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 Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Daw concept on ios is obsolete

Maybe is good idea starts a new topic about one thought that I said a few times here.

The fact that the DAW concept on ios in obsolete. Specially after the long hype waited for NS2....and fading interest about it.

Brambros starts a new paradigm with Rozetta suite. The “modular framework” that AU midi provides to iOS changes radically a lot of users workflow.

Even changes others developers. There are a lot of examples of this.

The way that “all the forum” waits and asks and use Atom, for example, is another example towards this shift conception.

Imho, iPad/iPhone is heading to a powerful creation platform, where one idea develops very well with a huge available modular tools.

Inspiration, creation, experimentation....and with a touchscreen in a DAW, you lost a lot of this.

Anyone agrees?

«13456

Comments

  • Atom kind of disproves your hypothesis- Atom is the missing piece to turn AUM INTO a DAW.

  • Not really. At the end of the day you need something to put all the bits together with.

    I’m a big fan of AUM based jamming, but the results on their own don’t really cut the mustard.

    Use everything, that’s my motto.

  • I'm really hoping the future is modular DAWs.

    I'd love the option to replace my piano roll with Atom, my keyboard with KB-1 and my drum sequencer with XOX.

  • @BiancaNeve said:
    Atom kind of disproves your hypothesis- Atom is the missing piece to turn AUM INTO a DAW.

    Atom converts AUM in a sort of Modular DAW, yes, but still with the “make your own playground” idea

  • Without a DAW, I would have a lot of sometimes interesting, but mostly useless jams on my iPad. With a DAW, i make finished pieces of music that people, including myself, care about; that I dare to share and discuss.

    So, no, not really.

  • Whats wrong with daws? They can do everything aum can, natively , AND have timeline/clips to record the whole thing. Plus do it in maximum audio resolution.
    Touch is a matter of taste, u actually have much less strain when using a mouse.
    Its portable, yes, but also surface with bitwig.
    So, a matter of personal preference

  • @OnfraySin said:
    Maybe is good idea starts a new topic about one thought that I said a few times here.

    ???

    The fact that the DAW concept on ios in obsolete. Specially after the long hype waited for NS2....and fading interest about it.

    That is not a fact. NS2 is awesome. Just because it's not the shiny new thing, does not mean it's fading away. It's nearly perfect out of the gate and will soon be the best thing out there with audio tracks and automation etc..

    Brambros starts a new paradigm with Rozetta suite. The “modular framework” that AU midi provides to iOS changes radically a lot of users workflow.

    yeah, but Rozetta works within a DAW. Even AUM and Apematrix are DAWs by definition. Nontraditional, but they are digital audio workstations.

    The way that “all the forum” waits and asks and use Atom, for example, is another example towards this shift conception.
    Imho, iPad/iPhone is heading to a powerful creation platform, where one idea develops very well with a huge available modular tools.

    Inspiration, creation, experimentation....and with a touchscreen in a DAW, you lost a lot of this.

    Anyone agrees?

    I agree, I'm excited for the more modular approach of the components of a DAW. I feel like things are moving in a good direction.

    I'd love to see better ways to manage projects with lots of plugins. AUM is the strongest in this dept imho, but I still think things get a little crazy once you've got a lot going on.
    I imagine a UI where you can call up each channel with all its plugins in a sort of vertical rack view which you can scroll through, so that you can access everything quickly (won't likely be doable until ipads are more powerful, though).

  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • @blakkaz said:
    I'm really hoping the future is modular DAWs.

    I'd love the option to replace my piano roll with Atom, my keyboard with KB-1 and my drum sequencer with XOX.

    Yeah, exactly.

  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • edited April 2019

    Cubasis still has a big potential as a mobile DAW.

    What I realize about ios music production is, people do not mention their own genres. They just go after the workflow of the apps and create what that app lets them. When I mention specific genre here in the forum or somewhere else people look really strange :)

    There are Garageband-er-s who focus on the final product. ipad/iphone and garageband is becoming portable multitrack recorders which we saw in late 90s and early 2000s, in their hands. And yeah, Garageband is a DAW.

    There are beatmakers using the potential of a launchpad and sampler with an ipad or iphone. So BM3 or apps like iMPC, iMaschine etc are still DAWs with a bit different workflow.

    Who rule the ios music production seems like who use AB3 and AUM in the center of their workflow. It seems that workflow is becoming the standart workflow of the new generation. What you mean is ios is changing our workflows on music creations and you are totally right.

    However when you want to create a single, an EP, an album, you still need those “obsolete DAW” to finalize your work.

    Or what about people who use ios for portability? What if there are some people who still wanna use a “DAW” on their portable devices but dont wanna engage the new “modular” workflows?

    I am migrating to ios from Logic and Ableton. Still using my pc for music production but for example on summers I am on a summer house for theee months where I cannot take my PC and other gadgets with me. Or spending at least 10hours in a week by traveling between two cities in bus. So an ipad in my backpack lets me to continue by my own workflow. Cubasis instead of Logic and Ableton. AUv3 apps instead of VSTs. And touchscreen instead of mouse and keyboard :)

    so if DAW concept is obsolete on ios, I am no longer in the community and looking for another portable solution to make music on the go...

