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.

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

IAA / Link apps freezing issue (Patterning and Fugue Machine, but probably an OS / host issue)

When I was making my last video I kept having an issue where IAA / Link apps would periodically freeze for around 30 seconds (running at 120 bpm).

These were IAA apps hosted in Audiobus that also have Link.

Here's a video showing Fugue Machine (standalone) freezing from about 0:08 until 0:38 and Patterning freezing from about 0:52 until 1:22 (these were two separate takes):

Not sure whether it's IAA, Link, or something else, but I have been having an issue with AUFX Push where the side chain would emit a harsh buzz after about 8 minutes playing and stop working. Alerting @j_liljedahl he said it appeared to be a bug in iOS that interrupts the audio session after a while, for no apparent reason. He mentioned having a workaround, but there were some other IAA connectivity issues....

At the time I did a hard and soft reboot and still had the issue.

Wondering if anyone else has experienced this, or has any insight into whether this temporary freezing is related to the IAA issue seen with AUFX Push? Never had this issue before, then on iOS 12 I've been seeing this somewhat frequently.

Running iOS 12.1 on an iPad Pro 10.5"
IAA apps hosted in Audiobus 2 @Michael (it ran better than AB3 when it first came out and I never changed :( )
Feeding into AUM
Affected apps:
Patterning @benkamen
Fugue Machine in standalone mode (so I have access to the Play button) @Alexandernaut

Comments

  • Does it happen if you host the IAA apps directly in AUM without going through AB2? Does it happen if you use AB3 instead of AB2?

  • @j_liljedahl said:
    Does it happen if you host the IAA apps directly in AUM without going through AB2? Does it happen if you use AB3 instead of AB2?

    Unlike the issue seen in AUFX Push, this doesn't happen all the time. The fact that I happened to catch it twice when filming on two different apps was a stroke of luck and allowed me to show the issue more clearly.

    I've seen this issue mostly with Fugue Machine and it seems to have happened since it was updated to AUv3. I believe the issue has only been in the standalone version (used, as mentioned, since I can remotely control play with the AB side panel). However, since the same thing happened to Patterning it seems clear it's not FM itself but something both apps are relying on. The fact that the length of the freeze seems to be the same with both appears to be relevant (30 seconds at 120 bpm)

    I believe I've seen this in other IAA apps (I think Xynthesizr, possibly Elastic Drums), but I've only recently realized it's a temporary freeze and previously thought the apps had just crashed.

    I'll try to go through more thorough troubleshooting, but really wanted to see if anyone else has experienced this (especially since iOS 12) or has any other insights since I don't have way to consistently replicate the issue.

  • @aplourde said:

    @j_liljedahl said:
    Does it happen if you host the IAA apps directly in AUM without going through AB2? Does it happen if you use AB3 instead of AB2?

    Unlike the issue seen in AUFX Push, this doesn't happen all the time. The fact that I happened to catch it twice when filming on two different apps was a stroke of luck and allowed me to show the issue more clearly.

    I've seen this issue mostly with Fugue Machine and it seems to have happened since it was updated to AUv3. I believe the issue has only been in the standalone version (used, as mentioned, since I can remotely control play with the AB side panel). However, since the same thing happened to Patterning it seems clear it's not FM itself but something both apps are relying on. The fact that the length of the freeze seems to be the same with both appears to be relevant (30 seconds at 120 bpm)

    I believe I've seen this in other IAA apps (I think Xynthesizr, possibly Elastic Drums), but I've only recently realized it's a temporary freeze and previously thought the apps had just crashed.

    I'll try to go through more thorough troubleshooting, but really wanted to see if anyone else has experienced this (especially since iOS 12) or has any other insights since I don't have way to consistently replicate the issue.

    I've not run into this. I wonder if @Michael would know if this could be attributable to using AB2 rather than AB3

  • edited June 2019

    Interesting. Given that the freezes are happening within third party apps, I'm inclined to think not.

    @aplourde, next time it happens, would you take a note of the time and do a sysdiagnose?

    I think this is a Core MIDI bug which appeared around iOS 12.2. It's fixed in iOS 12.4 beta.

  • @Michael said:
    Interesting. Given that the freezes are happening within third party apps, I'm inclined to think not.

    @aplourde, next time it happens, would you take a note of the time and do a sysdiagnose?

    I think this is a Core MIDI bug which appeared around iOS 12.2. It's fixed in iOS 12.4 beta.

    Yes, will do. Of course I’ve had a more stripped-down setup of IAA apps running beside me for a few hours while working to see if I can catch another freeze and haven’t noticed an issue....

    One thing to note is that the iPad Pro 10.5” in the video is running iOS 12.1. However I was testing a new 11” Pro that was on 12.2 a while ago and recall this happening.

  • So I'm guessing that no one else has seen this issue? I've been seeing it a bit again with other IAA apps (SeekBeats).

    The same thing: IAA app will just freeze (no audio, playhead or other moving elements frozen in place) for around 30 seconds, then start playing again.

    Didn't think about doing the SysDiagnose until much later.

    I'm still on iOS 12.3.1
    I'm now running AB 3 exclusively

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