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 Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Created a BeatMaker 3 Kit converter that works on iOS (for free)

Inspired by @MrBlaschke to help one of the pain points of Beatmaker 3.

It's a Beatmaker 3 kit maker completely done on iOS.

Here’s the first release for iOS 13 - https://routinehub.co/shortcut/4939

Requirements:
1. BeatMaker 3
2. Shortcuts
3. iCloud storage and Dropbox access.

How it currently works (iCloud)
1.When you press the shortcut (via the Shortcuts app or via the Widget), it asks you where the audio files are.
2. Select the files you want, and write the name of the kit in the pop-up that shows.
3. Shortcuts will use the files in the folder, and will also save the final kit in your iCloud folder at (Shortcuts/BeatMaker 3/Projects) which you can move to your desired location in BeatMaker 3.

(The script will take any quantity of .wav files from 1 to 128, and auto sort it in multiples of 8 banks)

iOS Shortcuts has a ton of limits as opposed to something like Pythonista, but I wanted this tool to be accessible to all (functionality vs cost).

Video demonstrating the kit:

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Comments

  • Sure. What’s it about?

  • I can test it too if you want.

  • Thanks. I'll send you the links in a few hours.

  • Same here. I have Kitmaker also ;-)

  • Can test also
    I am a pc user and iPad pro

  • Willing to test. PC and iPad Pro.

  • Most def. I’m inspired by all your work lately, @Samflash3 !

  • edited March 2020

    Moved this comment to the main post.

  • Great
    Will give it a test drive once I get the kids in bed tonight

  • @Samflash3 Will try later today. A video showing how to setup might be helpful.

  • @auxmux said:
    @Samflash3 Will try later today. A video showing how to setup might be helpful.

    Working on it as we speak (lol). But this is a demo code, so it might be a bit...weird?

  • @Samflash3 said:

    @auxmux said:
    @Samflash3 Will try later today. A video showing how to setup might be helpful.

    Working on it as we speak (lol). But this is a demo code, so it might be a bit...weird?

    This sounds cool. What is the end result of the process?

    Does this turn a folder of samples into a BM3 bank?

  • edited April 2020

    @espiegel123 said:

    @Samflash3 said:

    @auxmux said:
    @Samflash3 Will try later today. A video showing how to setup might be helpful.

    Working on it as we speak (lol). But this is a demo code, so it might be a bit...weird?

    This sounds cool. What is the end result of the process?

    Does this turn a folder of samples into a BM3 bank?

    Yup. It will save the Beatmaker 3 bank folder in your iCloud folder at Shortcuts/BeatMaker 3/ Projects. But there are limits.

    1. Need to make sure it's only a supported audio file. .wav is the recommended format, and I believe it can support mp3 but AACs are a no-go.
    2. Can only take up to 128 samples.
    3. The total number of samples assigned in the pad will always be a multiple of 8. For example, if you insert 5 samples, you'll get an 8 pad bank with the remaining 3 files as blank audio files (I'll try and resize it so that it's a short snippet in the next revision of the code).
  • edited March 2020

    Updated Post.

  • Has anyone tested it? Please let me know.

  • It seems that it is for iOS 13 only. Looks cool, but I am still on iOS 12.3.1

  • edited April 2020

    @espiegel123 said:
    It seems that it is for iOS 13 only. Looks cool, but I am still on iOS 12.3.1

    Thanks for letting me know. I’m not sure if I can make it for iOS 12.3.1 since I don’t have that version. I do have an older iPhone 6 running 12.4 and I’ll test it tomorrow and see if I can convert it.

  • @echoopera I actually made this project with you in mind (Hint: GrooveBox/Blocs Wave to BeatMaker 3)

  • @Samflash3 said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    It seems that it is for iOS 13 only. Looks cool, but I am still on iOS 12.3.1

    Thanks for letting me know. I’m not sure if I can make it for iOS 12.3.1 since I don’t have that version. I do have an older iPhone 6 running 12.4 and I’ll test it tomorrow and see if I can convert it.

    In the meantime, I simplified the code. No need to follow the steps on the video. Just click the shortcut and it’ll do the work for you.

    I suspect iOS 12.4 and 12.3 use the same format for Shortcuts.

  • @Samflash3 Working really well! Thanks for making this. Is it possible to keep the original filenames? Will make it a lot easier to tell which pad is what sound.

    Also, I'm wondering if same thing will work for NanoStudio format. All these bank file formats are variations on xmls.

