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
I’ve been thinking about how to do it. My problem is mainly that its difficult to understand. I do intend to open it up to more customisation but I want to take more time to think about how that should work. It will probably end up being a completely different app that offers the ability to modify the amps. I fear to allow that at the moment because I feel overwhelmed by how difficult it is. If I find it challenging I can only imagine how hard it would be for other people who don’t understand what all the parameters do. Its not exactly a copy of a familiar tube amp circuit; there are components in there that I just invented because they made it sound good but I don’t even know what to call them.
"All the sounds I need?" That might be a tall order -- so far it sounds great. I'll let you know more after some more exploration
And I'll get some examples up.
You’re right. “All the sounds” is probably impossible.
I finished a second crunch style amp today. It will be in the next test version. I’ll start working on the Vox AC clean tomorrow morning.
@Blue_Mangoo i think I’m being fussy, but that’s a clean sound frequently included in other simulations. British clean and American clean. I like my clean sounds and will always want more.
The models you have sound lovely though.
@Blue_Mangoo : can you let me know which of the presets you would recommend as a starting place for these sorts of tones:
the lead tone from "Don't Take Me Alive" or "Kid Charlemagne" (Larry Carlton through a Mesa Boogie I believe)
Paul Kossoff's lead tone in the "All Right Now" solo section (probably a Les Paul through a Marshall)
Pearl Jam "Yellow Ledbetter" (the clean main guitar part -- shameless but well done Hendrix vibe)
@Blue_Mangoo: Really good implementation. You made excellent Amp models and an efficient audio engine. I tried adding additional FX and they really didn't add anything worth keeping. They made things so south.
I did successfully add FX:
add Rooms! for a the geniune mic'ed cabinet sound (a 500ms Own Hammer IR)
ToneBoosters Reverb to match the audio quality of the new Amp Sim AUv3 being tested
I tried other FX but always deleted them as regarding the sense of presence in my headphones.
The noise floor is really low... didn't need a Noise Gate/Leveler at all.
The CPU averaged about 50% and the Clean Humbucker setting needed a large increase in
Input and Output Gain settings to match the other amps level.
Crunch 2 (without the asteric doesn't seem to do anything)
All the amps seem to match the description American, Clean Country, Crunch 1, High Gains
and a dozen flat EQs with some aspect tweak in the frequency spectrum
Controls for Room Size
Stereo/Mono In
Mono/Stereo Out
I think this will really excite anyone that likes the Classic Amps of the last 50 years in there headphones and on IOS recordings. They should also be excellent just straight into a good PA.
None of the masking of the over-designed Amp Sims on my iPad. All the usual AND better than just using AUv3 to build an Amp with EQ, Saturation Apps, IR and Reverb/Delay.
Big win. Latency seems really low and 4 levels of oversampling are selectable. Need to watch
your videos again to understand what they are doing. The colors shift as you go through the 4 options.
I think you have a real winner here. The High Gain ad Metal Amps sound great too. They all
represent the target Amp type well.
Consider offering an IAP the exposes pages of controls that can be tweaked so the real guitarists can design a custom signature but pay for the privilege. Add pop-up help to slip them clues OR add a random button anyone can press to roll the dice until a new tome worth saving pops out in the headphones.
I tried some of my favorite FX from the past and none match the quality of your Amps without FX. Toneboosters did add reverb in any amount without degradation. Put reverb in the app and make a standalone instance as another IAP if it takes off.
I'll try the 2 IOS 12 iPhones I own tomorrow. FAC Chorus also added a suitable chorus without masking the presence. I tested tonight with a 2018 9.7" iPad with 2GB RAM.
The volume mismatch on the Clean Humbucker and the Crunch 2 lack of color need attention.
* the lead tone from "Don't Take Me Alive" or "Kid Charlemagne" ...
