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
There is no AUfx automation (somewhat of a biggee for me) and for AU instruments you have to make macros from a list of available parameters. Not a total deal killer but some AUs have a LOT of parameters to sift through.
Thanks @dendy much appreciated. Cheers
Too bad ... all in all I do not know whether it is convenient for me to jump in.
IMHO, There a very specific user community for NS2 that has a strong history of using synth hardware. They are not focused on audio but on synths and drum machines.
I have a nephew with $20K of classic music making hardware in his studio. He builds classic filters and FX'es from discrete components to re-create famous hardware (Moog, etc).
His favorite music making tools are all arranged in a rack of modular devices he understands and many of which he has hand assembled from custom PC board designs.
He never used IOS for making music because the sound just doesn't measure up and the synths are too thin. On a recent visit I told him NS2 was on sale and he had heard good things. He bought it and 2 hours later finished a piece of music that (to me) sound just like his usual music on his 30+ dance albums. He looked at me and said:
"That's the best designed IOS app I have ever used. That synth is really powerful. I could
make another album on this is a fraction of the time it takes using my current methods of cabling up and tweaking my modules."
So, for his style of music making it's a (wait for it) game changer.
In an effort to become more portable he recently purchased an Akai Force and is working with them to add new features that make it a better platform for his approach to music making. He also has a history of being in the Teenage Engineering booth to demo new products at NAMM as a "beta" user of their hardware and a big fan on the internet with demo videos, etc.
So... it's not just the application to consider. It's what you need to make music.
I need a keyboard, some guitars, a lot of mic's and a good set of drum triggers. I see NS2 and say... when audio is there I'll check it out. I don't see why it's so loved.
Then I hear this:
That's created with NS2. What?! How? I looked into it and found out the Obsidian Synth in NS2 supports using sample to drive it's 3 "oscillators". In other words it can act as a sampleset loading application. A customizable ROM-pler synth. Whoa? I have several.
But this one can play 10 tracks in parallel without crashing. It's not using AUv3 standards but
a well design custom sound playback engine that's capable, configurable and highly efficient on IOS. Scalability and stability in an IOS DAW for this style of music making.
I believe my nephew saw a great design in the drum machine inside NS2 as well.
I hope this helps position the product and explain the rabid fandom of users that approach music from this perspective: synths and drum machines to make modern music.
It just also has this ROMpler capability that could be built on with more world class IAP's like
BeatHawk has. I find the 2 acoustic IAP's for NS2 to be lackluster compared to BeatHawk.
Maybe NS2 is ideal for you. Maybe you must have audio. Maybe you will think... I don't need this and I'll stick with Auria Pro for my studio needs. Cubasis for me has an elegant design for classic multi-track studio workflows and with AUv3 it can also deliver on other approaches to beatmaking and synth based music workflows.
Tradeoffs and your needs must be carefully negotiated... and you can also learn new tricks by buying good apps that open new doors for your creative process.
Oh no!!
I thought NS2 was not supported because I had the IAA list sorted by manufacturer in AUM and 80% of apps are shown on top because they don't list any
But it's only well-hidden down on the bottom of the list. 😅
Wow, I would know your nephew @McD !
Thank you so much for your reply. I’m a bit confused at the moment.
If I listen to the GAS, I would buy NS2 on the fly and then maybe regret it, so I have to hold myself back, I don't know if you know this feeling...
Ok, I'll think about it for a while, meanwhile I watch some videos on YT.
Thank you all.
Can NS2 export MIDI to Cubasis I wonder?
I suppose another possible workaround for audio recording is simply to import the mixdown from NS2 into Cubasis.
I buy IOS apps as a way to learn new things and to avoid spending the big bucks on hardware. "Gear" costs more than these IOS tools by a factor of 10. So, for a 90% effective discount I get a steady stream of new toys to evaluate and play with.
Lot more than 10 :-) Even on old iPad Air1 i think it was around 30 instances if just sampler oscillators used... on new devices wih A12 cpu.. lets talk about 100 instances (or more
)
Yes
here is playlist of NS2 songs by various genres from various authors... enjoy
Cheers!
FWIW I routinely export stems from NS2 into Auria to then add vocals and do the final mix, works flawlessly. I would imagine doing the same into Cubasis would work just fine.
Mmm this sounds good.
And can you really use it properly on an iPhone??
I am glad I got it and enjoyed my time with it and look forward to it getting big updates. It is worth it even now just to experience the super smooth workflow. Learning curve was practically nothing, which is cool to experience with something like this. It really has made me more excited for the potential future of iOS music.
NS1 was awesome on iphone. I try not think of getting a new phone but NS2 certainly makes it tempting... but then I would want new buds too etc etc never ends.
For some, NS2 is worth it for Obsidian alone even if one is happy with a DAW.
Please, @AudioGus please! I'm trying to avoid pulling the trigger, the videos I'm watching on YT thanks to @dendy are making me feel like a child in a toy store.
Does it work with apps that are only IAA?
Regarding me, from some mysterious reason i like using NS2 on iPhone even more than on iPad
))) It's really smooth experience to work with NS2 on iPhone. Not that it is not smooth also on iPad, but i don't know, there is something on iPhone version, which tends me to gravitate always to iPhine version 
)
Cool.
I wonder if there’ll be a watchOS version too...
This forum makes it popular
I was amazed using NS1 with one hand.
NS2 can be loaded as an app into IAA hosts, but it doesn't host IAA apps, and almost certainly never will.
I have been playing with NS2 for a bit now, but after having installed across several devices...
Why are there no presets for the internal effects?
Ah, so I can load NS2 itself into Cubasis, and whatever is loaded into NS2 at that time will play when I hit play in Cubasis??
‘Cos that would be awesome.
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they are not accessible on iPhone because of lack of UI space (in future maybe there will be rethinked some way how to add to it's UI this posibility)
On iPad there is possibility to save internal FX preset:
On both iPad/iPhone ypu can save whole FX chain (it remembers all FX settings)
I finally purchased NS2 a week or two ago. Any good video tutorials on it?
Yes, I found many. Also by our good Doug Woods, @thesoundtestroom who, as always, is our living manual.
Oh heck yeh. https://www.blipinteractive.co.uk/community/index.php?p=/discussion/366/tutorials-tips-tricks#latest