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
Some great updates mentioned here looking forward to trying this out.
Simply amazing to watch this app grow right in front of our eyes.. beautiful work everyone!
Once again, this forum proves to be one of a kind.
Thanks for a great app Cem and a great attitude.
+1
Biscuit into cake, bravo.
Wow, glad I bought this one... these new features look great
(At first I was ambivalent about the utilitarian interface, but look how fast you can iterate using standard widgets without a fancy GUI!)
Good to see a CC Screen (with on/off switches) and per step locks are coming in an update!
@cem_olcay This is still a bug: The photo below shows what the Rate Screen looks like when recalling a saved Preset in AB3. All the Rate steps appear to be set to 1/8, but before saving the AB preset, I programmed Steps 1 and 5 to be 1/16. It does play back like I programmed it. Happens in apeMatrix too. Haven't tested in AUM.
Same thing here in AUM.
PS Love StepBud
@cem_olcay Don't know if this is 'by design' or a bug but...
...when using the 'Master' in 'Shift Mode' to transpose the notes the note values get 'clipped' (ie. if a note get's transposed past the 'min or max' limits they get 'shaved' so when transposing back up or down they have lost their 'relation' to the other notes).
Easy to try, make a 'ramp' of notes, transpose up, and then up again until the all notes 'fill or empty the bar', now transpose back down and all the notes have the same value.
So In short the 'master slider' is for now a 'destructive' performance tool and should be used with caution...
One suggestion here is to make the 'master slider' work relative to the source material and also indicate how much the source has been altered for playback with a +/- value overlaid on the master slider when used in 'Shift Mode'.
So in 'Shift Mode' the master-slider could become a 'performance parameter' that could even be automated over midi
This is nit-picking I know...
I noticed this too when reverting back to one of my saved AUM sessions
If I save it as a 'preset' (AUv3) the Rate values are not saved either...
'Reapet Count' is saved though so this is definitely a bug...
Saving works properly for all parameters in the stand-alone app so this is an 'AUv3 Bug'.
Thanks for the heads up, I'll look into it.
BTW -- about the master fader shift clippnig, if fader hits the upper or lower bounds, they won't move.
You can increase the min-max octave range if you want wider transpose though.
I know but it's 'loosing the relation' between the transposed steps that worries me.
Meaning If I'm not careful when using the master-slider to shift the notes I risk loosing my 'sequence'.
If you're familiar with 'Fugue Machine' its transpose-slider only affects playback and doesn't alter the source notes.
In short StepBud could be best of both worlds, tools for 'editing'(shit and set) and 'performance shift' with non-destructive playback only change to the values if it makes sense?
I bet some of you guys will like those new factory presets coming with new version v1.1.1
Looking forward
Nice!
What about on option for the + to 'copy' the settings from the previous step?
The reason I'm putting the question out is that if I wanted to crate a sequence that doesn't send notes only CC's I'd have to double-tap on the step number and remove the note from every single step. Now If the + would duplicate the previous step I'd only have to clear one step and then duplicate it as many times as needed...
I'll most likely end up creating a user preset that is 1 step long with everything zeroed
Really good idea.
I'm really happy that @cem_olcay reconsidered his original decision of separating out CC operations to a different app. When it comes to per-step CC automation I think it's hard to separate one's mind from associated note data but that doesn't mean that it's not useful for other things too. At the moment I use Patterning 2 to sequence per step CC data but that's limited to IAA. I'd love to be able to do this with StepBud instead. But UI/UX really matters on these little modular apps, so it's great that @cem_olcay has been working many of these UI/UX considerations into StepBud based on community feedback. Everybody wins.
Where I see a separate CC data App being useful, would be for the continuous CC data that would traditionally be sequenced via curves in a piano roll. A separate App that allowed for bespoke multi-bar length CC curves but separate from a piano roll, now that would be very useful.
@cem_olcay You are simply fantastic!
Many thanks for your dedication
@Samu you Said that you prefer the/a step sequencer like stepbud over a piano roll to compose. I am really curious what your workflow looks like. Do you have a video or something similar to show? Most of the time I find nice sounding stuff with a step sequencer more by accident and find it easier to go an intentional way by the piano roll but I would love to know how (and why) you like it more and what’s your routine in it. thanks mate!
I like both piano rolls and step sequencers, step sequencers mainly for parameter control.
Now that we have both Atom and StepBud both categories are available.
In GarageBand the BeatMachine is classic case of when a step sequencer and piano-roll work in harmony. Use the step sequencer to generate strings of notes and the piano-roll to re-arrange them.
Ah ok, thanks man. I was thinking you are using stepsequencing for melody composing.
That could be the case too if the step sequencer is running really slow like 1bar per step.
This way it can be used to set the root-note for the entire bar so the other apps can 'slave' to it.
Let's say you use another step-sequencer to do a 1bar bass-line that base-line could then be transposed based based on the output from the other step-sequencer. The same master step sequencer could also be used to trigger a chord-generator that in turn feeds an arpeggiator etc. etc.