  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • DAWless is for noodling, DAW is for finishing stuff.

  • I'm probably a little cynical about it but...

    I won't be using iOS for any kind of DAW purposes and I feel like I wasted a lot of time doing so. I don't need that frustration, eye strain and disappointment in the final product.

    I actually plan to never connect an audio interface to an idevice again. Way better to just app jam in AUM then use that material in Ableton.

    Much more potential in whatever this modular instrument jam thing is.

  • edited April 2019

    Maybe the future is MDAW - modular digital audio workstation.

  • While I don't think we're in a post-DAW era per se, the dawless modular approach lends itself very nicely to jamming on a touch device.

    If you believe that you can do the exact same thing in traditional DAWs you're conveniently ignoring the big elephant in the room: workflow. No traditional DAW on iOS has the flexibility of routing everything into anything, whereas the nonlinear hosts (AUM, ApeMAtrix, etc.) were designed around this very concept. It's not about "technically being able to do something", it's about being "optimized to do something in a pleasant way".

    That's the big differentiator. Yes, you can eat spaghetti with chopsticks, or sushi with a fork. But in both cases you're not getting the optimal experience. User experience doesn't matter to 100% rational beings (Vulcans?) or robots, but it does matter to most humans :)

    Whether you enjoy the modular workflow is purely subjective. If you like it then the new approach may replace the traditional DAW for you. If you don't, then obviously it won't B)

  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • @OnfraySin said:

    The fact that the DAW concept on ios in obsolete. Specially after the long hype waited for NS2....and fading interest about it.

    Anyone agrees?

    Can you actually back this "fact" up with something, or is it just a troll to get a debate going? :)

    There's a lot of interest in NS2, which is why it attracts many drama queens here, and its official thread had to be closed. It basically does what it says it does, and many capable people are loving it. Check their forum for actual use cases and more relevant discussion.

    A DAW is still the center of most studios but, of course, it's more of a challenge to make a powerful one on mobile devices and iOS. Some are pretty good, and even good enough in a mobile context. I can't speak for anyone else, but I expect that if there was a DAW like the ones we use on desktop, with all the plug-in flexibility, but without too much patching stuff together, many would celebrate it. Playing with all the great iOS modular apps is great. It's an instrument for performance, but I think heavily modular approaches are generally for a niche market.

  • OP: I see your point of view echoed in my IOS Music Making. Just building
    configurations in AUM and recording there has been my workflow for about a year. It's like a sketch book for audio creativity. There's a lot of pleasure in creating the set up and the recording serves as a way to share the work via the
    AudioShare to SoundCloud process.

    Most of my App purchasing is focused on adding more tools to this approach
    and the next AUM update will only serve to make this approach even more productive.

    People are starting to post their AUM Projects on the Forum to share their constructions and the quick audio benefits of seeing how a sound-scape was constructed and how it sounds in use. I'm loving that new aspect of the forum.

    Thanks for creating this thread for comment.

  • Modular workflow isn't an IOS invention, it exists on desktop for decades.
    What you can do in AUM is the very same in Pro Tools or any VST Host - it just looks different.

    The 'dawless' buzzword is probably a reaction to overproduced DAW tracks of recent years.
    As usual the dose defines poison - a bit of salt makes your meal tasty, half a pound will kill you in the true sense of the word ;)

    It's cool if you can print down a live record as your final result of a track (which is well possible), but in most cases that may generate a lot of additional attention and suppress the creative (e)motion.
    Just capture whatever is going on and fine tune details on a timeline later. You can turn the recorded tracks upside down in post processing, but there's absolutely no need to do so.
    A lot of DAW users on desktop just can't stay away from their huge plugin collection - essentially tweaking tracks into white noise... ;)

  • Ipad can be a digital audio workstation, even without classic daw type of app!

  • Well, first of all I think there needs to be some clarification between DAW and ios DAW. Sure, you can do pretty much anything in AUM with a desktop DAW, but that's not really what we're talking about is it? Otherwise their wouldn't be such a bustling community here.

    Here's what I personally have noticed:

    Using apps like AUM, apeMatrix and even AB3 at this point has allowed me to do much more experimental set ups than I've ever tried on desktop.

    A huge part of that is the fact that I was able to afford a couple hundred synths, effects and midi sequencing apps, nevermind things that you can't really classify like Moebius lab or apeMatrix

    Speaking of which, I know it's possible to do the "LFO for every parameter" thing on desktop, but it had never occurred to me until apesoft made it so abundant and easy to do.

    Lastly, anyone who is saying that they can do everything that you can do in AUM with Cubasis or another DAW; I would love to see that, because frankly it sounds unbelievable based on my own experience.

    I'll admit I don't have an iPad Pro, but I don't see how that could change the huge gaps in Cubasis design, like syncing any external apps to it or getting audio files to line up correctly due to the ridiculously low resolution. I could go on, but suffice to say that I have continually tried to finish songs in Cubasis and inevitably it makes me wonder what the hell I'm doing spending all this time freezing tracks and using workarounds to get it to work with other apps. In short, it kills my inspiration.

