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 dream of a jamming environment where modulation routing between apps could be super quick and part of the jam, not sure how exactly this could be done, but there is room for improvement in that area.
Multiple "desktop spaces"could be nice also, where groups of snapped together AUv3 windows could be accessed back and forth quickly.
Nice! +1 That's a good one.
I don't understand this one. Saving a session does save the file players as far as I can tell.
yes, or collapse to icons (with names) in a grid, so you can tap on the icon to jump to the channel. Drag and drop rearranging of tracks on this screen would be super cool too. If the icon could include a little bitty signal level meter too, it would help in finding active tracks.
+1
+10
Yeah, I’ve thought that some slight refinements to the fileplayer could improve workflow too.
Am I reading this thread right, AUM is developed by just one person?
Yep. Far as i know.
Ok...one possibilty could be to have a midi routing icon in the gui eg bottom corner next to the keyboard, or top right, tap it to go into midi routing mode...or to save space, long tap the midi matrix icon which changes in some way eg same icon in red with dashed lines etc. (could be hardware assignable too)
Any potential sources could have their outer ring change color to say they are ready for selection or oscillate, animate in some way etc, tap a source. Then any possible destinations reveal themseleves in a similar way.
Touch the destination... then perhaps you get a confirmation message next to the the midi icon, or the outer rings of the two apps go green briefly. Then we go back to midi sources lighting up again.. You could keep tapping sources and destinations until you tap the midi icon (or matrix router icon) again to exit back to normal mode.
Another possibilty could be a long tap on the midi app icon brings up a sub menu which gives you the option to "select source" or "select destination" and then the action of selecting another app in this mode becomes possible.
Could be like the Post/Pre menu in audio fx apps to enter this mode (Although audio + midi FX apps would need it appended to that menu)
..or could be a long tap on the apps "burger" icon brings up the option to select source or detination mode.
Not sure if there are any potential issues with these other than making it all work of course
Do you mean quickly changing how audio is sent between apps? This kind of jamming is where ApeMatrix shines.
I'm not quite sure how that alternative Midi connection method would add anything, @Carnbot. Isn't the current matrix or menu method quite efficient?
As long as it's not always on. Could lead to many annoying channels that need to be deleted.
I was trying to think of best ways to do audio timeline integration, but I see there are complications.
It's not entirely clear to me if apps are allowed to import from that format. If so, yes, that'd be aces as it would also allow for MIDI.
But as far as the AUM-live-capture-jam-wonder, plain old zip of audio file -> [you're daw of choice] would be plenty for me. I imagine someone like Steinberg might be pretty open to this sort of thing.
The matrix is great, but can get long winded and unwieldy if you have lots going on, eg Multiple Midi fx scripts and lots of routing, especially with multiple app instances. It works but a visual routing option would add another touch based workflow choice, just like doing it with modular hardware you want the ports up front, not to have to go around the back all the time...it’s the same idea and means not having to menu dive and can stay on the mixer page. Basically, less work and screen switching to achieve the same thing.
Ah, I see. Yep, you have a point regarding complex setups:)
I got the impression that ALS is just a gzipped xml. A rather comprehensive one, sometimes thousands of lines, but still structured and should be doable to import. We haven't seen it happen yet, though. The Ableton github code supports ALS export, but import would need to be figured out by developers themselves.
Maybe developers who wants to import from Ableton Live Sets could make use of this: https://github.com/andrewcb/alsd
@bleep, @syrupcore : Oh contraire. Geniuses on this very site worked out how to extract the Midi data from .als files so you could use the .als output from Groovebox (or presumably any other app that generates .als files) in any midi program. It was impressive work, and the thread had a very complete script for cut and paste use at the end of it, for those of a technical bent:
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/36093/any-apps-that-can-read-ableton-als-files/p2
TLDR: the script requires a devs app that handles Python to implement, and cutting and pasting the script developed on this forum over several pages of geektastic work, so it still wasn’t a shake n bake ready to go thing for end users (probably too much to hope that someone could do a Mozaic script of it, so I could just download that) but it definitely can, and was, done.
