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.
Comments
There's no product that's going to satisfy everyone. Obviously, many of us find ways to use what's available/possible on the iOS platform to make (or help make) our music, sometimes even exclusively with iOS. I think there's enough information out there to make a reasonable assessment before investing in the platform. If you know what you absolutely must have, it's not a secret, and you could always ask other users about such and such before buying.
iOS is relatively new, has some limitations due to the nature of what Apple is selling and to who, and seems to be on shaky ground as far as developers being paid fairly and adequately for their work. So it doesn't offer every possible capability to a niche music-making market. However, the existence of this forum should suggest to anyone that iOS music-making is alive and well as we speak. Sounds like you're one of the users who falls through the cracks and can't quite get what you need, but as long as the platform keeps moving forward, maybe you'll eventually have it. Who knows? This thread could inspire a developer out there somewhere.
Yup, first thing I miss when I occasionally jump back on my beloved and revered Samplitude on desktop is lack of clip launching like in BM3 (which I know was not invented in BM3). The more I learn other tools, even in graphics the more each one has its potentially perceivable ‘shortcomings’.
As Brambos says, just use what you got. Simply getting good at a ‘tool’ (dare we call these instruments?) is what it is all about. I mean have you ever tried to play a guitar? Holding those strings down to select a note? So clunky! They should be spread out along neck individualy! much better!
Still not there Keytar!
Hopefully it has realtime swing.
@skrat there is also Stagelight 4 with similar things (clip launcher, etc) but it has epic bug with midi for now.
Low prices, low budgets, small dev teams etc. Whole platform has a legacy image problem. Ie. only recently started on ipods as toys. The range of min spec to high end devices is also HUGE.
Maybe, but it will probably be a poor experience compared to the desktop version which is why Ableton are quite rightly holding back until the time may be right.
The screen is very small for a full DAW experience to work well.
I think I'd prefer to see Max 8 released for ipad. This fits the experimental modular nature of the platform and would be a great fit.
Well, with the pending of iOS 13 (iPadOs).. I do hope we get a port from one of the main PC DAWs... Hopefully FL Studio or Ableton live....
Yes the IOS Daws all have their shortfalls..
Live looping is opposite to linear sequencing and developers usually come from one or other side. Ableton hasn't arrangement view from first (and even until live5?) and similar with other DAWs grow... like protools and midi or Cubase AFAIR...
About looping and clip launching for me GTL is the best of Ableton in iOS. I don't need too much...
About slicing and clip based music BlocsWave...
so I see iOS as little brother from desktop and I prefer simple and stable apps over too much from desktop... almost until iPadOS brings all necessary including prices.
And sadly, Roland has virtually zero presence on iOS synth/sequencer/DAW arena for all their great hardware and instruments. Heck, they could create the JD-Xi app with unlimited tracks!
Coming from cassette thru a Roland VS and Opcode's Vision to Digital Performer, I can't begin to see why folks complain about all the fantastic solutions we have on iOS.
I totally agree. Some of our favorite albums have been made with way less technology.
Yah I spent a good twenty+ years chopping up audio bits before getting into iOS and then it was all synth this, synth that with endearing old fossils drooling over retro emulator after retro emulator all excited about a world I knew nothing of and had zero nostalgia for. I just wanted to chop up sounds on a timeline. Took about six years before BM3 came along and did it well enough (ish) and low and behold once I learned about what an MPC was etc it connected to my old teenage tracker nostalgia and DAW audio editing synapses began to fire up big time. It is not like chopping up audio is objectively better but my brain had been accustomed to producing joy juice in a way that was not available for the first six years I was on iOS. Was fun learning about synths and synthesis but was not my ideal neurally pre-programmed creative process.
Hell yah NS2 lacked a sustain pedal thingy and mod wheel at first and some people (actual musicians?) were way more choked about that than no audio tracks. How is that possible? Oh wait, everyone is different. dammit!
My money is on leveraging the two together more and more but there is the chance of a new contender as well.
