UX for every possible screen of the iPhone and iPad devices..
Is this even a possibility?
I know nothing about developing 🤣🤣
Just pluggin' one of my favorite band's song. Let me know your feedbacks
RELEASE THE BOFFINS!
I’d like guitar bud - chords with guitar voicing and built in ( and custom) strumming / picking presets.
Strumming and Arpeggios could be a good addition to ScaleBud?
Or maybe we cold use ScaleBud to trigger a new ‘PlayerBud’
PlayerBud could be StepBuds relative
@cem_olcay I've been thinking about the way 'rate & repeat' work...
Every time I want to 'ratchet' a note (ie. step-divide and re-trigger) two 'sequences' have to be altered.
The super old 'Molten Drum Machine' and the 'Beat Sequencer' In GarageBand implement this nicely with a 'step-divide'(called 'Note Repeat' in GarageBand) function which is super handy.
For CC's theres no need to send them more than once per step and if the value hasn't changed since the last step there is no need to send it at all and this lessens midi-data that needs to be transmitted. (it would require a bit of logic to check the value that was previously sent).
Over all StepBud is progressing nicely
(Just let us know if the requests go too far 'out of scope').
Hooray for molten.
Haha dang was hoping to find this one out 😄
Ha never mind 🤣
I'm enjoying this
My suggestions would be to have different play modes, forward-back, random etc
Being able to midi learn the steps would be really nice too.
So, you might wanna try the arpeggio button at the end of the settings bar for the different play modes
ah, got it thanks
Is there a way of mixing single notes and chords in a sequence?
If I change to chord mode all the steps change even if the "lock" icon is engaged.
Yes, you can. If you double tap a step's LED, you can assign notes/chords or your custom mix individually for each step, in the step editor. Other than that, I guess the best way for creating a proper mixture is loading two (or more) StepBud AUv3 instances.
You can add as many notes per step as needed without using the chord mode which is good for drums etc.
Double tap on the small circle above the slider and enable the notes...
...downside is the added notes can not be transposed with the master slider.
For me, the separate rate and repeat settings work nicely. I can see that you might want to adjust one setting and keep the overall sequence in the same timing however. Just mentioning in case the ability to set them separately went away..
Agreed, thoroughly enjoying StepBud.
I see, thanks @cem_olcay @Samu
Is there away of turning off steps completely so there isn't a pause/rest, it's just skipped to the next live step?
this would be a good mode too. Modstep has this, it's really useful and can also act like a range selector to cycle between the live steps. It's great for finding sequences within sequences.
Could be an additional mode at the bottom, and then you can trigger steps on and off on the grid but also maybe via a midi keyboard
Yeah, that's a good idea, I can add another button for skipping, under the step locking buttons.
Also, I think adding two more toggles to the settings bar for "show/hide lock buttons" and "show/hide skip buttons" would be nice, since the buttons are going to consume the fader area.
It's not a problem on iPad, but in iPhone and AUv3 versions it's always a big challenge using the UI smartly and making it compatible universally
Looks like there is enough space for two icons under each slider even on the iPhone...
...so both 'lock' and a '->' icons should fit there?
(When a step is 'skipped' it could be made darker grey).
Another option is to long-tap on the step number to 'skip' the step?
When a step it 'skipped' the 'lock' Icon could change to a '->' icon?
Regarding CC, when Draw mode is enabled maybe the steps could be made 'narrower' to fit more steps on the screen and thus making 'finger painting' controller values easier?
This is just 'brainstorming' and not necessarily the best way to do it...
Great
love the app so far though.
Yeah iphone is more a problem but the controls scroll well.
The only other things I've found myself wanting is a left-right nudge so you can change the starting step. I guess if actual nudging is difficult to implement maybe that could be just an option at the bottom to select the starting step.
Also when using the edit mode you have to press "done" before the notes update in the sequence. Would be nice if you could keep auditioning different notes/chords before having to press "done"
I still just want a stop button 🤣🤣
I hope you’re able to keep the interface streamlined and simple @cem_olcay. IMO one of the most powerful features of Stepbud is the fast workflow which is facilitated by a clever, intuitive, uncluttered GUI. Some of the aforementioned use cases could be achieved by simply redrawing steps (for example to set the start note) or by adding or deleting steps (skipped steps could be achieved by just deleting a step and redrawing remaining steps). I don’t think any of these changes are bad (they would open up some nice performance options), but just wanted to let you know that some of us (at least one user
) value simplicity in design and the creative possibilities it affords. 