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.
Staying productive with aging devices. Let’s talk
I’ve been hooked on iOS music making ever since I was gifted with an iPad 4 years ago. It has been my main hub for making music, exploring sound design and just inspiring me to be creative anywhere. Not being able to update to iOS 11 was definitely a blow but I’m still getting good performance out of apps like GarageBand Gadget and BM3.
It’s been great to still download and enjoy newer apps like shockwave and the Audiokit synths. A little crackly at times but still great !
Just wondering if there are any others out there still working on older devices and what tips/best practices you can share to keep us creating despite the limitations. Also what are some of your most stable go to apps ?
Let’s talk.
Comments
Getting old is terrible
According to Mae West it's not for cowards...
I talk about this many times. Just use monolithic apps and one by device if you can... or AB3/AUM with IAA and the common workarounds. It was possible to do music then and it’s still possible. I have mini4 and iphone6 and I use it more or less like that without many hustle. The other thing is I use more the mac mini for producing and external hardware for live gigs. I don’t believe in Apple as I did and which is better, I don’t need it neither.
So if you keep things simple you should do fine.
Jm2c
I’ve kept and still run iPad 1 (or The First, whatever it is now called). I also have an Air 2.
You didn’t mention what device you’re using, but I reckon that whatever is rock stable on the iPad #1, should be a kind of ultimate baseline for the elderly devices. My #1 is running iOS 5.1.15
First and foremost SunVox and Pixitracker. SunVox is stable on anything and everything, as is it’s little brother.
Beatmaker 2 You mentioned you’re using 3, and all power to you, but if you get irritable with BM3 crackles etc, BM2 is ultra stable (again I’m on iOS 5 iPad 1 and BM2 is a champ in that setting, which says a lot about the solidity of the application)
Groove boxes
Nanoloop
Bleep!BOX
iELECTRIBE
iKaossilator
ImPaktor
Rhythm
Synths/samplers
Nlog PRO
DXi
Addictive synth (the first one)
Samplewiz
Thor
Sunrizer
Magellan
Thumbjam
Arctic Keys (probably Arctic Pro too)
IMS-20
Samplr
iPolysix
DAW type stuff
BM2 (see above)
Nanostudio2 (might not be an option in terms of iOS 11. If you bought the first Nanostudio in the day, it’s of course a gem and should be in your purchases)
MusicStudio
iSequence
As I said these are baseline, runs-on-iPad-1 options.
There are things that I’m sure you can run on your device above and beyond this stuff.
People smarter and more experienced will likely suggest newer stable possibilities
Many more current apps in your purchases, that have been around pre 11, will often offer the option on the AppStore to download an earlier version that will run on 11...
Forgot a great midi sequencer, based around a clip launch approach: Genome
This was something I was actually thinking of yesterday. I believe that older devices are a blessing and here's why...
The apps you're using will stay the same. And that's perfect. Build a MIDI keyboard around it, while restricting yourself to light, but high performance apps.
You don't need all the apps to make great music. You just need the ones that work well.
I have a first-gen iPad mini that’s useless for almost everything. The UI is dog slow. However, once an app launches, it’s not bad. I use it for H9 Control, to remote control an Eventide pedal via Bluetooth.
I do this because the H9 Control app doesn’t work with multitasking. Switch to another app, and it dies, and does a cold restart, every time. The mini is very handy to work around this.
Currently using two iPad Mini 2's And also interested in the answers because these machines will be stuck on Ios 12.
Stable and low on cpu are not always the same
Some apps have higher spikes then others when you open which can cause crackles. But after the spike they behave. Some start of good and turn into a crackle fest or quit on you altogether. Moog Model D had been a crackle fest before but has not been cracking up on me lately after an update. Cubasis 2 was stable but introduced a crackle fest after a certain update which brings me to the advice to never change a winning team if it works on your device and a shiny update comes by; let it pass. On the other hand updates can improve performance on older devices.
There is a big list of stable apps which had been more or less the same for me on Ios 11 and i will come back on that.
As far as synths go Poison-202 and KQ Dixie are low on cpu and stable.
As far as effects go:
RoughRider2
Blue Mangoo Compressor
Kosmonaut
Blackhole
Fac Maxima
Wider
Lrc5
and
TB Equalizer are low on cpu and stable in my opinion.
This is so true. I would be so much more caught up with getting the newest shiniest apps if I wasn’t stuck on iOS 10.3.3.
Most stable apps for me:
IGrand
ILectric
Poison-202
Galileo Organ 1
Sunrizer
I can get a whole lot done with those five.
Yup. My favorite app is Gadget 2 as it still works even on an old iPhone 5. I'm actually building a MIDI controller based on an older iPhone, hence the suggestion. Here's hoping I finish it before this month.