Exactly, Also I don’t see a lot of the things quoted missing as “epic fails”. At least not to the point I feel like I can’t get it done on the iPad and I’m still on an Air 2. When I get an IPad Pro everybody’s in trouble, lol.
Really? You're knocking AUM for not having an integrated looper and calling that "a epic fail"?
Well how far do you wanna take that line of thinking i.e. ignoring a powerful toolset and fixating on some minor thing for the sake of calling the software a "fail" e.g.
Cubasis 2: Lacks cup holder and airbags
Korg Gadget 2: No cheese making facilities
AUM: No ice dispenser, or nuclear fission capability
You see my point?
Everything has limits, but limitation is the mother of invention, and sometimes we just need to get on with it and work with what's there, no? By all means write to the devs with feature requests, but in the meantime isn't it best to embrace those limits and get on with it?
Once iOS got Files and more and more developers started making their apps compatible with it, the sky became the limit. We have a plethora of relatively lower-cost apps in the appstore that, when used in tandem, can do most anything we need (except maybe clip launching outside of ModStep and BM3). I think of the iPad as the DAW itself rather than one app being the DAW to end all DAWs. Instead of relying on one DAW with a certain workflow, the workflow on iOS can be far more personalised to fit the user's basic needs due to the relatively low cost of said apps and how we combine them in our workflows.
That said, some of us (like me) prefer starting and finishing work 100% on the iPad. Others prefer a hybrid production solution between iPad and desktop (like Andrew Huang sometimes does). Each workflow poses its own challenges and shortcomings to adapt to.
These are just my personal observations of course, not universal truths.
Don’t forget there’s younger people who have literally started their music journey by searching “beat maker” in the store and stumbling across Auxy, which they are now using, many of them exclusively, to make pretty cool, polished stuff. We have been spoiled beyond all repair
+1 to "use what you've got".
Just think of how many gazillion great records were made on 1, 2, 3, 4 and 8 track tape machines! Or a couple of synths, a drum machine and a sampler with a floppy drive. You can do it! And do it with Garageband on your old phone if'n you want.
Maybe the better question is why do people imagine that for $5 to $50 that they will get something as deeply tested and fine-tuned as a $500 - $1000 app that has been in constant development for 20 years.
I'd say that while not perfect, the state of things is pretty amazing.
Also, let's pray that devs don't turn our mobile devices into little desktop machines.
😂 you really made me laugh @AudioGus
Well, I was one of those “actual musicians”...
I already knew that NS2 had no audio tracks yet so I had nothing to complain about.
But I was just shocked to discover that the sustain pedal was completely blocked by design and it was not a bug, it was a deliberate choice of the dev.
Then it was “fixed”, but the polyphony limited to 32 notes only 😳
So I learned the hard way that “actual musicians” who spent several years practicing chords and scales and know how to really play the piano are not the target audience of most music apps on IOS.
I started with Cakewalk sequencer on a PC on the late 80s, used to record on a 4 track Tascam cassette recorder and I thought those were limitations. Now I’m 51 and have to play on a screen keyboard with those tiny keys???
Yes, it seems I’m too old for the IOS party... 😂😂😂
Interesting! I think this highlights one aspect of the (call it outrage/slighting/unease/frustration) that we may often feel when an app doesn't address our 'needs' (cough FEELINGS). Nobody likes to feel like they don't belong and when I think back to my early 'wah wah iOS, what about us audio choppers??', there was a sense of feeling not legit or worthy.
Never! iOS needs to catch up to you.
That right there is the real problem! Things would be so much simpler if we could fix that devilish little issue.
Seriously, though. This is the true answer to the OP’s question.
You’ve eally got a point @espiegel123 @wim
Totally agree
That definitely settles it. This thread is officially closed. 🔨🔨🔨
Sorry... I couldn’t find my gavel so I had to use this hammer.
That's true and being demanding users and pushing the platform has lead to AUv3 and I hope the platform pushing will continue
And yes a lot of great art comes from pushing and learning new tools and workflows and not keeping to the same old formulas as it rewires your brain.