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.

Master (Midi Sequencer) and Servant (other sequencers) - Devs, wanna make a pr change sequencr?

Heya, Back for a brain storm...

I have my fave campout techno party in the woods (free ov course) coming up, and I'm working on my setup.

One of my main challenges that I'm experimenting with, has to do with sequencing (master) all the sequencers I love and adore here (swervants)....

What I'd like to designate is sort of a master sequencer, using one of the many AU apps, which can tell other sequencers to move on to different patterns, scales, or other actions... But have it run in AUM generatively, not timeline based like CubeMakerFruit.

Just curious if anyone has a method they like that can send program changes out to sequencers or generators periodically or locked to a pattern.

I see a potential use case for an app that all it does is creatively talk to the sequencers that run the individual synths etc... It would be nice to be able to over ride it, with a controller or whatever, but if not, it just changes things up while the performer is focused on some other aspect to improvise.

Chime in if this interests anyone else here, and cheers! Happy June.

Comments

  • Oh, and, my current solution is to map them all to a controller, for insta change, next going to try to also map to an lfo or pulse generator to step through the sequences metronomically. I didn't even know if metronomically was a word, but, cool beans.

  • This smells like a job for Mozaic or stream byter.

  • edited June 2019

    @lukesleepwalker said:
    This smells like a job for Mozaic or stream byter.

    Yes, I have been thinking that as a potential route, maybe have one seq sending data only to one of those, which sends it back to the rest. Thanks for the comment

    Another idea... Would something like Quantum or Xequence be able to do this without having to write a script or capture / transform in a midi utility app?

  • I think I've seen in some previous posts that @OscarSouth has done quite a bit of "meta sequencing", letting one sequencer (BM3?) only turn on and off other Rozeta sequences.

    Multiple ways to to this ...

  • @scottsunn : what do you mean by "sequencer"?

    People use that for everything from step sequencers to DAW-like linear sequencers and all the permutations in-between.

    Probably your best bet are the AUv3 sequencers like Photon and Atom and StepBud

  • edited June 2019

    @espiegel123 said:
    @scottsunn : what do you mean by "sequencer"?

    People use that for everything from step sequencers to DAW-like linear sequencers and all the permutations in-between.

    Probably your best bet are the AUv3 sequencers like Photon and Atom and StepBud

    I just mean a way to get one either generative or simple step grid type sequencer who's only job is to coordinate and automate the changing of presets and patterns on other simple midi AU sequencers and generators.

    For instance, if all midi AU's were like Rozetta Baseline, and had pattern change via midi note, this would be simple... But between program change messages (stepPolyArp) etc, getting everything to change in time without using a timeline is a bit tricky.

    Also just thinking of having change based on presets, but that isn't quite as elegant as pgm change.

    Currently, I am just using tiered sequencers... ie StepPolyArp goes to one synth and Cality and Cality goes to one synth and another midi AU like Rozetta, Rozetta goes to another synth... This way you only need to change patterns in the top tier.

    Ultimately it would be cool to have a master sequencer in AUM generating pattern changes based on various random or other waveforms, leaving me to focus on tending to the synths instead.

    It would be super cool if Rozetta added a generative pattern change AU to the series, and a 'receive pttern change' button on all the other AU's in the series. This way all instances could move in time without having to set them all to the same schedule individually... Think about it @brambos ?

  • wimwim
    edited June 2019

    I believe Audiobus is your best answer from what I’ve read. With midi-learn, you can do just about anything, including loading app presets from any midi message (not just program change), generate another type of message(s) from any message (such as generating a program change + cc changes from a note), change the tempo , load other AB presets ...

    You could conceivably drive it all from a slow running Atom instance sending out notes mapped to the various actions, and since you can hook up a controller in parallel to the Atom sequence, you have your overrides or additional parameters easy to add.

    Atom is just an example. I could see Modstep or Xequence sending the messages to Audiobus as well.

    There’s also a Mozaic plugin that looks like a possible fit. (I didn’t write it, and I’m not sure who on the AB forum did. But you can store “scenes” of CC values and sequence them back. https://patchstorage.com/scenic-sequencer/.

  • @wim said:
    I believe Audiobus is your best answer from what I’ve read. With midi-learn, you can do just about anything, including loading app presets from any midi message (not just program change), generate another type of message(s) from any message (such as generating a program change + cc changes from a note), change the tempo , load other AB presets ...

    You could conceivably drive it all from a slow running Atom instance sending out notes mapped to the various actions, and since you can hook up a controller in parallel to the Atom sequence, you have your overrides or additional parameters easy to add.

    Atom is just an example. I could see Modstep or Xequence sending the messages to Audiobus as well.

    There’s also a Mozaic plugin that looks like a possible fit. (I didn’t write it, and I’m not sure who on the AB forum did. But you can store “scenes” of CC values and sequence them back. https://patchstorage.com/scenic-sequencer/.

