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 Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Which drum machine has the best UI?

2»

Comments

  • @Jumpercollins said:
    I’m testing a new one based on a Roland Series 3x3 grid that’s has a nice workflow simple but elegant with nice big pads and with lots of control over individual pitch, level, pan etc. Basically sample based with user drag and drop. Should be interesting once it drops.

    That’s another good point. Is a grid the way to do this? I suspect a grid looks plausible because, why not, and you end up with technical people designing important affordances like this and to them a grid is perfectly sensible, so we end up with a grid and nobody questions it, because it seems logical.

  • Hardware: Elektron Digitakt
    iOS app: Patterning 2, nanoloop.

  • @IchabodBimble said:
    Drum Perfect Pro is a bit more fiddly but has an amazing amount of control so I find it worth the extra effort.
    (Alternatively just route something to Rozeta Rhythm, hit Generate and hope for the best!)

    I pretty much exclusively use DPP these days. The time invested it well worth it. Also, if you've taken the time to set up good/great multi-velocity kits it is quite nice to drive DPP from other apps, such as the Lumbeat apps etc.

    DPP could do well in making the process of creating kits easier though.

  • edited November 2019

    Nanoloop
    Elastic drums (very elegant, after learning curve is surmounted, same can be said of Nanoloop. GUI for me is inseparable from the capabilities of the app, a solution for presenting all the parameters and features on offer, in the case of these two extensive synthesis + extensive sample play access)
    Fractal Bits

  • @Korakios said:
    Patterning,
    BeatMaker 2

    Bm2 has the best piano roll and editing of all time

  • @Littlewoodg said:
    Nanoloop
    Elastic drums (very elegant, after learning curve is surmounted, same can be said of Nanoloop. GUI for me is inseparable from the capabilities of the app, a solution for presenting all the parameters and features on offer, in the case of these two extensive synthesis + extensive sample play access)
    Fractal Bits

    Yep. Agreed wrt the learning curve but as you said, once you know it, everything is right there. I will say though that Elastic Drums does betray its pedigree as a Mouse On Mars brainchild.

    And, yes, nanoloop, although I use it mostly on legacy Nintendos.

  • Elastic Drums is really innovative and really fun. I just wish the synth engines sounded a bit better. Rendering / exporting files from the app (16 bit) has always sounded bad to me.

  • @u0421793 said:

    That’s another good point. Is a grid the way to do this? I suspect a grid looks plausible because, why not, and you end up with technical people designing important affordances like this and to them a grid is perfectly sensible, so we end up with a grid and nobody questions it, because it seems logical.

    What's your goal? Develop an app? Buy a non-conventional hardware sequencer?

    There's much anticipation about the Pulsar-23 drum machine from Soma labs. Very experimental a modular sequencer! A friend is high on the waiting list so I guess I'll get to give it spin before too long.

  • @Paa89 said:
    Best UI goes to BeatHawk.
    No scrolling.
    The small window view is the same as full screen view.
    The best in my opinion

    Did they fix state saving in it?

  • @stormywaterz said:

    @Korakios said:
    Patterning,
    BeatMaker 2

    Bm2 has the best piano roll and editing of all time

    Indeed , but I also liked the super useful menu next to the pads for quick tweaking and easy midi learn (pitch,volume etc).

  • @Daveypoo said:
    Patterning has the best interface, hands down.

    Unfortunately it's not AUv3, so I hardly every use it.

    It is a very nice interface but the lack of AUv3 definitely results in little to no usage from me either, which is a shame.

  • @Paa89 said:
    Best UI goes to BeatHawk.
    No scrolling.
    The small window view is the same as full screen view.
    The best in my opinion

    I like programming certain things in BeatHawk and for others I find Patterning more engaging and provides more interesting options for exploring.

    BeatHawk question: can you set the meter to something other than 4/4?

  • @hellquist said:

    @IchabodBimble said:
    Drum Perfect Pro is a bit more fiddly but has an amazing amount of control so I find it worth the extra effort.
    (Alternatively just route something to Rozeta Rhythm, hit Generate and hope for the best!)

    I pretty much exclusively use DPP these days. The time invested it well worth it. Also, if you've taken the time to set up good/great multi-velocity kits it is quite nice to drive DPP from other apps, such as the Lumbeat apps etc.

    DPP could do well in making the process of creating kits easier though.

    👍 DPP could massively benefit from a ui overhaul, i just find it not intuitive at all and unnecessarily complicated but maybe that’s just me. It does sound fantastic though.

  • @espiegel123 said:

    @Paa89 said:
    Best UI goes to BeatHawk.
    No scrolling.
    The small window view is the same as full screen view.
    The best in my opinion

    I like programming certain things in BeatHawk and for others I find Patterning more engaging and provides more interesting options for exploring.

    BeatHawk question: can you set the meter to something other than 4/4?