So when key-changed need to be done, just one sequence needs be modified
The above is how old-school trackers worked, create a few sequences and use a master sequencer to control their playback with options to transpose, change sound etc. (SidTracker64 implements this the 'old-school' way).
If I'm not mistaken Tangerine Dream and other 'Berlin School' artists use step-sequencers & arpeggiators to the max for loooong arrangements
Luckily, you can set your step's length up to 2 bars in StepBud.
Set your rate 1/1 for whole (one bar) notes, and 2/1 for two bar notes
Great update Cem. Thank you. Looking forward to the Presets update and Rate display bug update.
Quick Tip: With the new Lock Notes feature, with a tempo-synced LFO in apeMatrix modulating the Master Slider, you can lock the steps you don't want modified by the LFO. This is good for transposing the Notes, but don't forget to disable the LFO when editing other lanes, otherwise the LFO will change whichever lane is in focus.
I've noticed that hehe...
Also noticed that when gate is set to 100% it's effectively a 'tie' which is nice but need to be careful
(Some synths can easily get stuck notes but that's not the sequencers fault).
Now just about the only feature missing is being able to transpose and optionally re-start the sequence using external midi notes (ie. optionally re-start the sequence from step 1 on note on).
StepPoly Arp Unit has a nice feature where one can hold a note or notes down and as long as they are held down the sequence plays.
Another neat performance feature here would be that a note-on just advances to the next step.
This could be used to rhythmically play they sequence. (This was used in the old days, take the 'trig out' from the drum-machine and feed it to the clock of the synth, each 'pulse' advanced one step).
Most step-sequencer do the transpose relative to C3(Or was it C4) so if the the input midi-note is C2 transpose = -12 and if it's C4 transpose = +12.
This is where the 'performance shift' vs 'edit shift' comes to play. Ie. 'performance shift' affects playback and doesn't move the events.
Due to the clean design of StepBud the idea of using a StepBud to control other StepBuds feels like a good idea.
But no need to rush...
Here's a video with Paolo / Synthmania doing cheesy 80s step-sequencing.
I love Step Bud. I have run into a couple of bugs when running it in Auria Pro (beta).
@cem_olcay : running into some glitchy behavior in Auria Pro (current beta version). I don't know if this is a Step Bud issue or Auria Pro issue. Some synths play back very glitchily when Step Bud is controlling them. I tried Phasemaker and Poision and Sunrizer. Also the user interface sometimes shifts in the wrong direction when the AU edit window is re-sized -- some of the time.
Is there a way to save a preset in Step Bud so that it is available when Step Bud is loaded in any host? Some AUs seem to have global user presets and some have presets that are only available in the host in which they were saved.
+1 to Samu's suggestion that if you shift steps out of range that when you shift them back down that the original relation between them is not lost.
I don't know if this has been suggested, it would be useful if there were an extra lock/unlock icon at the end of the lock row that would lock/unlock all the steps on the current tab.
@cem_olcay There seems to be a small bug with the custom CC’s when using the AUv3.
StepBud seems to send the CC# as the value instead of the value defined by the step for the CC#. (So if I for example define CC25 StepBud sends out CC25 with the value 25...).
Surely this must be a bug since modulation and portamento seem to send ok.
Out of curiosity, what synth responds to portamento on CC85!?
@cem_olcay I’m trying to troubleshoot an issue I’m having with StepBud...
When I sequence SquareSynth 2 AUv3 with StepBud SquareSynth 2 crashes when stopping the transport.
This happens regardless of the host being used!
The ‘other’ sequencers do not crash Square Synth 2 so StepBud seems to do something that the others don’t?
Does StepBud send all midi events on the same tick?
I’ll play around a bit more...
As a matter of fact, yes, I'm sending 127 MIDI note off messages on the transport stop event, like MIDI panic.
Do you think that causing the problem?
Oh man, I hope in the near future, Apple going to release some development standards for both synth, plugin, and host developers... It's so overwhelming without standards as an engineer's point of view 😅
BTW, new version v1.1.1 is released and ready to update from the App Store. You have unlimited MIDI CC sending, parameter locking for each step and 4/8/16/32/64 step blank factory presets and other bug fixes with this version!
Could be, since it's 'midi-overload'. I recall there were quite a few issues with IAA and AUv3 instruments during BM3 beta and excessive note-offs being set that made many AUv3's malfunction...
Maybe smart to send note off to only those notes that were triggered instead of all 127?
It's the v1.1.1 update is 'malfunctioning' when sending midi CC. It sends the CC# and not the value from the step.
So if I for example choose CC25 I get a nice sequence but every step transmits value CC#25 with Value 25 instead of the value defined by the step. (I tried both stand alone and AUv3).
How do you do that????
I haven't been able to figure that out... i see you can adjust repeats and rates but not step length
There is a specific "All Notes Off" message just for that purpose, and another "All Sound Off" for also killing effect and envelope tails. If all sequencer and synth developers used them, the world would rock