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
Yes you are right. This is what I was intending to say but perhaps I made it too complicated. There is a signal processing theorem that states this in a clearer way: you can swap the order of any effects in the chain that are linear & time-invariant (abbreviated by the letters LTI) but for effects that are non-linear or time-varying, the order must be preserved.
So this does not mean that you can put LTI effects like EQ and cab IR anywhere in the signal chain. It means that you can scramble the order of any LTI effects that are in a contiguous group. For example, if you have EQ1=>Distortion=>EQ2=>CabIR then You can swap CabIR with EQ2 because they are both LTI effects but you can not swap EQ2 with EQ1 because there is a nonlinear effect (distortion) between them.
yeah, it is good like it is now, it makes sense like this
I won’t say impossible, but it seems problematic.
If the input were zero or near zero for a long time, we could detect that and put it to sleep on a low power mode. The problem is that it looks like when you mute a track in AUM, it mutes the output, not the input. Unfortunately I have no idea how to make the plugin aware of when the channel output is muted.
Cool, glad the beta’s open. I’m interested to A/B this vs. the Strymon Iridium once I get settled in later.
So far i really like what i’m hearing but also havent tried it with a real guitar. I’m using with AudioLayer exs24 Stratocaster samples and applying after effects like chorus, delay and reverb. Sounds nice!
Question: does the output gain influence the tone shaping or is it a simple output volume control?
If it is the latter then maybe it needs some more range on the lower end. With some of the settings that I have tried, cranking the output gain all the way down has a smaller level drop than I'd expect.
FWIW, I don't mind the CPU load at all for this (iPad 6th Gen).
Given that it's the penultimate component in the signal chain (with only the peak limiter following it), it won't shape tone at all. If you're using AUM, you could add a gain control to further drop the channel output.
My first tests of it on an iPad Mini 2 inside AUM with buffer size set to 256 shows an acceptable performance I would say.
Me too. Some CPU usage is OK when you can hear the results and get god response time.
Now running 2-3 copies will be an issue but that's another class of problem.
People think AUv3 means I can run as many copies as the iPad will support so I bought a newer iPad and I get crackles... ya-da, ya-da, ya-da. Music apps are single thread so extra cores won't help... more RAM won't help in any cases for a single AUv3.
Sometimes I want an AUv3 that spawns baby AUv3's (changing the name, etc) on demand but Apple might not let it out into the wild. Still... it might benefit from more RAM at least and cores. Not sure.
Thinking about it, there are a few ways to address the need that channel switching serves (more below after my responses to your questions).
@Blue_Mangoo said: "people ask for a lot of crazy things".
Sure. But that isn't a reason to not implement critical features. I sympathize with you as I spent a lot of years figuring out what user feedback was important. It is true that no matter what decisions you make there will be some people that scream about what they didn't get. In this case, there is a reason why A/B channel switching is more-or-less standard. And I think the vast majority of players wouldn't need anything more.
@Blue_Mangoo asked:
Not at all. There are few enough settings that redialing them wouldn't bother me -- if not having copying makes it possible to have channel switching. (Again, to be clear, the switching could acceptably be limited to settings within the same amp "model").
@Blue_Mangoo asked:
Essential. One amp 'setup' (preset) needs to save the states that you switch between. Without both states being part of the preset, the feature isn't useful. The whole point is that once you've got your amp set so that you have the lead and rhythm channels or A and B channels set up, you want that to be your preset so that when you get to the gig and connect your iPad and MIDI footswitch and load up your amp preset, you are all set and don't need to fiddle with the dials.
Some other thoughts. While personally, I think the path of least resistance (since it just means duplication of existing functionality and giving it a u.s.) is to have each preset have a full complement or A and B settings and an A/B switch control there is another way of addressing the same need.
The main need is with whatever amp setup you have that you have a simple way that applies to all your presets to switch between what is sometimes called Lead and Rhythm settings or between regular and solo or boosted and unboosted. The key thing is that there is a one button way when it is solo time to get your boosted tone. As I said, I think the easiest way is just having two states of the full amp you could switch between.
For all solutions, there is a simple toggle that will switch between the states and back.
