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
I have no idea what's going on here. In a good way.
I am no longer much useful for testing new things, but am highly qualified for the buying etc.
Out of curiosity, what's the name about? And why not three syllables, stressed on first and ending in -y?
Dang! I'm really curious, but cannot access twitter on my work's proxy
ok - Submitted for beta - I've added a small number of you - if you didn't make it this time I'll keep you on the list for next time. I really only want a short beta because I'm stupid busy at the moment and I'm keen to get this app out and on to the next one before my next non-music project kicks in
I've made a quick guide for using it (yes I know everyone prefers written manuals but right now it's this or nothing - I really will try and do a written one for this app since I do actually think it needs it)
Those snapshots look quite handy--nice touch! Do those have AU params exposed?
ha ha - they do but there is a small "buggette" in that area in the current build which I found after uploading - will be working soon I hope. It's a single setting. but I'm open to suggestions. Midi is a bit clunky (& low resolution) for a lot of my ideas and I'm starting to wonder about adding OSC support too - my next app in particular will benefit from slightly less clumsy control than MIDI but we shall see..
Yes! we need more OSC supported things
Ive been waiting nearly 20 years for someone to see the potential to marry an arp with poly rhythms...
Such a well thought out app @pagefell
It would be absolutely killer if we could transpose these arps via midi - set up some amazing arps and whilst playing the arps (or in hold mode) , have eg: the low C0 octave for transposing the arpeggiations.
Just wondering what specifically keeps you from doing your thing due to its clunkiness? 🤔
pagefAll ;-)
thank you
yes did wonder about that - I was going to do it like Cality with a separate channel but C0 octave or something would work too - which would people prefer (to be clear this is a 1.1 feature not a release feature)
& of course you can always emulate this feature by routing the output through Cality and using its transpose functionality ;-)
On a separate channel would be ok (like Cality)
For my workflow, I would prefer it as assignable notes for transposition on the same keyboard I am playing chords on.
This way I can be playing live - chords on right hand, and transposing with the left ( LOTS of fun )
The keyboard onscreen could have colored notes to show transposition range on the keys (and be moved to any octave?)
Anyway - transposition in any form will take this into the stratosphere
yeah cool - ok will add for 1.1 - I must admit while testing/playing with it I'd wanted something similar
there are two areas I think about...
First one isn't a blocker - in my next app (presuming it turns out as I'm planning - no guarantee I won't get distracted part way in and change direction) - there are switches and modes for a number of channels. Just that MIDI is a poor fit for that paradigm and fiddly to control. It does occur to me that things like Mosaic make that a lot easier though. Being able to "script" an app (or hardware) is quite interesting and MIDI is poorly suited to that - OSC is better - and to be clear MIDI doesn't stop that but it provides a much higher barrier to entry for that kind of thing
Second one is resolution/speed I guess - you'll see in this new app there is a Buchla style function generator - I originally had a more complex version in and it occurred to me that packaging up 4 of these into an app, with cross modulation and a few more controls might be quite a fun little modulator BUT does MIDI do that justice? I'm kind of presupposing that it won't but perhaps I need to experiment more.
Related to the latter - it occurred to me that as @brambos points out - there is scope for more audio inputs and outputs in an app. Given the current interest in CV/Gate over audio channels - there is NO reason why we couldn't pass audio rate control signals between apps too (perhaps like Reaktor Blocks used to do before the recent 'wires' update)
@pagefall hmmm, not sure that made it any clearer 😉 MIDI has, even within its standard messages, 33 14-bit integer precision controls (CCs 0-31 + Pitch Bend), around 90 7-bit precision controls (most of the rest of the CCs), another round of 16384 14-bit controls (NRPN), and then anything imaginable via SysEx... even if you plan to build a Spaceship controlled by MIDI, that should be fine?
And on iOS, MIDI messages CAN be sent and received at audio rate and with nanosecond precision...
So maybe there's no need reinvent the wheel 😎
(granted, not many iOS sequencers support all of those messages, but I doubt OSC is "much better" supported 😂)
I should experiment then with my function generator - see if it is worth turning into an app - maybe it will be fine
you can do anything in machine code - why did anyone invent higher level languages.....
I use OSC on the Monome Norns & with supercollider etc. It gives you a slightly different way of thinking about things - more like function calls than how to trigger things. Can you do that stuff in MIDI? yeah of course. I'm interested in letting people control my stuff with OSC not putting it out to control other stuff right now - again just because I can conceive of ways of scripting the next app that would be interesting but probably rather more work than I would be bothered with - although perhaps Mosaic would help with that. Imagine a sequence of commands - put channel in mode A, start recording, Same sequence to channel 2 etc. etc. - now of course I can do that with CC's and MIDI but if my commands are more understandable - '/channel1/modeA' , 'channel1/record'..... then there is less cognitive friction. Anyway this is getting way off topic
After a day of interacting with App Store connect I'm astonished there are any iOS apps at all :-(
Cool video. Sorry to hear about the App Store challenges!
@pagefall another slice of addictive fun! this is the bizness.
Since people were complaining about a lack of music ;-)
I hope you don't mind a tiny bit more self promotion - a piece I made using my app. Out on Monday - it's passed review, just got a couple of bugs to fix first (thank you to my vigilant and lovely beta testers)
@pagefall banged on this gem quite a bit and didn't see a single hiccup. should be good to go!
@pagefall very nice setup and confirms Ioniarics is another app of yours I will be purchasing.
@pagefall Just curious.....how do you like the Microfreak?
@pagefall Been playing with it the last few days in a lot of projects and haven’t hit any glitches as yet. Instant buy once out.
Monday is SO close
Something very unique, miditacular.
Aha a Monome lover
love it