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
In the original definition of a DAW none of the apps listed is a DAW. A DAW was the whole system including all the software and hardware required to record and edit digital audio. The software was just part of a DAW not the DAW itself.
But language changes over time. This is a good thing. It also totally infuriates people in the process. Which is inevitable.
But language also needs a consensus as part of its evolution. And misappropriation of words is also part of this. Eventually over time wrong becomes the new right.
And age plays a big part of this. If you made music before you could buy software to run on a pc or Mac that could manipulate audio, then seeing an app like grooverider being called a DAW makes your blood boil a little bit. But if you are younger than protools then anything you can record an entire track in is a DAW. Even though you are kind of correct you are also very wrong. But it’s also right that you don’t give two shits that some old bloke takes offence.
But you’re still wrong :-D
Is it digital? Yep
Does it do audio? Yep
Then it’s a …
But,
What the fuck ever was a workstation? Surely that’s just a desk or table?
Korg Gadget hands down....tried my ass off to love GarageBand as it makes sense on so many levels....it’s almost like a native app...it will keep getting developed....it has Alchemy (kind)...it has all the AU stuff...it’s revered....but....
...the workflow is jarring and I find myself doing 28 steps extra to complete a task and then another 10 mins researching how and if it can do something else (usually very basic) like mixdown or export....
...frustrates the hell out of me...
...kinda like driving a car on the other side of the road with upside down goggles on...
...I keep trying it after every update but it just gets deleted again which is such a shame..
I think FL studio probably get lots of sale on the count of the pc version reputation. And probably lots of disappointed wanna be super star.
I’m actually starting to like it a lot.
It is very capable, but unlike other “DAWs” the GUI is not even trying to look like any physical gear (synths/fx).
I love FLSM's 909 drums and synth sounds a lot. I also like that each track is a chain of synths and effects.
I really wish it had the pattern/playlist workflow of its big brother, though.
Now that "FL Studio NonMobile" is on MacOS and my iPads are reaching the end of their support I'm thinking of jumping back to the desktop (but on a Macbook Air, which means it's still "mobile," heh, and the big version includes full FLSM as a plug-in).
Looperverse on iPhone 6 is good ... Once you’ve worked out how to navigate around it . Very useful for me . Is a bit fiddly on the iPhone but I have sausage fingers 😂 haven’t had chance to use it on iPad yet but getting upgrade soon so looking forward to using it more in my work flow
I don’t get the FL hate either, I’m pretty productive on it and the work flow is really smooth for me.
Yep. Tend to agree.
Does that mean Candy Crush is a DAW?
Come to think of it, Lumafusion is actually more of a DAW than any of these.
VMPC? (Virtual Music Production Computer)
AP&MA? (Audio Production & Mixing App)
It was an excuse for the salesman from the 'professional audio' company to charge you 10x market value for the computer which your audio system was built around.
Same excuse for the Roland VS-2480, Korg Trinity and also the Roland MC-909.
All totally different machines. But maybe you don’t like calling them machines either.
I was more thinking of Digidesign which used a normal, off the shelf, computer with special I/O and interface hardware. They preferred to sell you the whole thing as one system because a) they got to mark up the computer, and b) because getting a computer that actually worked with a specific piece of hardware was often not that straightforward.
I had a cheapo DAW called a SaDie, which was one of the first to allow you to use bog standard (Soundblaster) sound cards.
Wow.
Long way from that to full production studios in the palm of your hand.
Also the huge price difference.
Kids nowadays don’t know how good they have it. (For music production at least)
But now we also complain about insignificant bugs in apps that are free.
"Workstation" ends up meaning anything that can do everything in one box. Originally this meant you didn't need to be connected to the great big mainframe with massive cabinets and reels of tape going backwards and forwards with S&H synth soundtrack going on permanently in the background.
Grooverider ain't a workstation. An iPad + Grooverider could be. Unless you're old and grumpy in which case it's just a tablet with an infuriating piece of software that imposes ridiculous limitations on the UI so it can be true to the imaginary hardware it's pretending to be! ;-)
Seriously; any software that makes you navigate a fake LCD with a fake scroll wheel and fake SHIFT key deserves my contempt. :-D
I'm probably just grumpy because it's the kind of software that makes me realise I'm getting old and will need reading glasses permanently soon... I can use most apps on my phone without reading glasses... Apps that require me to use glasses are, without exception, INFURIATING! :-D
YMMV.
There's an argument (Eno made it most memorably, and I suspect Foucault may have been in there somewhere) that creativity comes from pushing against constraints rather than having limitless choices.
Limitless choices = option paralysis!
To me, software DAW includes ability to work with audio and midi, plugin hosting capabilities, sequencing and editing with at least a timeline. You can also add automation and import/export features. This is mostly what are desktop DAWS software since a very long time.
What size is your iPhone?
Although I love GR-16, I find it unusable on a 5SE.
Started using it on my 6, then upgraded to XS Max. Worked wonderfully on both. I can see the reluctance to use it on anything smaller than the 6 tho. Then again I used to read full comic series in my iPhone 4 haha.
We used to have good eyesight, don't we?
Lol, ya, I find most apps next to un-usable on the iPhone 8. Too darn microscopic
GarageBand still works fine for my eyes and well iPhone iMPC Pro 2 is creeping up on that list too if it was a bit more stable...
Hehe, the last app I quite enjoyed on the small iPhones was NanoStudio 1.
Still running on an iPhone 4 as a drum sampler for an Octapad
Lol glasses givin me 20/20 for at least 15 years. Zooming helps as well.
I like stagelight a lot, but I really wish they would update so it would allow clean audio out via bluetooth. or make it an input app for cubase or audiobus so that it would tap into their bluetooth audio processing, which does work with bluetooth.
once that is accomplished, it will definitely be my go-to mobile app. it’s really cool
Stagelight
I'm investigating this combination:
Xequence 2 - MIDI sequencing
AUM - Synth/sampler app hosting, FX hosting, mixer, off the cuff audio recording
Multitrack DAW - Arranging audio recordings
Will also give Gadget 2 another try as a MIDI sequencing/composing environment.