    Thanks! Will look into this.

  • Audiobus is a good call since it can basically do any MIDI message to app (internal or external) that knows how to receive them for control. I haven't messed with it much but if you're Audiobus Presets are all the same set of sequencer apps just with different MIDI data, MIDI controlled AB preset changing should feel pretty much instant. In this situation, I might host the 'master' in AUM so that you can freely switch AB presets and keep the master in an independent state. Though I reckon that's entirely up to what you're doing. https://audiob.us/help/#midi-learn

    Not sure what you're planning to use as 'servants' but you can change between the 8 internal states of most of the Rozeta sequencers via MIDI note. With that, you can easily set up an instance of something like Cells with those 8 notes laid out and then you have a master 'program change' remote for however many servants you hook up to it. Can, of course, then go on to sequence those changes.

    The one problem I've run into with this (Cells as master sequencer) is I often find myself wanting even slower clock divisions than it allows (like, 8 bars or whatever). I generally turn to Quantum for this because it can do absurdly clock divisions (plus a jillion other fun things). I'm sure there are other options—I haven't been keeping up with the sequencer Jones.

  • @scottsunn said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    @scottsunn : what do you mean by "sequencer"?

    People use that for everything from step sequencers to DAW-like linear sequencers and all the permutations in-between.

    Probably your best bet are the AUv3 sequencers like Photon and Atom and StepBud

    I just mean a way to get one either generative or simple step grid type sequencer who's only job is to coordinate and automate the changing of presets and patterns on other simple midi AU sequencers and generators.

    For instance, if all midi AU's were like Rozetta Baseline, and had pattern change via midi note, this would be simple... But between program change messages (stepPolyArp) etc, getting everything to change in time without using a timeline is a bit tricky.

    Also just thinking of having change based on presets, but that isn't quite as elegant as pgm change.

    Currently, I am just using tiered sequencers... ie StepPolyArp goes to one synth and Cality and Cality goes to one synth and another midi AU like Rozetta, Rozetta goes to another synth... This way you only need to change patterns in the top tier.

    Ultimately it would be cool to have a master sequencer in AUM generating pattern changes based on various random or other waveforms, leaving me to focus on tending to the synths instead.

    It would be super cool if Rozetta added a generative pattern change AU to the series, and a 'receive pttern change' button on all the other AU's in the series. This way all instances could move in time without having to set them all to the same schedule individually... Think about it @brambos ?

    Using a MIDI conversion tool (like mfxConvert on the quick-and-dirty side; Midiflow for larger setups; or Mozaic or StreamByter for ultimate flexibility) you can just use a sequencer that outputs notes and convert said notes to PCs or anything else you want. (Example of notes converted to PCs for controlling Fugue Machine standalone here)

    Since you're talking about semi-generative, I would recommend looking at Senode as the master sequencer. It allows you build out the "control" sequences however you like with the ability to set probabilities for branches. So you could have, as an example, a note that triggers the A section of all your sub-sequencers, that always goes to a B section, but then has a 60% chance of going to the C section, a 20% chance of repeating the B section and a 20% chance of going back to the A section.

    Senode can itself respond to MIDI control so you could have a control system to have incoming notes advance the steps in Senode as demo'd here. Instead of something like sonogrid, you could have a footswitch that gets converted to a note that advances the token in a Senode graph. So just tapping the footswitch will advance to the next section (whatever that is based on the probabilities of the graph).

    You could also have one of the sub-sequencers occasionally spit out a note that affects Senode....
    I don't have any demos showing this exact setup (with sub-sequencers), but here's a demo of Senode triggering itself. Just imagine it triggering other sequencers and the outputs of the those sequencers as the incoming notes that trigger events in Senode....

  • The one problem I've run into with this (Cells as master sequencer) is I often find myself wanting even slower clock divisions than it allows (like, 8 bars or whatever). I generally turn to Quantum for this because it can do absurdly clock divisions (plus a jillion other fun things). I'm sure there are other options—I haven't been keeping up with the sequencer Jones.

    Atom has that nice way of scaling the tempo of its loops down to 0.01 of the original tempo.. That could help here. Plus, you can see what notes you have, unlike with cells.

  • edited June 2019

    @wim said:

    The one problem I've run into with this (Cells as master sequencer) is I often find myself wanting even slower clock divisions than it allows (like, 8 bars or whatever). I generally turn to Quantum for this because it can do absurdly clock divisions (plus a jillion other fun things). I'm sure there are other options—I haven't been keeping up with the sequencer Jones.

    Atom has that nice way of scaling the tempo of its loops down to 0.01 of the original tempo.. That could help here. Plus, you can see what notes you have, unlike with cells.

    You can also pick a tempo directly, instead of having it tied to a multiplier of the host's tempo. Just slide the bpm value instead of the multiplier value.

Sign In or Register to comment.