    Yeah i think its just 4/4

  • edited November 2019

    @ipadbeatmaking said:

    @Paa89 said:
    Best UI goes to BeatHawk.
    No scrolling.
    The small window view is the same as full screen view.
    The best in my opinion

    Did they fix state saving in it?

    Yep It works pretty well

  • edited November 2019

    @Jonah66 said:

    @hellquist said:

    @IchabodBimble said:
    Drum Perfect Pro is a bit more fiddly but has an amazing amount of control so I find it worth the extra effort.
    (Alternatively just route something to Rozeta Rhythm, hit Generate and hope for the best!)

    I pretty much exclusively use DPP these days. The time invested it well worth it. Also, if you've taken the time to set up good/great multi-velocity kits it is quite nice to drive DPP from other apps, such as the Lumbeat apps etc.

    DPP could do well in making the process of creating kits easier though.

    👍 DPP could massively benefit from a ui overhaul, i just find it not intuitive at all and unnecessarily complicated but maybe that’s just me. It does sound fantastic though.

    Yes, that is true. Nothing else can sound like it though, and with that amount of control. Also I really like the sync capabilities in it. I can work on my drum track in parallel to Auria, and tune/tweak things until I'm ready to commit it to audio tracks. It keeps perfect sync and is good at track position etc. Also, as mentioned previously, it is great to drive DPP from other apps too that perhaps doesn't have multi-velocity sample-loading capability, but still can output midi, and using the samples from DPP. That is missing a DPP super-trick though, which is the probability chains. :)

    But yes, it could do with an overhaul for the UI. Currently it has to be learnt.

    EDIT: Also, another super-handy DPP trick is of course that it can hold more instruments than any other drum (only) application. You can easily create kits with 20+ instruments. Most others are limited to 8, and single-hit samples at that. In DPP you can add lots of multi-velocity instruments, if you just plan it right.

  • Toontrack need to dip their toe in Ios cos i love SD3😻😂

  • Synthstrom Deluge is by far the most efficient drum machine I’ve used. Quick and easy to dive in and get a lot of intricate variation on the fly.

  • @ElectroHead said:

    @u0421793 said:


    What's your goal? Develop an app? Buy a non-conventional hardware sequencer?

    My goal was to ask the initial question in the lede section of this post. And I achieved it! I asked the question, and jolly good it was. We should all celebrate.

  • @u0421793 said:

    I achieved it! I asked the question, and jolly good it was. We should all celebrate.

    I agree. How much beer are you getting in and what's the address? ;-)

  • Model samples

  • Elastic Drums

  • edited November 2019

    Did anybody use Concentric Rhythm? https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/concentric-rhythm/id1188907944

    I thought this might be a good UI for comprehending and manipulating rhythm and drums, but although it is good, and is probably a start, it didn’t ‘feel’ like what I saw was what I heard and what I should feel. It’s a start though. The standard drum machine sequencer stave from left to right is a worse representation in my view (as seen on drum machine screens, or on 606, 808, 909 leds). I think more research and effort in the direction of the above app is going to lead to a good outcome one day.

  • I like patterning but Beathawk I get along with very well.

  • @Morgman73 said:
    I like patterning but Beathawk I get along with very well.

    I’m not familiar with Beathawk, looking at some screenshots above, I can’t understand how it represents the drum beats. I can see Cubasis running audio clips from left to right on various tracks, and I can see what I presume to be Beathawk offering a commonly-found 4x4 grid of pads for entering, but what does it look like when you’ve entered the drum hits?

    One thing I’m seeing is a divergence between representations in the same machine. Some drum machines have pads all in a row, some have pads in a square grid. Some drum machines represent the drum beats all in a line on ‘staves’, others as mentioned above put them in a circle. None seem to arrange the drum pads in a circle or similar. None seem to represent the drum beats as a grid (which would be exceedingly difficult to intuit, so that’s probably why).

  • @u0421793 said:

    @Morgman73 said:
    I like patterning but Beathawk I get along with very well.

    I’m not familiar with Beathawk, looking at some screenshots above, I can’t understand how it represents the drum beats. I can see Cubasis running audio clips from left to right on various tracks, and I can see what I presume to be Beathawk offering a commonly-found 4x4 grid of pads for entering, but what does it look like when you’ve entered the drum hits?

    One thing I’m seeing is a divergence between representations in the same machine. Some drum machines have pads all in a row, some have pads in a square grid. Some drum machines represent the drum beats all in a line on ‘staves’, others as mentioned above put them in a circle. None seem to arrange the drum pads in a circle or similar. None seem to represent the drum beats as a grid (which would be exceedingly difficult to intuit, so that’s probably why).

    It has a piano roll sequencer that is nicely designed to work with either keyboard or pad based tracks. It can only do 4/4: btw.

  • Oh Attack imo hands down. Strokes ui is a pain. It’s way useful though. I like them both but left to a choice, Attack.

  • I really like Patterning 2 and all the Ruismakers.

Sign In or Register to comment.