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
It's quite good for pads too, hit a chord while holding the sustain pedal down, lift your fingers find the notes for the next chord and repeat
Good for other types of sounds too...
Thanks Samu. Will buy it then.
Nuva question Samu. Keyboards with usb midi. Can you buy usb to midi din cable for keyboard to audio interface and still play notes on IOS synths?
Think I need a converter.
definitely worth having a pedal for synth playing, it is something a piano player naturally does.
Huh?!
If the keyboard already has a USB port there is no need to get an additional Midi->USB cables.
If the controller is hooked to the iPad either using CCK/USB directly or a Midi->USB cable you can play the synths.
It's fully possible to use a USB Hub with the iPad if there is a need to connect multiple USB devices at once.
(For example Audio Interface, Midi Controllers etc.).
I connect all my stuff via an USB-Hub. Currently I've got Steinberg UR242, Arturia MicroFreak and UNOSynth connected to the hub with Audio going into the inputs of the UR242. The UR242 has built-in midi ports and sometimes I feed midi to the Volca Bass. When no midi to Volca's are needed I output the sync-clock from MicroFreak.
It's all about what you want to do really as most things can be done
Good point mate. Its actually bluetooth anyway. Just wondering about other possible connections.
I have a volca drum that uses midi input/clock from ios. Havent tried to sync without it but the other day. Volca modular wouldnt start ( passes sync from the drum and ios ) It actually dosent start a sequence unless the volca drum is on.
Thanks.
Cheers Trevor.
@sigma79, the use of sustain with both iOS pianos and synths is interesting. These are just my musings.. I imagine someone like @McD can provide real clarity. But it seems the function of a sustain pedal on an acoustic piano adds the ability, in infinite steps, of maintaining the overtones while reducing the volume. Like the release in the ADSR. The problem is, with digital keyboard sustain pedals, that the effect is either on or off, or half pedal and, thus, the control is not continuous.... like in an automatic transmission would be in a car.
Absolutely get one, but it is a slightly different tool than the real thing.
@LinearLineman - you want details for the record (and the Wiki)?
Sustain pedals on a MIDI controller send MIDI CC 64 events for "Sustain On" and "Sustain Off". Sustain on is CC in the range of 64-127 and sustain off is in the range of 0-63 and 0 are often sent. NOTE: these are decimal values requiring conversion to HEX in a streambyter script. Some MIDI tools would use 1-64 and 65-128 decimal values.
I think there's a Mosaic sustain pedal script already. If not it's a trivial piece of logic for someone like @_Ki to make.
Some Synth programmers don't add support for these CC 64 sustain pedal events. Logically what the synth needs to do is ignore all NOTE OFF events and keep notes ringing until the SUSTAIN OFF events arrives and then clear all the "ringing" notes with NOTE OFF events.
This is ideally implemented with a list of specific notes that would have been off. This extra little detail allows a pianist to raise the sustain pedal while leave a specific note depressed on the keyboard. The clever programmer would NOT have that note in the "saved" list because the NOTE OFF events has been transmitted yet.
@_Ki wrote a streambyter script that implements this NOTE ON/OFF behavior to make synths get the correct ON/OFF events as directed from a Sustain pedal. It was useful for NanoStudio 2 before the developer added Sustain Pedal support for Obsidian. It's also trivial to invert the CC sustain events to "patch" a sustain pedal with the wrong "polarity".
I'm sure there are classic synths that don't "hold" notes under the control of a sustain pedal since Classic Synths didn't expect to be controlled in this way.
On a piano you can hold down the sustain and play a scale and create a harp like sound with
30 notes all ringing... many classic synths only support 6 notes polyphony so it won't be the same and will make a pianist crazy that likes to run Liberace like arpeggios. With 24-36 note polyphony you might not notice the older notes stopping early. You might also get implementations that are flawed and leave notes hanging... not a good thing.
In the world of guitars there are expensive implementations of "sustain pedals" that allow a chord to be held until the pedal is lifted. I'd expect to see AUv3 implementations that hold the audio until the sustain pedal is lifted.
@LinearLineman has made some impressive "synthonies" without the benefit of a working sustain pedal (he grabbed the wrong polarity device). You can't even hear gaps in his voice leading which indicates years of practice to adapt to a "broken" controller.
Regarding 'Sustain Pedal' scipts: There is a Mozaic script from Bryan on patchstorage and my StreamByter script on the audeonic site
@McD ... I think I was just holding the notes down with my fingers instead! 🙌
Cheers. Theres a Stagg one for £10. 61 keys to go with nanokey studios scenes. The Pianist !