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
Hey @royor
I see that iFX Rack is again in price 5$ instead of 10$ from 02 of December. I mean main app (not IAP) - but maybe IAP are on sale now as well. Cheers
Thanks for the heads-up.. I actually picked up the IAPs for 1/2 price just the other day.. I kept opening iFX Rack to check if they rectified the situation.. and eventually they did.. I should've updated my post (again) but with all the Black Friday craziness I kinda forgot.. hope you took advantage of it if it was on the your list..
It really is great for guitar fx - BUT - I'm sure I'll be using it a fair bit on other stuff too..
I've been using this app for a while now and thought I'd post a little mini-review. I recently wrote some thoughts on piano apps in general and want to add a few more notes here specific to NSK.
There are already a bunch of positive reviews here and I agree with them - I think it's great and the best overall choice of EP apps for features and having AU support. So consider this comment 90% positive.
As far as the accuracy of the sound, I don't have and haven't played any of the instruments in real life, so I can't say for sure. I do have a Yamaha Reface CP which, from what I've read and heard, is the (affordable) gold standard when it comes to matching the real thing. None of NSK's pianos sound quite like the Yamaha, and they lack the "bark" you get when playing hard. NSK sounds good to me though, and might even be more practical (lacking the extreme bark) for regular playing. Still, I'd be curious to hear if anyone's worked out any presets that come closest to the Yamaha/Reface CS sounds.
From a user interface perspective, I have some criticisms:
The first thing I have to do in NSK when I start it up is find the preset I want to use. Most of the time, that would be the preset I had loaded last time I used it. A lot of other apps save your exact state on quit - iLectric, iGrand, Garage Band, NanoStudio, Moog Model D, etc. I wish NSK would do this, including remembering any unsaved tweaks.
A lot of people never actually quit apps, but with music apps you kind of need to because otherwise they'll play in the background if you wanna play something else. (Background playing is sometimes what you want though, like playing along with some other app in the foreground, so it's good that it does!) But because you quit them frequently, all the more reason to have them remember exactly how you left them.
Also as noted in my other comment, there's no option to prevent the tablet from sleeping! This is like the only audio app I have that doesn't do this. You're going to spend a lot of time playing without touching the tablet, so not behaving like other keyboard apps is irritating.
Another minor thing - if I forget to plug in my MIDI keyboard until after I start the app, it won't recognize it automatically. I have to go to MIDI options, refresh the list and select it. Other apps like iLectric will figure it out for me making them seem less of a hassle to use.
Basic point being, if I just want to sit down and start playing, I know I can tap the iLectric icon and bam I'm playing. With NSK I'm always thinking, what will I have to set up first? My subconscious feeling about the app is that the first thing I'll be doing is navigating some not-very-attractive menus and dealing with other unnecessary hassles.
I talk a lot about iGrand/iLectric, but I really think app developers should look at how nice and immediate and aesthetically pleasing those apps are to use. They may have older sound engines, but from a UI design perspective they are classics. And having a metronome is definitely handy for anyone who wants to use the app to practice.
@spacejack I have similar thoughts to you, especially around the UI. See my post here:
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/37302/neo-soul-keys-2-feature-requests
Can a moderator please edit the name of this post. Every time I see it I think that neo soul keys 2 is on sale...
I second that emotion. Or @GospelMusicians could throw us a Coronavirus “End of the World” sale since we’re all going to be home existentially navel gazing...
+1 This headline aging problem drives me crazy.
Where is the harm in making a new thread and in the body of the first post pointing to am older relevant thread?
The reality is that @michael is busy with Loopy Pro and his family duties so he's not hovering about for
editorial maintenance tasks. It amy also be a feature of the forum software being used for the site that
headlines are locked down after 30 days and no one can edit them.
It's really a petty annoyance and on the whole the forum has relatively few frustrations and limps along without a massive maintenance crew being required.
The one moderator I was aware of elected to give up the "privilege" so he could be more vocal on the forum without reflecting on our host.
Busy as I am, I still respond to my name, so feel free to just tag me with requests. What title would you like? I’m right in the middle of making dinner at present so I don’t have time to go through and pick one myself 😀
Nice Michael, thanks for listening! Since it was started by Gospel Musicians, how about 'Neo-Soul Keys® Studio 2 official thread'?
And yeah, I heartily second the motion that they take a leaf out of Moog's book lol
If you set up and save an AUM session with NS Keys set to your preferred preset you should be able to workaround most of your issues.
Sorry everyone for re-using an old thread. I assumed it would be appreciated over making a new one, and I didn't see a better candidate to have ongoing discussion about it. Maybe I should have added it to @TimRussell's thread.
@richardyot thanks for the suggestion, looks like one more reason to get AUM then. Or maybe I'll set something up in NS2, which I already have.