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.
2 easy ways to add to the wiki and make it great!
Help us make the Audiobus Wiki, THE source of information for iOS music-makers. You don't need to learn anything about wikis to contribute to the wiki. We've set up a couple of forms so that you can contribute to the wiki with a quick copy/paste or two and a button tap
FORUM GOLD
Know of a forum thread or topic whose content should be in the wiki. We've got a Forum Gold page. You can add to the forum gold by pasting a URL and pressing a button! No wiki authoring needed:
https://wiki.audiob.us/forum_gold
QUICK ADD AN APP TO THE WIKI
You can add an app that isn't on the wiki by filling out a short form:
https://wiki.audiob.us/add_an_app
Comments
This is simply terrific, @espiegel123. Thanks for all you are doing!
I'd like to suggest adding a few more fields:
App or Plugin Name
Is this an app?
Does it support sub folders for its own data?
Is it an AUv3 (Audio Unit) plugin?
Does it support IAA (Inter-App Audio)?
Which version of AudioBus does it support, if any?
Can it receive and follow MIDI Clock?
Can it send MIDI Clock?
Which version of Ableton LINK does it support, if any?
Can it record audio?
If so, does it record audio in mono or stereo?
Can it import audio?
Can it record MIDI?
Can it import MIDI?
add whatever I've forgotten to list
With this information, once the app list has grown, this information can be very helpful when searching for an app with certain features.
We can build a more comprehensive form, too for those so inclined . People are often disinclined to fill out long forms even if the information is optional. They see the form and get intimidated.
One is free to add more information. The idea here is to make it as easy as possible for people to get pages started. They can add additional info as can anyone in the community.
@rs2000 : sorry, I should have added, feel free to create an alternate form and we can link to it from the simple form. There is information about the dokuwiki extensions used for creating forms on the Expert User Reference page
I was faced with the task of making a new page and I used this approach:
Go to the User Folder and look for your User Name (It will be there if you created an account for the Wiki).
[[playground:My Page Title]]
The page will exist in the playground while you are working on it
Moving it out of the playground should probably be discussed here.
If there's a better approach please document it. I've seen the "copy text" into a text editor
regarding Forum Gold and I think that would be a show stopper for many forum users.
Wiki's have better tools and contain editing tools just as the Forum does. Using an external text editor should be optional for someone wanting better tools for adding Markdown tags, for example. Markdown was designed to be easy to learn and integrate using a simple Wiki editor.
@McD: those are some good thoughts. How about creating a page on the wiki in the wiki namespace called something McD's Tips for Getting Started?
To great a page in the wiki namspace, click on the new page icon in the menubar. In the field for the new page name, enter: wiki:nameIwantToUseForMyPage
To create your user page, click on there is a "home page" link in the page header (how this appears depends on the device), if you choose home page it will take you to your page in the wiki's user directory. Click on the edit page icon if you see a message that "This topic does not exist yet."
Done.
I had to figure out how to have it show the braces [[ ]].
The trick is surrounding any wiki special characters with tags:
[[My Wiki Page]]
I think a page documenting text [[Cut and Paste Methods]] for iPad/iPhone and Browser Users is needed.
When I want to create a page I simply touch the New Page Icon at the top right hand of the screen, name it playground:whatever, then go to work. When the page is ready for prime time, I add appropriate tags, [edit] then rename it main:whatever remove the namespace part playground: at the beginning.
As for using external editors, I don’t understand the issue there. Simply copy/paste the text? Normally I use Textastic for text file editing, but actually prefer the Dokuwiki interface.
There are some handy tips for getting started on:
https://wiki.audiob.us/author_tips
It'll get refined as time goes on.
Yes. That showed me the tags to help create How To text.
Go to it!
I like the app add page. Hopefully people will be diligent about searching before creating new pages. @espiegel123, what happens if two people submit a page with exactly the same app name? Hopefully the second doesn’t get added, or worse yet, clobber the original?
I think it would also be good for people to adopt a standard for app names. I think this should be based on the App Store title. For instance, Enso Looper vs. Enso or Audio Damage Enso, etc.
@wim : it makes sense to have a convention with the app name. I think I have mostly used the App Store name on the pages I've created but did wonder if the developer name as part of the name would be helpful. I guess App Store makes sense.