@Samflash3
A midi controller?
Intriguing.
This site but only goes to OS 7.1.2
https://www.findoldapps.com/
Actually looks like web creator is moving site to...
http://ios-compatible.com/us/ipad-ios10/apps/music/free/1/
I use the original iPad (even older) as a dedicated iGrand sound module for an 88-key weighted keyboard. Works great for that purpose.
Great post.
And tangentially, but in some sort of connection, someone also just mentioned that Tony Stark and Lex Luthor are not two different people. “They” are the same guy at different stages of development.
@JohnnyGoodyear
Thank you brother for the good word.
It's more a prototype than an actual build. Combining a few components to make my ultimate controller. But I'll tag you when it's ready.
Good points!
From my memory, an incomplete list of apps that work quite well on an old iPad 1 (max. iOS 5):
Cubasis (Audio and MIDI recording, internal instruments but no AUv3)
NanoStudio 1 (low latency and a nice MPC alternative, supports sampling to pads)
iSequence
Lemur (Custom MIDI control surface)
Genome MIDI sequencer (the old iOS 5 version already supports MIDI clock!)
Loopy HD - don't do live tempo changes though, these will kill the cpu
Beatmaker 2 - you know it.
Synths that work well:
Sunrizer
PPG WaveGenerator
thor (monophonic)
iMini (monophonic)
Track Freeze is your friend!
It allows you to have more tracks in a DAW.
You can blow off the synth track after track freeze to audio.
I have also a post about this maybe worth you a look.
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/19514/ot-the-build-your-own-midi-controller-topic
Also about standalone embed solutions and frozen in time devices including x86 machines too (this not updated due low feedback)
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/31931/finally-some-open-source-serious-embed-platoform-is-emerging
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/29402/building-standalone-systems-for-music-and-video-why-not-making
I like dedicated hardware, because it doesn’t slow down with every new OS update. The OP-1 is exactly the same today as it was ten years ago, for example.
Of course, you don’t get a zillion $5 apps for those…
Besides what has been mentioned already: Caustic, Looptical, iSequence, SidTracker, TriqTraq, iMaschine, Beatonal are all groove / all-in-one apps that are running pretty well on older device
Out of curiosity... I have the same device. Does it run iOS 12 well?
I'm holding it in iOS 11
Short answer: You'll notice a difference. Got a Mini 2 that I've updated from 9.3 to iOS 12.4 and a number of basic iOS functions like selecting and copy/pasting text, typing letters, rendering web pages and using Safari in general has become much more laggy than before.
It's not completely unusable though and that seems to be the price for making it iOS12-compatible.
The music apps themselves don't seem to run worse than before. I have a Gadget project with four Lexington instances that was my "crackling limit test" and when I reduce the polyphony in one of the instances, the crackling goes away like before on iOS 9.
At least while flight mode is enabled.
Nice! Thanks @rs2000
Will still hold onto 11 a bit. Figuring out if I'll ever buy a new device or an older one (for money reasons) - and then decide the os to keep
An older device is also useful to run apps that will not run on newer OS. I have apps that run on an iOS 10 iPad that will not run on iOS 11 and above, like the original NanoStudio for instance.
@senhorlampada > @senhorlampada said:
What @rs2000 said is also true for going from 11 to 12 as far as i remembered Safari was a bit slower. But the loading times for the audio apps stayed more or less the same. I did not do any benchmarking but i more or less have the same cpu limits the OS not being a limiting factor as i perceive it. But lots of apps require ios 11 as a minimum so there is no need to upgrade i suppose. From an audio perspective i would say more or less the same for general use it seems that every upgrade made this machine slower but this may have to do with comparing it with more potent devices they run circles round this aged iPad.
Gotcha!
thanks!
I have an iPad 2 with 16GB of Storage and 512 MB(i.e. .5GB) and that silly harmonica cable. It's loaded with:
Nanostudio 1
Beatmaker 1
Impaktor
SpaceCraft
Seaboard 5D
Sunvox
AudioShare
apeMatrix
elsa
PixelWave
Loopy HD
MidiFire
Navichord
TF7 Synth
AudioBus 3
AB Remote
QuantiLoop
TestFlight
DC-1
IR-1
StreamByter
Bleass Delay
Kaossilator
Photosphere
PhaseMaker
One Man Band
iRig MIDI (adapter with that Harmonic connector... I have Lightning Korg "PlugKey Black")
CP1919
Donut
Space
OsciLab
Jazz Drummer (crashes)
Addictive Pro - can't hear it through the speakers but headphones work... that's a joke)
GrooveRider 16
yaleD
Wider Touch
RippleMaker
...
I rarely use it since I spent too much time reading ABF to make anything resembling music.