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.
Endless connections & collaborations
To collaborate on Endless, people have to be invited to join a jam. I'm volunteering to compile a list of AB forum users to help folks connect with each other. To get on the list, simply complete the Google form:
https://forms.gle/AdkJcNA253aTAD2x5
It asks for your AB forum name, Endless user name, music websites, and genres you usually work in.
I'll post the list here in the top post. We can also use this thread to post invitations to Endless collaborations
Cheers,
Comments
I loved the idea and signed up. Have made a few promising starts and look forward to sharing them. Bumping this thread up...probably because I don't have enough RL friends that play music.
Let's jam together on Endlesss! Here's an invite to a jam called AB Forum Jam:
https://endlesss.fm/band/6b7a9cfcf94fb7fe28c471bb19d5320fc3782b6de4d63bc569dd902c333c8f51/join
Couple of other jams posted on the other endless thread:
@yourjunk
https://endlesss.fm/band/77efdfc51fae62e69d77d1abb2dc8a31f643251122255e8544f7794d771f8b05/join
@yourjunk
https://endlesss.fm/band/201e7865733df4e0f539ae34024708efc21dd83bc1ebc24484e65c9ed197f2fd/join
@ecamburn
https://endlesss.fm/band/55d312f2b2e9ed8494af282678233a1117e09ce2ad3dcbc681ff9e1f096da185/join
Is it possible to invite other users by username?
I believe you can drop their name into the chat in the jam. But I've never tried it so I don't know if it works.
Just had a little play in @YourJunk’s first jam above. It’s a bit harder with AirPods, going to have to stick to wired for this.
Such a fun little app!
Let's jam together on Endlesss! Here's an invite to a jam called voodo magic:
https://endlesss.fm/band/443d704d562da852321c4c91bad72da7aaadbb98055a1412040aa896f842b7e7/join
I kept turning up in people’s jams and steering things towards techno no matter what the bpm, so I started a higher tempo jam.
https://endlesss.fm/band/512b7a45ca8a1b25082441424c4bae33ca68c869d4b23bae53055ad985e26444/join
It’s definitely harder to hit the beats when the tempo goes up a little, but I’m loving what’s possible in this app. I’m mostly finding the limitations and boundaries to be very freeing.
@drcongo one of the current limitations of Endlesss is that you can't have parallel threads in a jam. I come into a jam and I listen to the old riffs and often want to jump on a couple that could go in different directions. It's hard with the current UI to have two different directions going when the next jammer arrives.
@lukesleepwalker Yeah, very true. I had a little play in the public jams in the app home screen last night, some of them I just hung out in and listened as they were incredible and it was clear I was going to bring nothing to the party. But one of them was quiet, with nobody playing and it was my kind of music - within about 5 or 6 riffs I'd got the start of something really nice going, but the next jam popped up from someone else and it was forked from something waaaaaaay back.
Being able to follow any thread in a jam and switch between them would be amazing, but it's also pretty mind boggling and the UX would need to be really well thought through for it not to be off-putting to new users.
Good idea. Would it be possible to fork an old riff from Jam A and use it to start a whole new Jam B? That should be fairly simple for users to understand and learn.
Yeah, that's an idea. But then you have to consider do all of the users from Jam A automatically get ported over to B? Or just the ones who like that direction? And does it automagically get called some derivative of Jam A jam title? It's not as straightforward as it might seem at first glance.
@drcongo I'll be interested to hear if your experience with Spotify or other sources for music consumption changes after Endlesss. There are some of us who have used it for a while--and hear those INCREDIBLE jams daily to weekly--that have trouble listening to the more "mundane" stuff that can end up as released music. No joke, Endlesss may actually increase overall creativity in some musical genres.
It's definitely changed my own musical impulses already. I've opened it (at least once) every day since release, sometimes to jam on my own, sometimes to jam with friends or strangers and sometimes to just to listen to music - there's a real beauty in the immediacy of listening to something being created live that you don't get on Spotify or whatever. Analogous I think to listening to a really great DJ do something totally unexpected that makes you grin / gurn. Some of the jams I was listening to last night were unbelievable, and I'd be listening to the way it had been arranged and thinking about how I'd never have come up with that, then a new riff would pop in and blow me away all over again. There's some amazing talent in there.
The flip side is that I've only opened a DAW to work in once since endlesss came out and when I did I felt lost in the overwhelming choice of synths and fx that I've built up over the years. The caveats to this though are that I'm on a deadline with work which is sucking up most of my energy, and I'm not overly interested in releasing stuff, I only make music because I enjoy the process of making it. Every once in a while I can make myself have that feeling described above, and that is a real joy.