I’m cc’ing this for @j_liljedahl as, along with a pointer to the pages Ableton have for devs on adding .als Export to their work I know someone else has already shared with him here, I want to do all I can to encourage Jonatan to think along these lines
Extracting the MIDI data for AUM when it doesn’t have a MIDI player won’t accomplish anything though, will it? Or maybe the conversation has strayed into other apps than AUM.
I’m also not seeing what AUM could export that Live could make use of. Exporting from groove boxes and DAWs that have timeline based workflow and MIDI I get, but AUM doesn’t have any of that.
@wim: I recently bit the bullet and bought a secondhand 2012 MacBook Pro and installed Ableton Live Intro on it, after giving up on trying to get my Uber powerful Alienware PC to do anything but bitch about interface and routing problems.
The Mac/Ableton combo worked like a dream, and when I fired it up and saw my Launchpad mini, Launchkey mini and Novation Launch controller XL just immediately recognise Ableton without me doing a damn thing, and then saw an Ableton Live Set export I’d made in Groovebox just populate the grids on the hardware and the software with the arrangement I’d made, I thought: ‘Yeah!’ .
The only thing missing from that immediately useful setup was a quick way, Groovebox style, to get all the great stems (audio output and MIDI inputs) I was creating in AUM across into Ableton as sweetly as that. AUM is where I make my noises, using combos of File Player audio clips and ‘live’ MIDI from the likes of Autony, so long form audio output from AUM is what I principally work with. This usually means laboriously setting up 8 channels in Cubase, and running audio live from AUM into it.
My ‘clips’ are usually short (4 bar or less) File player loops chucked through a ton of effects. I’ve recently been advised I can import these into Blocs Wave and do an .als export from there, but it’d be great to cut out the middleman.
Having this work as seamlessly as Groovebox does with Ableton would be very sweet indeed. All I need is an auto zipped package of the audio out from all the AUM channels, rather than having to import each channel loop individually into Blocs Wave, then re export from there.
If an AUM .als export can hack the MIDI too, as it does in Groovebox, great, because then, as a non musician with a tin ear, I can use tricks like scaling and folding on Ableton to clone accidentally great audio noises with their MIDI equivalents, and sort out un musical infelicities by freely mixing and matching audio and MIDI. I am therefore very interested indeed in encouraging Jonatan to adopt the .als export option for AUM, for whatever it can bring.
@Svetlovska - A simpler way to get the audio across to Ableton on your Mac is just to turn the ftp server on in AudioShare, point your Mac browser there, navigate to the right folder, and download them there. Zip the folder first in AudioShare if you don’t want to download each individually.
If you save the AUM session with a recognizable name before recording any audio, the files will be very easy to find.
Since iOS 13 (maybe this was possible before I'm not sure, but I never did it successfully) I find best way is to use a network SMB fileshare from your desktop and save the connection in Files app (in Files app locations the three dots at the top "connect to server").
This way I can browse my Ableton folders (or any other shared folders) directly from Files app and copy files and folders of samples back forth from Audioshare or anywhere else. It's made a huge difference to my workflow. You can preview samples from the desktop before copying them to ipad for example. This works too from any audio unit which supports Files app for importing. The shared connection is saved with Files.
I tend to record directly from AUM to Ableton, but otherwise copying the files this way is very painless and no browsers needed.
Sure, but I didn’t want to go down the path of trying to explain to someone how to set up a SMB share.
Since we’re talkin’ AUM, here, all the files are right there in AudioShare and very easy to get to from any device. But yes, the broader file-share approach is more versatile.
I should have used midi data such as notes and midi cc instead of "modulation".
@j_liljedahl : you asked up-thread about clip launchers to look at. I think ModStep is good to study both for what they got right and what they got wrong. It is one of those apps that is maddeningly close to being great and maddening. The midi mapping and clips paradigms are nice.
I am not a fan of the editing workflow. But the clip launching itself is nice. And I love how you can midi learn anything you can touch (including individual clips).