This was apparently a Fender tweed deluxe: https://equipboard.com/pros/larry-carlton/fender-wide-panel-tweed-deluxe-amp-5c3
Oh ya, the latency was not distinguishable from the one i have in the helix. Brilliant! That’s the way guitar makes fun!
Thanks, working well here on ios 12. Yes, agree a vox AC clean tone would be great. Personally would like other clean/sparkly/lightly overdriven tones, eg Hiwatt, Dumble, Matchless.
Yes.I favor clean and warm saturated tones and you scratch the right spots there.
There's some solo choices that hit the SRV tones well. John Mayer too? I recall you studying some of his tracks for tone.
The metal thrash players will beg for more FX in the App of the same audio quality. You could make IAP sets of some classic Tone/FX stomps. Guitarists will eat them up if the audio DSP'es implementations are this good.
The settings came back as expected in AUM. I forgot to check for any exposed Parameters.
Just did: all the controls are exposed as parameters to AUM as is the Amp's Gain as an AUM Channel side bar widget. Nice! I suppose an LFO could be connected to the Amp Gain and the Input Gain and Bass/Mid/High knobs and the Output Gain and Bass/Mid/High knobs
The Amp gain would make a no cost Tremolo Effect.
The older IOS 12 iPhones work well too. I AirDropped the AUM project from the iPad to the iPhones to save the pain of set up on the smaller screens. The GUI is large enough the choose Amp models. I can see that the Amp's at the bottom of the List are intended to model some classic FX tones (Rodent and Compress) for example. Nice work.
Interesting. Thanks!
This amp exactly i think.
I’ll check this app later this afternoon.
Another vote for clean/warm saturation.
@flo26 positive vibes your way mate.
Thanks a lot @supadom !
Yeah, this is super lovely, thought I was done with guitar amp apps with what I have 🤣
Love the simplicity and the sounds are really nicely dialled in with nothing offending me and just enjoying playing as I switch through the options...
Maybe an arrow thing to go between the presets would be nice - I don't have any midi foot pedal things but I assume that it would be handy to switch with that sort of thing too...
Top marks!
Chris
Just to be sure of what i’m doing,this is not to be used with ir cab?
The output part is meant to simulate a speaker cab,right @Blue_Mangoo or whoever else 😉?
This is fantastic. I’d given up in all amp sims — instead I use an Ethos Clean analog amp sim pedal, mixer, and monitor speakers.
But this is really quite special. The thing that kills most software sims for me is the feel. They’re fine when applied after the fact, to a recorded part. But when you’re playing, the feel is super important. And this has lots of feel! I’m running it alone in AUM, on a 2019 iPad Pro. Crackles on 64 frames, but 128 is good.
Not sure about IR or anything like that. I never use it. But the presets are all good for me so far, apart from Smooth Solo, which sounds terrible with my guitar.
Very very good.
Thats right. Each amp has its own cab already in the plugin and its not intended to be used with another cab on the outside.
The amp types that dont have an asterisk (*) are not ready or npt intended for the final app release.
I hoped that we could avoid using IRs for speaker cabinets. Each cabinet is designed together with each amp and if you separately mix and match them the result is difficult to predict. Usually when you change the cabinet out on an amp, you do that because the EQ sounds wrong and you want more bass, less fizz, etc. I prefer to use EQ to fix those problems rather than swapping the cabinet because with EQ you have precise control over what aspects of the tone you want to modify.
Some information going around on amp websites seems to suggest that cab IRs can model the speaker response in almost perfect detail. That’s not true. Speakers do all kinds of cool distortion effects that don’t show up on an IR. All you get when you take the IR pf a cab is a replica of its equalization along with a little bit of early reverb reflections. Theres nothing in there that can’t be imitated with a parametric equalizer and a reverb ER unit.
This is a very nice tone. I will attempt to make a new amp model for it.
Great. I know there are buyers that will only buy an Amp Sim that you demo.
I think the App's name tells us something interesting.
It still benefits from an IR product as the next stage.
But it's good to know the intention to add cab to the specific design intent.
