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.
How do I do a "live collaboration set" using iOS devices?
So, I was thinking of collaborating with a friend who uses his iPad as a DJ (he uses dJay as his main app) with samples, and scratches. I tend to play music so I use apps like FM Player, and some synthesizers.
We do both use GarageBand, and it has a session mode, but it seems a bit...restrictive. While it's amazing that we can both share our projects, the difficult part is using IAAs, as most of our app flow are based on IAA. We also have AudioBus, although he's using AB2 for reasons due to his workflow, and I'm using AB3.
I was thinking of connecting our devices via an Audio Interface, although I'm worried that there'll be syncing issues. I'm not too familiar with Ableton Link when connecting to devices outside of your iPad.
Comments
Ableton Link with devices on the same WiFi network should keep them in playback and tempo sync. It was designed to work with multiple devices running different software all synced to Ableton Link. Just do a test run at one of your places with your desired setup, and practice and work thru your set together...should work out for you two.
Another option is to use an interface like iConnectAudio4+ which lets you connect two iPads through one audio interface. Folks here have had success with it here.
I'm trying to set up something similar with iPads but haven't gotten to it yet.
In this setup, it might to use another IAA/AU host like AUM rather than GarageBand. But AB should work too.