If replicating all the controls for A and B isn't an acceptable solution, there are a few other approaches that serve the same need:
In any case, the key thing is that the A/B switch makes it possible to have the amount of saturation/distortion change (or not) and the volume. The mid/presence boost is nice in that it lets you cut through without necessarily having the volume go way up.
That's true if it is just a gain control.
It’s just a basic level control. Not tied to tone shaping at all. I’ll increase the range from +-15 dB to +-20 db.
Ok. Great!
Did some random clips .. still exploring .. very nice 👍
Had to quickly put through before my wife woke up😀
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2kmjhe5wlvvooto/gain stage clip 1- preset 1.wav?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k7mh5d3kqs7cvyz/gain stage clip 3 clean preset.wav?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k7mh5d3kqs7cvyz/gain stage clip 3 clean preset.wav?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hv485r9x8vi97wv/Gain stage clip 4 slow dancing preset.wav?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tirsn565k2rp7d3/Gain stage clip 5.wav?dl=0
All without pick .. just to check the responsiveness
Keep 'em coming if you have the cycles. Using drop box makes them end up in my iTunes
folder which is good when the audio has something worth keeping these are good for my
guitar efforts. Still learning to play decent rhythm. Do you do any Funk stuff?
@Blue_Mangoo: can you add an auto tuning feature so beginners can play in tune? Just kidding. Trade offs. In tune or pure tone. Low latency or in tune. How about a swing button for that Dire Straights tune? "The Sultans of Schwing". MIDI out? MPE out? MIDI 2 support?
Keep coding.
I get the desire for a two channel setup, but honestly, I virtually always just use a stomp box of some kind in front of the amp for the boosted or lead tone. I'm perfectly fine with that approach vs. switching between A and B setups.
A Blamsoft TS9 or two with the gain turned down (or not) and the volume turned up, or a compressor with extra makeup gain, in front of the amp is all I need.
Can I request a built in tuner??
I think there is currently only one AU tuner - 4pockets ‘analyser and tuner’. Never checked it out so don’t know how good it is.
Yeh, that would be nice. There aren't many good AUv3 options for this.
We made a tuner app called Helix Tuner. I love it and I use it every day but it didn’t sell well so we stopped developing it. I think the problem is there are too many tuner apps on the app store. I am interested in porting Helix tuner to AU3 but if the plugin sells as badly as the app, we will loose money on that project.
Very nice!
This is with pick and sweet humbuckers preset
You reminded me funk drummer lies somewhere with me
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wrcfm38hjg1xrfu/Gainstage clip 6 with dub delay.wav?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t6ml62hkjvnu9hx/Gainstage clip 7 sort of funk grooves .wav?dl=0
Having it baked into the app, or as an IAP, would be quite a selling point IMO
Forget AUM for a moment... think about usual DAW.. during project playback.. different tracks are playing.. you are not using mutes, instea simply instruments (or audio tracks) are sometimes feeding FX chain with audio, and sometimes not - bases on what is happening on timeline.
Just in rare cases all tracks in songs are playing at once - so such optimisation would have major impact on using multiple instance in classic DAW use case...
I see what you mean. That is doable. I’ll post it on our task list.
I don't think it's as accurate as iStroboSoft or IK Multimedia UltraTuner. The 4Pockets app seems to be consistently off by about 5–10 cents.
@Blue_Mangoo British chime was nice, just was I was looking for. Thanks.
Thanks.
If you or anyone else needs a specific tone that the app doesn’t have, I would be happy to make an amp type for it.
To get a really good amp model, all I need is a link to a youtube video or a an audio recording of the tone you want and recording of your guitar played clean with no effects, using the same pickup type and position as the tone in the video (for example Bridge Humbucker or Neck single coil). With those two things we can usually make an amp type that makes your guitar with that pickup sound like the tone in the video.
That’s really cool. That’s sort of what I was hoping we’d be able to do with app, getting to tinker with a lot of parameters to get a model just right. I like the tones you have but I’d probably have fun creating my own, too. I hope you find a way to release another app with more of the engine exposed.
I can send you . You need a dry tone right?