In the sense it's a Guitar Rig app with Presets for different rigs (Pedal+Amp+Cab).
There's one preset with a "Rodent" reference for example and another mentions Compression.
This approach is going to generate a lot of heat. But I can see the benefits.
Just pick off the list and play.
Then later sell a "{Can I use the Name?} Pro edition that lets guitar nerds create their own Rib Sims. Since that's a fraction of a fraction sell it for $50.
That would also generate a lot of heat but for a real Guitar Nerd it's a bargain compared to any Amp Sim Hardware. Just $10 more than the Joyo's which are
such a bargain compared to the Kempers, Ox Boxes, etc.
This app with save me $400 because the Boss Waza Air (Amp Sim) Headphones are perfect for me but this makes my velcro'ed iphone on my Telecaster magical in some cheap headset. No latency and no "masking" of the illusion of real hardware. I also think the recordings will rival direct box
approaches for many.
I'd like to see what the @bedheadproducer thinks about the High Gain models for his styles and his thoughts on latencies.
Here is my review of this app.
I’m sorry but I must admit i’m not really convinced by what i’ve been hearing.
I’m going to try to be clear (it is not easy when english in not your first language).
It sounds as if i plugged my amp on a mixing console via line out.that’s the reason for my previous post.
I wanted to be sure that i used the app the right way.
To my ears ,the speaker simulator is achille’s heel of the app.
It doesn’t sound the right way to me.
The preamp section is rather good.
I have a question though : why so much gain? It can be almost unplayable.
When using so much gain,sound precision must be near perfect.That’s not the case here.
I’m sure there must be a right spot 😉.
To be fair,i’m mosty disappointed by the speaker part.
Ir cab are what they are,but for me,it’s uncomparable.
By curiosity,i’ve tried this app before another amp sim ( vstomp hd)...
It sounded great as a booster,overdrive,distortion pedal.
It means the preamp part is ok 😉.
Sorry for this mixed review....
Sound is such a personal thing.
Voila.
Take care!
Flo
.
Those flat spectrum presets are the ones I use for testing EQ settings. They contain only the tube and power supply transformer settings without and preamp or speaker cab. I don’t plan to release them, and the names are not very accurate. The RAT one was originally used as part of a preset to emulate vernon reid’s guitar tone. “Digits have clean” is what came out when “digitech clean” met auto-correct. That was intended to sound like the compression on an old digitech pedal I used to own. It didn’t end up sounding like the original, probably because its an amp, not not a compressor, but it was useful for some other things. Anyway, all of that stuff will be deleted from the plugin before we release it.
If i were you,i wouldn’t delete them as they act great as pedals before another amp sim.
But i’m not you 😉.
OK. It's intended to Simulate great guitar Rigs of the great players but which player and which rig will be left to buyer's as a guessing game and not an endorsement. The originals are targets but you're shipping results that stand on their own merits and not as strict imitations. You're just making a solid list of genre prototypes.
Do you expect to add new "tones" to updates going forward as you keep making them for your own purposes or as a marketing plan to keep the app relevant and generating more buzz with every update. "Yea! There's a Sears Silvertone sound in update 2.3."
Yes. The speaker simulation doesn’t sound totally convincing. I was afraid of using too much processor power because the amp itself is already so heavy. I’ll try increasing the density of reflections in the stereo to mono unit. Hopefullythat doesn’t use up too mych processor power.
Thanks for your input.
Do you feel that all the amp types have too much gain or just some of them? Does it get better when you turn the input gain down?
@Blue_Mangoo : +1 for glyphs to go to the next or previous amp type. Can program change or a MIDI Cc switch sim type? I don't have my iPad at hand. Are the params all accessible by MIDI?
A midi controllable level boost or A/B switch would be useful to switch between two settings per preset. So that when can switch between solo and non-solo
level/tone.
I might add more amp types as necessary. But not continue adding more and more forever. Right now in the beta testing stage I am still working on several more.