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.
iPad.... Simplest way to record casual piano improvs into savable, other-app friendly midi files?
When the mood hits, I like to "veg out" and jam on straight grand piano and come up with improvisations. Occasionally I'll have a moment of inspiration where I feel like I'm being possessed by a much better piano player, and I play things that I could never remember or recreate.
I would love to have a simple way to hit a record button when I start playing, and be able to save a hour worth of jamming onto a single midi file. I use iGrand Piano mainly, it has a record feature, but it can't save a midi file as far as I can tell. Same with the Korg Module Piano recording feature.
I was reading about the Photon AU midi recorder, but it seems like it might be way more complex than I need? And it may not have a metronome?
Ideally, I'd just want to open a Piano app, and open a 2nd app that would do nothing other than record the midi note data from my Korg microKEY Air keyboard. Then I want to be able to name and save the midi file. Being able to turn a metronome on and off would be nice too.
I have lots of iOS DAW's already that I want to learn... (Cubasis, NS2, BM3, Gadget2). But I tend to get frustrated with them because they seem really complex. I just want simple.
Another question I have... Do midi files use a lot of disk space? I'd like to some day have a folder full of my improvisations and open them up one at a time in a DAW (once I learn to use the DAW). Then copy and paste selections from my midi files to work with in the DAW.
All ideas much appreciated.
Thanks!
Comments
MIDI Recorder with E.Piano by Ryouta Kira
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/midi-recorder-with-e-piano/id1448577506?mt=8
Midi files are tiny.
Isn’t GarageBand’s piano MIDI? You could do it all in one GB track.
For this use case I would get pick a DAW that has an acceptable Piano and it
just rock solid. Auria Pro or the MIDI focus Xequence app driving a good standalone Piano app like Ravenscroft 275. Both have a bit of a learning curve
but are solid, IMHO.
Cubasis is more friendly but it has frustrated me so I'm not a huge fan.
For just recording piano as midi it should be stellar.
MIDI does not consume a lot of space compared to audio files.
There is an export button in iGrand to export your saved midi files
After recording press the treble clef. Then on the right just above the keyboard it says export.
keep in mind you probably want to play to a click track.
It seems to me like Photon, in a MIDI FX position in any host would do the job nicely. Sure, it’s a somewhat complex app, but what you want to do is dead simple with it. Just start it up with the default settings, and hit record. By default, it will wait until you play the first note, then just record away. When done, hit stop, then save to a midi file. That’s it. Long-press on a file will bring up options to open it in another host or to save into the files app or to AudioShare.
AUM has a built-in metronome available. AudioBus doesn’t but you can easily set one up using other apps.
This seems to export WAV only, M4A for email.
For piano jams, I wouldn't choose Cubasis because it has a very low PPQN (timing resolution). I'd go with Auria or Nanostudio.
Photon is quite simple to use and can export MIDI.
Xequence would also work... just remember to turn off input quantize which is on by default.
If it’s a long session, i woukd think Xequence woukd be your best bet. Photon is great but is designed for recording , duplicating and doing groove manipulations betweenvits 6 pads. Xequence is designed for more long form sessions and has much more robust editing options for cutting, copying and combining the best parts of a session (among other things). It can also make any midi CC’s into seperatevtracks as well.
I’m not a piano player, but this one is easy, simple and free.
I’ve also warmed up to Photon AU.
Xequence has one gotcha for long jams. It will stop recording after some fixed number of bars. I forget how many.
I think the workaround is to make a dummy instrument lane and then put a one bar pattern way the hell down the line to set the song length. Maybe @SevenSystems can clarify for us?
Thanks everyone for your all your suggestions! I'll start checking out your ideas to see if I can figure out something that will work for me.
Another question I have related to this.... Is it fair to say that (perhaps all) iOS DAW's are basically designed to create completed individual songs, and they are not really meant for databasing individual melodic ideas?
Why isn't there such a thing like a "music idea database" (or is there)?
When I use the DAW's I have, I keep instinctively looking for a "save button" on each individual track.
Last night I figured out how to save a midi track in NS2. I selected the track and found a button on the bottom that let me save the track as a midi file. But at first I kept long pressing on the track expecting a "save as menu" to pop up for the midi in that individual track.
It stops recording 64 bars after the last existing part in the arranger; so to be safe when you (@horsetrainer) would like to record a very long jam, just create a very long empty part anywhere in the arranger by using the Draw tool (bottom left) or by tapping the "+" menu in the bottom toolbar and then under "Insert", tap "Empty part" and make that very long (say, 1000 bars) by dragging the length handle at the bottom. (you could also just leave it one bar long and instead move it 1000 bars to the right).
If you want to edit your performance after the fact, Xequence also has comprehensive editing tools and very good timing, both on MIDI input and output.
@SevenSystems : I hope the auto-stop behavior will change. I've been bitten by it a few times.
Putting it on the shortlist to investigate!
Oh how I wish I’d ever come up with more than 8 bars of ideas so that would be a problem. 😂
Nanostudio has no ####ing sustain pedal support! Still waiting.
GarageBand won’t let you export your midi.
+1
I just don't see the need for either a max length or an auto-stop.
Pleaseeeeeee, remove @SevenSystems
(most of Xequence's limitations, even if not too many, stem from the non-trivial implementations chosen for optimization reasons).
Not the right topic to discuss this, but I'm interested - also to see if there would not be a solution that allows to remove this limitation.
Anyway
Yes of course there would
Looped parts could get separate queues where the queue index just wraps, same for MIDI clock ticks... etc... but it significantly complicates the design and thus takes development time away from more useful stuff and has potential for obscure bugs 
Oh well. Bedtime!
I was pondering this one the other night, and wondered if a setting, much like buffer settings in audio apps might make sense. A drop down control for “max record length”, with a sensible default, and a note below it explaining the ramifications of higher settings, as a compromise maybe? Just a thought...