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
Thanks. I’m doing the same as you I think, putting almost everything in AB, but each audio channel in AB goes to a channel in AUM automatically. It’s those auto channels that are getting messed up. They still seem to route through fine but it’s confusing when they get a different icon at the top and instance name. A ‘refresh Audiobus channels’ in AUM would be a good feature.
I’m surprised AB and AUM don’t have an unload feature where it will save the au config so it loads it back in exactly as it was. After all, that’s what’s happening when you load a preset.
Anyway I’m sure all this will be tidied up in time. This is new territory after all.
I tried transferring from iPhone to iPad today btw and it went pretty well. The AB preset went over instantly via airdrop, and I was able to transfer the Xequence project in the same way. The only thing that didn’t make it was the reslice samples, but that’s a reslice issue I think.
I think I remember reading that dynamically loading and unloading plugins can be tricky. There may be a lot more housekeeping going on in loading a new session or freezing a track in a DAW than in a more dynamic setting. I wouldn’t set my expectations too high on this improving soon.
Unfortunately the only sure workaround is to save a preset for the plugin, then unload it. If I do this, then I use the host’s preset save, give it a name the same as the host session (and X2 project) I saved. The notebook now built-in to X2 can be useful for this too.
Audiobus is forgiving when it comes to preserving routing when you remove a plugin. If X2 is outputting to “Audiobus > ch. 1”, it doesn’t care what’s in the receiving slot, and reloading the plugin will play without any fuss. In AUM, if you remove (not disable) a plugin, you have to set up the routing again.
Food for thought: Channels can be saved and added to sessions. So, it’s possible to set up a library of channel templates, then add them as needed. This can make removing and re-adding things a bit less painful. AUM has the advantage here, as you can add a single channel from a saved session. Audiobus adds the whole saved session. Still, it’s very useful.
@wim yeah I figured presets are probably the way forward. It’s yet another thing to have to send between devices but with airdrop that’s easy. Limitations like this can be good fun as long as they don’t completely kill workflow or stop you moving forward.
That’s useful to know about loading presets additionally into sessions. Will have to try and get my head round it.
@wim @SevenSystems just had a thought. If you have 2 iOS devices, is it possible to have xequence 2 running on one sending midi to AB/AUM on the other?
Yes, that is no problem at all. Just go to the AUM settings, then under "Bluetooth MIDI", tap on "Peripheral", enable "Advertise MIDI service". Then in the Xequence settings screen on your "sender" device, go to the Bluetooth tab, and tap on "Find and connect to other devices". The other device should appear there -- tap on it.
After doing so, your other device should be available as a MIDI destination.
(you'll probably also have to enable the respective source in each AUM channel menu.)
Another option which works well is Gadget Taipei midi out gadgets for sequencing AU host. Works also with CC automation. Fast workflow.
Amazing! I set up Xequence through Audiobus then to AUM from there. Will have a play at some point and see what I can figure out
You can also connect Audiobus > Audiobus on two devices via Bluetooth.
Just wondering, is there a way to use the play button in AUM and AB to press play in Xequence? I know I can use the Xequence button on the bar but it’s a bit strange as it has no feedback as to what’s happening.
Yes, just enable Link Start/Stop in all three apps.
Thanks, will give it a go
So I’m just finishing my first dawless track and the DSP has just started going over 100% in AUM causing crackles.
I’ve got multitrack recorder so have tried recording a track into it to ‘freeze’ it.
This worked pretty well and muting Xequence in Audiobus for that channel, and Zeeon in Audiobus seems to have brought the DSP down a bit.
If I start from the beginning of the track it seems to play from multitrack most of the time in the right place. However, if I skip forward in Xequence, multitrack doesn’t move with it.
Presumably @wim this is because AUM doesn’t follow the same timeline as Xequence?
@gregsmith unfortunately, Link does not support absolute song position synchronization, so moving the song pointer to a new position in Xequence has no effect on other Link peers. The only protocol that supports absolute song position synchronization is MIDI sync. The only iOS app I know that currently supports full MIDI sync including song position is Beatmaker 2. (from what I've heard, Beatmaker 3 does support start / stop / clock, but not song position.)
Naive question I work pretty exclusively in AUM, and can open (the original) Xequence in there as a single instAnce IAA generator, using that to drive synths on other AUM channels. I read above that people are using Audiobus as well. What does Audiobus bring to this party that I can’t do in AUM with Xequence inside?
State-saving for non-AU apps. Some will say "midi connectivity" but as that is something AUM has done really well for many years I don't include that as an AB selling point. The state-saving is though, especially for me who uses several IAA apps in conjunction with my other apps.
