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
Nice @JackDwyerburger! Share some here when/if you want to
That is an astute comment. A struggle my group has been going through.
Foglings started as just a 3 piece drums, bass, guitar, more similar to most of the music I've made most of my life, substituting various instruments on my part (guitar, bass, keys, banjo, etc.).
When the drummer moved, the remaining guy wondered aloud about an electronic drums & bass option. I was sitting there as the rock, folk musician who had always loved synthesizers and drum machines, but had always been vetoed from including them too much by bandmates! So that was an exciting thing for him to say.
And it has been a big learning curve. Not so much technical. I played around with all that stuff just for fun enough to know how to get the sounds I wanted and I'd often added a part here or there into the otherwise rock/folk recordings.
But more compositional. Like, I can play regular drums.
e.g. https://multicellular.bandcamp.com/
But electronic drums don't have the same limitations of 4 limbs, how ever fast I can play, and varieties of timbre.
So that's been my last year, wrapping my head around it. The video above was a milestone for me because it was actually the first serious song I wrote starting with electronic drums. We've converted our live set over, and added some new old songs from prior bands, but this was the first new song started in the electronic drum and bass context.
So that's context but back to your observation, I am so used to playing an instrument and singing at the same time, but my band mate and I have had good conversations about what really makes sense.
Do I need to be doing two things at once? Should I be live looping midi more? Should I be just triggering, controlling loops and playing knobs for expression?
Well maybe all of the above, but he makes good points about just focusing my attention on what is most expressive in that part of the song. And I'm like 'but I can!' I can play keys two handed or keys one handed and knobs and sing at the same time. And he'll say 'but should you? What value has that for an audience?'
Hard to break old habits. I just want to hit play on the drum and bass midi loops and play the keys all the time.
But he's been convincing me. We have some now that just start with a metronomic hat or whatever, I live loop the kick, snare, etc. bass, and then start singing, maybe record some a/b parts, then play the more lead key parts, and switch in and out parts on the Launchpad.
Great thread this.
Even though I am one of the first to admit I usually find it unlikely I will like all music made on iOS because it is made on iOS (it is as likely as I would like everyone carrying a specific passport), it still is very interesting to hear how everyone go about doing their thing on the same platform as I mainly use to do my thing. Also there are probably lots of tips and tricks that can be shared that goes beyond the technical aspect of connecting one app to another, when it comes to creative process etc, even though it quite likely is very personal as well.
Personally I'm currently trying to combine my old career as a guitarist with my new sparetime-career of doing music, which up until now have been solely based on electronic sounds. Having been in bands for most of my life this is also the first time I'm doing music by myself, which is both good and not-so-good. I have no one that picks up the slack when my inspiration takes a dip. Also I don't get the natural input of someone else applying their ears/brains on my stuff. This means I'm moving quite slowly, on purpose, to let tunes mature properly.
I'm currently doing a project where I have set various "rules" that I by and large try to stick to as much as possible, as I've noticed I become more focused when I have limitations I have to take into consideration. An example of a current "rule": use my guitar as much as possible as a midi controller. Another is to only use natural sampled multi-velocity drums on the current tunes. I have a bunch more rules.
I was thinking I would have 4-5 tunes ready by January, but real life etc takes its toll, so even though the tunes are coming together more nicely than I had expected, they also come more slowly, and I'm currently aiming for "Q1 2020". Lets see how that goes. My current "issue" is that even though I'm so far abiding to my "rules", and the intention was to make it all sound more coherent (compared to just throwing the "app of the day" in there) it somehow still manages to sound like 4-5 different genres as well, so I have some more listening/trimming/fixing to do I think.
I'm making a band entirely from droids. Shooting for a sound in-between White Ring and ELP, once things come together...
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/35632/fun-with-triplets-dotted
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/34004/dynamic-scale-key-xeq-sb-spau-ns2
After several years of iOS production, I'm in the process of transitioning back to a hardware setup. With my experience on iOS, my hardware setup will be analog based. I still plan on including iOS in my setup, but for final mixing & mastering duties primarily. I may also utilize iOS to fill any sampling or digital(Wavestation, for example) synth roles.
I've been learning iOS music making while also cycling up a drone/generative/improvisatory project. Yes, I did just create a separate thread for this earlier today, but yes, I'll also share it here too. Because narcissism.
Sagres- a verse of moments by Scarred ArchimedesWelcome @iOSTRAKON !
@iOSTRAKON welcome, I'm learning the Goldberg variations at the moment so not much production been done really. Not that i ever get around to completing anything .. well not since i was making drum and bass 25 years ago. Im sort of addicted to this forum, i quite enjoy helping some dev’s out with bug hunting, one day i will make a electronicy tune again!✊ mixing ios and ableton on PC and my old synths.
@hellquist - rules can be good within the creative process. I’m not patient enough to write that way hahaha. I probably should keep a rule that I can’t start a new song before the last one is “complete”
Awesome! I will check this out tonight!!!
Thanks @kinkujin !!