Thanks for sharing your observations. I think for some of us who aren't always focused on "finished product" when it comes to musicking, Endlesss taps into something pretty deep. I'm glad you mentioned the DJ analogy as I had developed a pet theory that musicians who have partaken of the drug called "gettin in the flow" in a live music situation are more likely to fall for Endlesss. But that could be a wide range of types of performers, not just "musicians".
Like others, working in endless has been unlike any other musical experience I've had. The iterative processing and re-processing of sound has made me think very differently about sound design and composition. I'm now thinking more sequentially from one riff to the next, thinking a step or two down the line. To my ears, this process yields results that are more earthy, organic, grungy for lack of a better term. The results are different that just applying a chain of effects in a DAW channel.
The social piece of it is a hoot. At first it can be a little disconcerting to hear someone take your starting points in a very different direction. But I love how the app connects people doing something they enjoy.
I often use the ‘export stems’ feature to pipe my riffs straight into Beatmaker 3 for proper arrangement.. pretty cool.
Make sure to ask any collaborators if cool to use elsewhere! In my experience, everyone is super cool about it and appreciates being asked.
@drcongo I know what you mean about opening the DAW less when you get into Endlesss. I was using it for a bit during the beta and stopped (a) because I was spending too much time on it and had too much other stuff to do, and (b) I felt I should work on my own tracks and how to use my equipment.
I’ve gotten back into it now because quarantine (which kind of takes care of a) and I can hook up my hardware (kind of taking care of b) ( and as jangomango says, you can export stems. I haven’t tried it yet though).
A few nights ago, I decided to take part in a few different jams using only my korg nts1. Playing with other people and n diff genres really forces you to learn what the equipment can do. Then I did the same another night with the volca bass and keys. For me it’s about learning my instruments and having a laugh.
I set up a jam for korg volca players here, if anyone wants to join:
Let's jam together on Endlesss! Here's an invite to a jam called VOLCAnists:
https://endlesss.fm/band/57c2d79c78560814780281ae06ce64232f4ff528f3f397bafea187c1475c9a75/join
Yeh, I always chat to the folks in the jam and tell them I’m making a video. Then I will name them when I post on the Endlesss discord.
I've decided to take up residency on Endlesss.
I sincerely love it, and it's the most interactive I've been with music in a long while, quarantined or not. Like @lukesleepwalker said, it scratches my itch for creation while eliminating the pressure I feel by never actually finishing anything else. I just export a video every now and again to remind me of high points (for my own future satisfaction), and maybe stems if it's something that I built myself. Turns out all of the time I spent honing my skills in iKaossilator pay off really well in that interface. I got my external rig and/or a second iPad running AUM with all the delicious AUv3 toys fed in (when feeling inspired to connect a few more plugs anyway) and even throw some vocals at it now and again. Sometimes I wonder if I annoy anyone when I show up and feel compelled to impose melodies on others' grooves/beats, but no one has shanked me yet! In fact, everyone has been really cool so far. Perhaps melodies and harmonies are just my gifts and parts to play in the grand scheme of things... 
Sounds like I need you in some of my jams @oddSTAR.
(talking of which, I hope inviting other users by their endlesss username is on the roadmap)
@drcongo Does it work to @ someone in the jam chat? I thought I read somewhere that it worked but maybe I'm dreaming that. I just put an @drcongo in a "throwaway" jam to test it.
I don't seem to have gotten any notifications and can't see any new jams under "My Jams"
That's a drag. I agree that it would encourage much more impromptu collaborations to be able to add someone to a jam directly in the jam itself.
@lukesleepwalker I’ve noticed another endlesss side effect, I opened an actual DAW yesterday and a) what I wrote in it came out sounding like an endlesss jam and not at all like what I usually make, and b) I’d finished the track a day later - probably the fastest I’ve ever made anything.
This is fascinating to me and encouraging because I've always imagined that the Endlesss ethos could shape creative patterns. When you say "came out sounding like an Endlesss jam" you mean more loose and performance oriented?
I think more that experimental things I’d tried in endlesss snuck into my DAW tune and worked. The key creative unlock that endlesss has for me is that everything is fleeting, you can try something, see if it works, and if not try something else.
The speed of the creation might be just down to someone in another thread telling me how to stop NS2 misbehaving and now that it’s solid for me I can mostly fly through it without fighting against the interface like with BM3 and Cubasis.
Nice. Glad to hear it.