Launchpad. It’s just about perfect from a clip launch POV. The ability to set sync quanta is important. It deals with tempo well, etc. being able to midi map the clips is paramount as well...
So a launchpad clip launcher widget that can poop out it’s audio to separate channels would be awesome. If it could also record those clips FROM the active AUM session, that would make it fucking awesome (tm).
Yea, but he lives in Sweden and they have like 14 months of darkness where he has nothing to do but create like 3 of the best audio softwares ever created...
And the dude made an iOS drum machine for Nord
I think he also invented penicillin and cured polio.
Don’t forget the five months of vacation at their family cabin though 😉
@wim, @Carnbot, @j_liljedahl himself turned me on to Wim’s AudioShare trick yesterday, (what another great piece of his software that is.) I’ve just started experimenting with the method now, and it does indeed seem to make life a lot easier. I do (seriously!) appreciate Wim’s concern for me about getting too techy re a ‘network SMB file sharer’ whatever that might be - it’s like he knows me!
- but I’m happy to follow a link to something which might explain how to make one in words of one syllable if such a thing exists. Thanks both anyway.
My speculative question wasn't really related to feasibility; it was more around "the rules" as per Ableton. If some rando breaks the Ableton licensing agreement (that I've never read... this entirely a question in my head), they might not care. If J.Lilla breaks the Ableton licensing agreement and later wants to do business with them... things are different.
Again, this is an entirely un-researched speculative question based on a single observation (not on any sort of knowing of anything): the Ableton Export API has been public for a few years now and we've yet to see a developer/company offer an import option. Maybe it's just hard or isn't high enough on the list or whatever, I really don't know. But I'd like to!
@syrupcore : me too!
Actually, now that I think of it, "it's too hard" might be entirely the ticket. I've inspected the Ableton XML myself. I doubt it would be "hard" for any of the current iOS DAW makers to import the sort of Ableton XML export we've talked about in this thread: a simple set of wav files, perhaps even with start/stop markers, lined up across tracks with BPM info and maybe even a set of MIDI files... I mean, considering a dolt like me can make heads or tails of the XML file, it's probably the kind of thing Lars and the Steinberg family (as an example) could do in a single two-week sprint.
But advertising "Ableton import" is incredibly wide open, maybe even dangerously wide open, outside of the constraints of this thread. Imagine being on the Cubasis team and dealing with customers wanting to import the other 83% of Ableton Live Session scenarios not covered by the talk in this thread. Racks, loops, effects, transformations.... Sword, hope, stomach, tail chase, die, repeat.
Even an advertised version of "AUM Session Import" might imply the import of wave files (as discussed) but also all of the routing, random channels just playing existing audio file loops, 4521 MIDI nodes and their source files....
Instadeath.
So, yeah, I guess I loop back around... AUM having the ability to export a set of recordings as a session-named zip along with a simple way to load that set of recordings into a target DAW (that can hopefully interpret the correct name and tempo via that zip) seems like the right amount of usefulness:risk for iOS right now. I know I'd be stoked.
"... and dealing with customers wanting to import the other 83% of Ableton Live Session scenarios..." == a company wanting to support customers who may have, 100% understandably, thought that the advertised "Ableton Session Import" meant "move my ableton sessions onto my iPad just like I left them." Everyone is sad.
Wow. Has to be one of the slickest, most stable and most performant apps I own.
Having a FilePlayer automatically load the latest recording of another channel is something I've been thinking of as well.
Not sure what you mean with auto create new track?
This is not possible to implement with FilePlayer. One could make a simple AUv3 sampler for this purpose.
Just double-tap it and enter the exact value you want!
So it would export a file with the AUM session + any audio files used by FilePlayers, for example? And allow to import it as well. Is this mainly for moving between devices?
The UI would not really be usable at 50% zoom. Any non-integer zoom levels would look awful.
What does this mean?
I agree. Unfortunately it's a bit complicated due to how iOS/UIKit works.