This forum is awesome @[Deleted User] // I’ve already learned a lot, discovered some new apps and met some great people/new projects.
I love me some D&B. Tell me about the Goldberg variations.
Totally just a hobby for me (that I sadly still don't have enough time for).
Genre? Dunno, melodic electronic; think Plaid and other 90's non-DnB Warp stuff with perhaps some aspects of whatever people like Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds, etc. do (modern ambient / "classical" crossover?)
Here's my YouTube channel.
My shtick is that I do recordings of live jams or performances and some live rudimentary demos. Live to both increase and decrease stress. Increase, in a good way, because it gives me a slight taste, and triggers memories of, real live performance with an audience. Decrease, in a good way, because it's live, so I don't have to feel compelled to edit, tweak, re-write, etc. which is what I do with "real" recordings (and therefore never get anything done).
The only downside is that I feel compelled to do something a bit more more interesting than a screen recording, so I set up a bunch of cameras to capture the performance, and that makes the process more complex, and hence, I don't put out as much stuff as I could or should.
I do think I'm going to try to get back into "real" composing and making more complex and polished things... we'll see.
Funny someone mentioned limitations above. I’m trying to use just one synth, one drum machine and fx to produce eight finished tracks by the end of next year. Having so many apps at hand makes for a scattered mind! I do mainly experimental ambient as backing for my trumpet improvisations.
https://soundcloud.com/thisnorthernlife
Ooh ooh! That is me on many days. Plaid and B12 were huge for me.
I’m working on a Christmas album made entirely with iOS instruments (iSymphonic, Beathawk, NeoSoulKeys etc). I released an album called “A Christmas Celebration with Handbells and More” two years ago (made with Kontakt instruments and Logic X) and I learned that you have to plan a Christmas album a full year in advance! This time, I’m working on the album THIS year for release NEXT year. I love arranging and performing digital music, so welcome to the forum!
Hehe, yeah, well, we are all different I guess.
Me, I have enough snippets and ideas right now, that fit in tonal harmony, tempo and general structure, to compile skeletons of 4-5 tunes that I then start to flesh out (arrange, add stuff to etc). I have another 20-30 ideas that are in stages that only have 2-4 loops and/or chord progressions with vague melody snippets and/or text notes, in the collection of "unsorted ideas". If I were to not write/record an idea for the next tune whilst I was working on the current tune, I wouldn't release any tunes at all I think.
Then again, when I have released tunes, the final stages of putting them together have been quite focused on that particular one though. If nothing else because even after I have added/subtracted all the "stuff" I need to get close to a decent mix, that I then need to listen to for a couple of weeks in various speakers/situations, to ensure I'm not rushing shit out for the sake of it.
All of these stages in the creation and finally release of a tune is for my sake more so than for anyone else, as I enjoy the process, even though others could find it tedious. If someone listens to, or even likes the final result, isn't as important as it has been for me to get it out of my head, properly.
Well, Autechre, Aphex Twin, etc. are actually more what I listen to, it's just my pop sensibilities take over and what I end up making is more "traditional" song structures.
That said, I actually lost track of Plaid and only recently realized they're still going; I really like their recent stuff (Reachy Prints, The Digging Remedy, Polymer)
Really nice! Horns are some of the "synthi-est" instruments, so the blend is lovely.
Don't think I could be that restrictive on my limits, but providing limits or cutting down on distractions is a good thing. I'm nowhere near as much of an app-a-holic as many here, but I'm finding myself getting distracted by having too many options. I'm planning on doing an app purge and getting rid of about half of the collection to focus on tools I can learn and use.
Similarly I just learned that the B12 folks are still cranking stuff out, mostly under different names. Even though I make a lot of sample/synth/box/beats stuff I mostly listen to non-sample/synth/box/beats stuff. The past year I mostly listened to non-electronic music from the 20s-70s.
I’m working a bit less on music lately. I’ve developed some severe eye strain. Staring at a screen all day for work and then moving to more screen time with music... burst a vessel in my eye and have twitching issues. So I’m going to work more sporadically and give my eyes a rest.
Here’s a link to stuff I’ve done on iOS...
https://soundcloud.com/dreznicek
Sorry to hear that @drez // hope you recover quickly. I’ll check out your noise, take care
@iOSTRAKON you might dig the start of Pathways based on Krate music, which is fantastic, btw!
I’ll start there!
Going to work on a YouTube vid using Pure Acid.
Also need to put out a newsletter for the label I work with.
Finally, keep working on the next Krate album
A new track every 5 mins with out finishing any... lol.
Finished this one
Waking a new one, with more swing (thanks to X2)
Hopefully before Xmas...or after!
Now I want to hear this opera for flute, triangle and [more] cowbell
Haha, I have albums of half written songs
This is badass @crony ! Subscribed
@iOSTRAKON thanks I keep working...
YEAH !
So few views in youtube, it's a shame !!!!
Is it done on IOS ? Do you "live" ??
I love Pathway, really cool track also !