@hellquist : huh, that would explain it. I never use the same set up twice, so it never occurred to me that state saving would be an issue. Thanks.
Thanks for the explanation. Is this something that could be added to AUM @j_liljedahl ?
Only other thing I can think of is to turn off host sync in 4pockets multitrack and control it with midi, but not sure if this is possible or makes any difference?
I can't think of any way that helps. Nope, we're still stuck with the problem of no audio player that can follow an external midi clock timeline position other than BM2.
@wim how frustrating.
I would just bounce each of the channels into their own multitrack instance effectively taking out Xequence and AB, but I have Xequence controlling send amounts and stuff in AUM via midi which needs the Xequence timeline.
I'm not seeing it, but I hope it works out for you.
MTR doesn't expose its transport buttons. If it did you could send a midi message from X2 when you wanted a separate instance to start playing its bit of audio. But for that you could also toggle an AUM file player instance I supposed.
Meh. You're more determined than I am.
I've lost interest - imma sit back and let someone else do the hard work here. 
I’m agreeing with you @wim , I can’t see a way either. Just trying to find a ‘that’ll do for now’ option but there’s a problem with every option I can think of.
@SevenSystems do you have any thoughts on a path of least resistance? If @j_liljedahl implemented midi sync in AUM, would that be job done?
I think both IAA and AU support absolute song position information, so if AUM could slave to MIDI sync including SPP (Song Position Pointer), then yes, any IAA or AU hosted in AUM that can use the position information would run in full sync with Xequence (or any other app or device that can send full MIDI sync).
So close!
Hopefully that’ll happen one day.
In the meantime, would you consider an audio track companion app for X2? I’d definitely buy it
@SevenSystems I wouldn’t bother, Xequence 2 is perfect as it is. Dawless is the way forward and you’re leading the way.
Apart from the audio track / freezing thing, I’ve been able to do all the things I couldn’t do in the countless other available daws.
Yes, I understand... you wouldn't have to use all the stuff that'd be available there though -- it would very likely have audio tracks which you would then just be able to route through Audiobus, so you would get exactly what you want, and nothing more if you don't
Well that sounds absolutely perfect 👌
I agree, and I really don't want to be "that guy" (as I love Xequence), but isn't the opposite true as well: if Xequence would allow itself to be a slave quite a few of our troubles would also go away...?
Right now iOS music making is suffering from a ruler-syndrome, where "everyone" wishes to be the master and no one wants to be the slave. Even if/when AUM would incorporate a fuller timeline with loop markers and such, it would still like to be the master of the apps it is hosting, no? And vice versa, no apps can be hosted in Xequence, so host sync simply doesn't work from Xequence, and if I've understood it correctly it is called host-sync for a reason: hosted apps sync to the host, not the other way around (up-stream-sync).
So...until we get a "hosted-app-sync" OR until we get apps that allow someone else to be the clock master, I think we are in for a difficult time with lots of work-arounds.
Another example of where I would like to use Xequence (for example) is to enable me to use it as the sole midi sequencing environment (as it, together with NS2, are the benchmarks for how a piano roll should be, in my book) when I'm recording my IAA apps in Auria. But it is a no-can-do, without a massive chain of moving parts. So for my current project I will have to make do with Aurias piano roll, even though I these days have multiples of Xequence and all kinds of other apps installed. Luckily apps like Drumperfect Pro have perfect song position sync etc, so I can keep the drum sequencing outside of Auria, still editable, whilst I'm composing, but still, I would prefer to use Xequence for the rest (for example).
I know iOS music making is about "trade-offs", most things in life are, but this has become clear of late (since the launch of Multitrack Recorder I think) that the sync situation (who is master/slave) between the apps is far from ideal.
Until someone yields we as music creators are stuck with a Catch 22, where we are really close, but not really there just yet.
Why in earth would one want to use MIDI sync between apps running on the same device?
Why not just make Xequence follow the host IAA sync?
@hellquist I agree with most points there, and the slave-sync topic has come up many times. The problem is that Xequence's engine is not designed for it. It is somewhat better in Xequence 2, but it would still be a lot of work to get slaving work right.
So I can't say it will arrive anytime soon. If anything, the addition of proper audio tracks (and editing) and AUv3 (audio, not MIDI) hosting has a higher priority for now. But that will at least solve the "audio tracks alongside Xequence" problem, which IMO is the biggest issue related to sync.
But it's still funny that NO iOS DAW except a 10 year old BM2 can properly sync to MIDI
(yes I'm guilty as well!)