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
@cem_olcay BTW I've just noticed a major bug on the iPhone XR. The AUv3 isn't showing up in either of AUM or apeMatrix. I didn't test AudioBus but I expect it's the same story.
Hadn't attempted to use StepBud on my iPhone till now so not sure if it's something new with a latest build or whether it's always been this way for a while. Maybe others can attempt to open StepBud on an iPhone to see if it's isolated to the XR.
I did attempt deleting and reinstalling the app, but still no luck.
Hey @jonmoore, after the AUM's big update, you can find the AUv3 MIDI apps like that:![]
(https://forum.audiob.us/uploads/editor/95/l0w6yx7islkm.gif "")
Also, thanks for your post earlier, I'm glad that StepBud working out for you. And keep posting your feature requests!
Definitely kudos to being so open to feedback and turning around so many quick updates. Looking forward to skip and probability features.
I know where it should be.
But only ScaleBud shows up.
apeMatrix has a handy search feature which searches all AUv3 addons whatever their internal classification and it still doesn't show up.
It's 100% a bug.
That's very strange. I don't have any idea though, just double checked with my iphone and ipad, working as expected. Here's a quick gif of apeMatrix:
What iPhone model are you testing with? I've found a few apps have been buggy with the XR.
I’m testing on iPhone Xs and 6s.
Have you tried powering down and powering back up. I had a strange thing like this happen not long ago. A soft reset made no difference but after a true power cycle, all was good. (This assumes it showed up correctly at some point in the past).
Definitely worth a try. I'll report back ref how I get on.
Just needs a pause play button and it's good to go!
It has a play/pause button on standalone app
In AUv3, I'm relying on the host's transport.
@cem_olcay StepBud has already become my go-to sequence generator but these extras are really hot stuff.
Am really loving how you approached setting swing on user defined steps and I realise you probably already have the code to go but would it be possible to also have negative swing i.e. the 0% is halfway up the sliders and dragging down into negative values pushes the timing of the note forward?
@espiegel123 @cem_olcay
Thanks, a hard reset followed by a delete, then reinstall did the trick.
I can only assume that the App Cache got scrambled in some manner.
As ever, 'switch it off, and back on again' to the rescue!
Negative swing is a bit tricky. Somehow I need to keep track of multiple playheads like fugue machine does, behind the scene. I thought that it's going to consume much more time, so I decided to go with the classical implementation. It's still so fun to use, trust me
Oh I do trust that you will deliver @cem_olcay and like I said StepBud has become the app that I always reach for first already. The ability to push notes ahead of the beat is commonly used to make e.g. a snare sound more aggressive or insistent by having it slightly ahead of the beat. But I understand if this is out of scope and fully appreciate the value that you are adding already.
@cem_olcay
I must admit, having watched the video a few times, the Swing feature seems to be more of a note delay feature that has the ability to be controlled by a master slider. This is fine with a sequence made up of eight stages but with sequences of 16 or more stages, it's going to get tiresome having to lock all the odd note stages before setting the required amount of swing to the even stages. For the purpose of a more refined UX I really think it needs some form of master switch capable of locking all odd or even notes.
As well as the general article on swing in Attack magazine, there's a separate interview with Roger Linn that's a really useful read. It dispels many of the myths that circulate around the music tech community and provides extra detail as to why his approach to swing works so well.
https://www.attackmagazine.com/features/interview/roger-linn-swing-groove-magic-mpc-timing/
Yeah, good point. I can add "Lock even steps" and "Lock odd steps" buttons to the settings bar, that might be handy.
That sounds great.
Or add a 4-bit 'lock mask' making it easy to lock/unlock steps in a beat so it would be easy to lock every 4th step or lock steps 1 and 4 for volume adjustment. Or to make it overkill a 'lock screen' with a grid covering all the steps of the sequence on one screen for easy tap to lock/un-lock of steps.
For longer sequences the sliders could turn in to 'pads' (think 'square pads with a value').
When sequences grow longer the need for tools to do selective adjustments also grow...
For 16 step sequences the manual labour is not that tedious but when it's >32 steps that also require scrolling it can become a chore...
If you do testing on the iPad don't forget to check compatibility with Cubasis, it's a bit 'wonky' at the moment when it comes to timing.(Not to mention the note-off overload on stop that causes a CPU spike).
Other than that I like the way the app is evolving
Yeah, done
I'm still waiting for yesterday's huge update release. After it released, I'll send this update right away.
@cem_olcay
On a separate note, I've realised that StepBud has transmuted into a badass iOS version of the Intellijel Metropolis sequencer (which in turn was inspired by the Roland RYK M-185 System-100 sequencer).
It's scary how similar the functionality has evolved to be. If you get a chance, go through the full playlist as you might find some inspiration from this $700 piece of hardware!
There's a free Max for Live version too (if you have Ableton). But even if not, I've linked to the PDF manual as you might find a feature that's apt for StepBud.
https://atovproject.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/atovproject-user-manual-v1-1-2.pdf
The only reason I suggest it in tha auv3 is so you can stop one sequence and start another or stop a sequence but still have other things running in the host
I agree that it would be pretty cool to have multiple StepBud's locked to the global clock but where each can be stopped and started whilst maintaining timing to the global clock. There's a world of performance opportunities awaiting if that were possible.
Absolutely, I think it's a huge missing piece on iOS land, I think only atom and file player use it in AUM... Crazy!
Charge me an iap and slap it on there haha
"That's a funky little bastard" Oh my god, I love it, excellent!
Isn't using the velocity slider in AUM works for you? Like making the velocity zero the synth you routed StepBud?
Actually, you can even use the velocity mode in StepBud for that reason?
BTW, I'll work on the root key changing feature next. You will be able to change the root key with MIDI input. Will expose it as an audio unit parameter as well. Maybe a StepBud drives another StepBud's root key haha
Question: A toggle in settings bar for enabling/disabling this feature makes sense?
Well, that is the point of using a StepSequencer to drive another StepSequencer so it makes perfect sense
I agree a start stop like Atom would be nice.
Don’t forget that it’s still possible to work this eg with AUM preset changing via midi. Just need to use a sequencer like SPA. Although the downside is they are always playing so you can have bar changes etc but not all the options of stop/start.
OMG -- this is epic!!
Also, you may change the key by feeding a MIDI note value to the "root key" audio unit parameter:
Visual proof of a StepBud instance changing the root key of another StepBud instance on each bar
You are killing it! So fun to watch this gem get set and polished right in front of us.
That root note parameter looks spot on. Won't be long before someone asks you for a randomizaion "dice button" for each mode (and perhaps globally). 😉