  • edited April 2020

    @auxmux said:
    @Samflash3 Working really well! Thanks for making this. Is it possible to keep the original filenames? Will make it a lot easier to tell which pad is what sound.

    I wish. I'm not sure how the .bmk3 is encoded as, so I wasn't able to open it and see how the code works. If I could extract it, then it is possible.

    Funny enough, my initial draft was for a script that would have done exactly what you wanted (potentially) but for BeatMaker 2. Sadly, it did not work on BeatMaker 3. But I also don't have BeatMaker 2 to test that code.

  • @Samflash3 said:

    @auxmux said:
    @Samflash3 Working really well! Thanks for making this. Is it possible to keep the original filenames? Will make it a lot easier to tell which pad is what sound.

    I wish. I'm not sure how the .bmk3 is encoded as, so I wasn't able to open it and see how the code works. If I could extract it, then it is possible.

    Funny enough, my initial draft was for a script that would have done exactly what you wanted (potentially) but for BeatMaker 2. Sadly, it did not work on BeatMaker 3. But I also don't have BeatMaker 2 to test that code.

    You can put a bmk3 file in the free Documents app (or AudioShare) and rename it so that it has .txt as the extension. You can then read the file in a text editor.

  • Yup! It worked. Brilliant. Wow, I was trying to figure out a way to do this for weeks. Except I was using a computer and a bmk2 file. Wow.

    What syntax is a bmk3 bank? 2 is an xml file so it’s very easy to work with.

    Anyway, this is really rad. You know, bmk2 banks will open in 3 with no issues, I had been making new kits in bmk2 form and I never even owned 2, only 3.

    Anyway, really nice work.

  • @animalelder said:
    Yup! It worked. Brilliant. Wow, I was trying to figure out a way to do this for weeks. Except I was using a computer and a bmk2 file. Wow.
    Anyway, really nice work.

    Thanks.

    You know, bmk2 banks will open in 3 with no issues

    That’s what I thought too. I made a bank earlier in 2018 and it had a .bmk format. But when I wrote my initial script using that XML file, I couldn’t get it to work. So I redid the project and went about it a different way. But, I didn’t open the .bmk3 file.

  • Either way, congrats.

    Does it modify the bmk3 file at all, or is it because it's renamed the files so that they link to the bank?

    What if the shortcut stored the names of the files in a dictionary and then applied it to the templates?

    I have some skeleton code of a BMK2 bank if you want to look at them.

  • @animalelder said:
    Either way, congrats.

    Does it modify the bmk3 file at all, or is it because it's renamed the files so that they link to the bank?

    What if the shortcut stored the names of the files in a dictionary and then applied it to the templates?

    I have some skeleton code of a BMK2 bank if you want to look at them.

    Sure. I'll send you a direct message, and also share what I was working on for BeatMaker 2.

  • @auxmux said:
    @Samflash3 Working really well! Thanks for making this. Is it possible to keep the original filenames? Will make it a lot easier to tell which pad is what sound.

    Also, I'm wondering if same thing will work for NanoStudio format. All these bank file formats are variations on xmls.

    Back to this...
    The audio files are stored in the folder. So, if you find a "Pad" sound you like, you can find the audio file in the folder.

    For Nanostudio, I haven't dived into it deep either. Would you be able to give me an example of a Nanostudio file so I can analyze a bit later?

  • @espiegel123 said:

    @Samflash3 said:

    @auxmux said:
    @Samflash3 Working really well! Thanks for making this. Is it possible to keep the original filenames? Will make it a lot easier to tell which pad is what sound.

    I wish. I'm not sure how the .bmk3 is encoded as, so I wasn't able to open it and see how the code works. If I could extract it, then it is possible.

    Funny enough, my initial draft was for a script that would have done exactly what you wanted (potentially) but for BeatMaker 2. Sadly, it did not work on BeatMaker 3. But I also don't have BeatMaker 2 to test that code.

    You can put a bmk3 file in the free Documents app (or AudioShare) and rename it so that it has .txt as the extension. You can then read the file in a text editor.

    Thanks for the tip. It's weird that Audioshare isn't showing the text document anymore. I actually thought that the document couldn't be converted.

    I can now see the .bmk3 file. It'll take some time to fully analyze it but I can (potentially) do a lot more with it.

    Although, I've decided to keep this as simple as possible as a proof of concept. The Shortcuts BeatMaker 3 kit seems to be working for its current application. If I do decide on making a more robust tool, I'll rewrite the logic using this file. I'm still trying to decide what's the best way to make a usable tool.

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