+1 re hoping people check to see if an app is covered.
re: duplicate page names. If an app page with the same name exists as the one you are trying to create with the Add and App form, you get a message that a page with the same name already exists. There is a link to that page in the error message, too.
Perfect.
I have a couple questions:
I added some content to the playground. What would you advise before I (or
a content curator) moves it into the Wiki? I do think an editorial function is a good idea
with potential editing advice added to the playground page maybe in bold or a color.
Do you think you could add a "Request for Content" page using a form?
For example, I'm interested in a page that lists MPE capable apps.
I'm curious because of the new Blue Mangoo MPE Velocity sensitive AU keyboard.
EDIT: Roli has a list (but for some reason it doesn't show Cubasis)
Communication to the community about pages is intended to be handled through the forum's wiki topic as Dokuwiki doesn't have a practical way of communicating like this.
By the way, my recommendation is to not hand build lists like this -- they become really hard to maintain as time goes on. In my opinion, a much better way to do this is by adding pages for the apps and appropriately tagging them with MPE. Clicking on MPE on the front page's tag cloud will bring up the MPE-tagged pages.
In the long-run, this will result in a much better wiki both for searching for MPE apps (or anything else) and for building a nice knowledgebase for people to add to.
That's my opinion anyway.
That makes sense. I'll work through the list and add the needed Apps and check for tags on the existing Apps in the Wiki. I'm beginning to understand why tags are so powerful. To navigate and manage the wiki. Very cool.
I agree about tagging rather than curated lists being the best. The only problem I see is over tagging. I look at the tag cloud and I see so many tags that seem unnecessary, and pages that have up to 20 tags.
There’s a search engine and it works well. IMO, each page should have relatively few tags that flag the essence of what the page is about. I’d love to go in and do some tag cleanup, but I won’t for fear of offending anyone.
Of course, if anyone is just a super good organizer, and wants to curate some list pages, why not? Tag the page with something like “Index” or “List” and go for it!
I just climbed the learning curve to add a Tag to one of my pages. I like seeing it added to the
Tag's page which is a "list" of related pages.
I do think a lot of folks love making and curating lists so I'd leave that door open and then have others use those lists to add effective tagging.
That’s the beauty of a Wiki. Anyone can create anything.
But, I don’t understand what you mean here...
How does a list help to add effective tagging? Sorry just trying to understand.
Yeh, I’m not worried. Things will sort themselves out. I just like to put my opinions out there in the hope it’ll help shape things. But if not, I don’t care.
For common sorts of lists, we can also set up pages with a static header and dynamic list.
For example, for MPE, there might be a page List of MPE-Enabled Apps that is a parent for a dynamic index.
While one could also have a hand-entered list of apps on that page -- it is hardly more effort to go ahead and create a stub page for any app you'd want in that list.
Btw, not sure if folks noticed, there is a 'tag' item in the wiki edit toolbar. All you have to do is click and enter the tag names. You don't need to remember the tag syntax.
I found a list of app that support MPE but rather than add that list to the Wiki it was suggested I tag the relevant app pages. So, I can search for the pages that exist that appear in the list and just add {{tag>[mpe]}} to each. If an App page doesn't exits use there Add and App form and make the page and add the tag. So, I never made the list but my work was informed by an existing list.
So, if anyone creates a useful list it can be the recipe for someone to generate suitable tags.
Some will be great taggers and I think there are many list builders out there that wouldn't bother to do the thorough tagging I'm referring to. Both authoring/editing/curating types and welcome by not insisting on a single approach. I suspect a simple list could then be usefully replaced by a page but some authors will create curated lists with annotations to
improves the effectiveness of the list for searching.
Damn. I looked and didn't notice it but the "Authoring Page" got me going. I'll go look again to see which one it is.
EDIT:
There it is... 4th from the right.
I have this blind spot for something right in front of my nose.
It has something to do with not having a uterus. I've checked and adding one doesn't looking feasible (yet). It will probably arrive when they master using DNA Programming to reverse aging. The clock is ticking.
My hope is that there will be some people in the community that love tagging -- and their way of contributing will be tagging things.
I should probably add a list of commonly used tags to the Add and App Form. I am learning more about the form plugin and will at some point make it expandable so that it opens in its current compact form but can expand if someone wants to add more info.