    On the other hand, the combination of AUM, apeMatrix and Xequence (all wrapped up in AB3 of course), has been able to handle everything I have thought to try, and frequently leads me to take songs in directions I normally would not, which in turn keeps the ideas flowing without having them all have the same production style.

    This to me is the great thing about ios, and I think is maybe closer to what the OP was getting at. Most will probably still use a daw for the final project, but you really don't have to anymore.

    It's quite easy to use the many loop based audio and midi apps while writing and arranging parts, and then to dump the midi files into Xequence, and sync it to AUM where you have several options for audio like file player, apesoft sampler AU or even Enso if your song isn't crazy long.

    Note: I haven't used Auria Pro, but from my understanding it's mainly the fabfilters and relatively robust mixing options that make it the preferred DAW for final mixes.

    I like AEM, but it lacks the more robust midi capabilities.

    Nanostudio and Stagelight both seem like they have a lot of potential, if they allow more integration with outside apps in the future, there's a lot of potential there.

  • Being able to play a load of synths and rhythm apps all at once in AUM is akin to jamming on a guitar, for me.

    That immediate, ‘fun factor’ is something I don’t get with a desktop DAW, even with my Maschine controller plugged in.

    Capture the spontaneity of a jam in AUM, then add the audio to a track in your DAW for tidying up and a bit of polish.

  • Here's my take:

    Whilst I don't think iOS daws will disappear I do think the market for standalone iOS DAWs will shrink as AU technology and more modular software parts are released.

    I've believed this would happen since the announcement of the the AUv3. Standalone daw was the only option to begin with but isn't the optimum way to work on a touch device (imo)

    My workflow is iOS to desktop or combined with it. I feel this is the way it's least restricted and the way it's designed to be. I like having the iOS Daws I bought but use them less and less these days. NS2 is a good but I stopped using it waiting for the Midi-Fx bug fix.

    iOS DAWs take many man hours and then lose momentum in development so people wait for the next big thing...
    Whereas individual modular apps can be sustained by multiple developers more easily. Bugfixes and updates take less time overall.

    Building blocks of AUv3 apps in hosts like AUM and AB3, Apematrix is more sustainable economically (I believe).

    Also if your Daw suddenly breaks/disappears from the appstore and that's your main tool? I don't want to rely on a singular app.

    The pro market would rather pay for larger screened workstation apps etc, why would most music pros use iOS DAWS?
    if you work every day on it you need bigger canvases and more control. So only the amateur market is really funding these. But now we have audio units, modular units can be built into pretty complex environments (which will eventually rival and overtake the capability any singular developer could release in one app).

    Build your own unique Daw.
    There're always aspects of all the different standalone Daw apps which I don't like.

    That's what I love about using AB/Ape + AUM, Audulus 4 could be one to watch here too I think, which will bring AU hosting.

    Modular setups creates more interesting and unique environments for ideas, just as iOS should do.
    Copying the desktop daw on a touch screen produces an inferior equivalent experience to the desktop.
    Although unique touch based AU apps can and do recreate some better parts of this experience.

    Productivity is all about "flow" and with modular setups you can design your own optimum experience.
    The idea of what a software daw is, is shifting.

  • AUM is a digital audio workstation. What else could you call it?

  • @yonhorizon said:

    Touch is a matter of taste …

    I see.

  • AUM is my most used app, but it's not a DAW:
    for the simple fact that you can't edit what you just recorded ;)

  • @Thardus said:
    ... Lastly, anyone who is saying that they can do everything that you can do in AUM with Cubasis or another DAW; I would love to see that, because frankly it sounds unbelievable based on my own experience.

    The screenshot doesn't do it justice, but you can download and try it for free:
    http://www.hermannseib.com/english/vsthost.htm
    It suppurts multichannel io and VST plugins can be chained in parallel and serial way ;)

  • @Telefunky said:
    AUM is my most used app, but it's not a DAW:
    for the simple fact that you can't edit what you just recorded ;)

    Yes, and you cannot arrange tracks or patterns.
    And I am not missing that, as we have other Apps for this.

    I see AUM as the central App to create and record pieces of audio which then can be edited and arranged in other Apps.
    Something like Xequence for audio tracks and patterns would be great, BTW. But most other DAWs can fullfill this role.

    All of them glued together by AudioBus, of course.

  • @Telefunky said:

    @Thardus said:
    ... Lastly, anyone who is saying that they can do everything that you can do in AUM with Cubasis or another DAW; I would love to see that, because frankly it sounds unbelievable based on my own experience.

    The screenshot doesn't do it justice, but you can download and try it for free:
    http://www.hermannseib.com/english/vsthost.htm
    It suppurts multichannel io and VST plugins can be chained in parallel and serial way ;)

    On desktop, Max is probably the most unlimited option but certainly not as easy to get into. I would like to see something as simplified and streamlined as AUM/Audiobus/ape (and touch optimised) :)

This discussion has been closed.