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
Well, you can easily set up controlled feedback loops with instruments such as iPulsaret and iDensity. The buffer can be set accordingly so that sound is able to die off just enough to prevent wild feedback/self oscillation.
I’d say synths that have audio inputs, which can then be affected by various mod or audio rate fx are solid candidates.
Sunvox (IAA only) has got an audio input module. This will become extremely powerful when it eventually becomes an Au effect.
It may be worth looking into Mobius Lab, which allows you to load various IAA fx and create custom feedback loops between them. Again, this could be powerful if you find a synth with an fx slot before the VCF/VCA. Such apps escape at the moment though, only iPulsaret, FRMS, and Sunvox comes to mind. iPulsaret has the advantage of being AUv3 though.
Prob already mentioned...
Shoom and Xynthesizr into AUM, use Möbius Lab as an effect, put Reelbus on the master.
Done...
If you don’t tell people it was done on an iPad, they will imagine you live in room full of vintage German and Swiss gear with big chunky dials and oscilloscopes.
I was on the beta for iLep... I don’t consider myself to be a dummy, but I could not figure that thing out... seemed needlessly complex to get the same sound I could get from discreet fx In AUM
100% agree. In AUM, setting up fx feedback loops etc is way more valuable than endless patching...
I’ve basically come around to believe the sound source is incidental to the point of not even being that important, as long as it has enough harmonics to chew on...
And I know people here get hung up on iaa vs AU, but there’s a few cool sound sources that no one ever mentions...
Scythe is amazing for weird sounds. And it’s not the scythe everyone talks about! 🤪
Scythe by Burgerkone
Not sure why link didn’t paste. Just search for it...
+1 that!
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/scythe/id451337446
Yup, that's it...
don't even TRY to make anything intentionally... Just bash on the random button.
By itself, it's harsh as $3.00 ditch weed, but because it's so "harsh" there's a lot to play with as far as filters, flangers, 'verb, etc...
I think Heinbach would use the app-equivalent of test equipment: auGEN X
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/augen-x/id1439844878
Analog Kit is The closest thing to ciat Lonbard stuff I’ve used on the iPad
$20. I'm sure it's great, but that seems steep somehow.
Analog Kit looks interesting, cheap too. Don’t think it is AUv3 though, and I’m guessing all this can be done by drambo maybe?
https://apps.apple.com/cn/app/scythe/id451337446?l=en And thanks for the Scythe recommendation, totally free and sounds really excellent on first listen!
Not to mention having patch names like ‘She won’t take her pills so I do’
Not sure if someone commented on the Hainbach presets for Quanta yet. Great stuff!
Yes they are great. Does anyone have any recommendations for other YouTubers (or similar) who are as generous in sharing the techniques behind making electro acoustic and other experimental sounds as Hainbach is?
Can I also ask again more specifically than my initial question in this thread - which iOS synths allow for sounds and notes to be triggered without using any keyboard or sequencer, allowing for example the oscillator envelopes to generate melodies and rhythms like Shockwave does? And then allowing this to be quantized to a particular scale?
Ripplemaker does a ton of self-patching setups, but you should be able to patch something generative like that on most (West-coast style) modulars.
Great Bram, I will check that out, wonderful news. And now I know also that this is called 'self patching', u learn something new every day
Great, I see there are presets there already that show how this is done, like the 'morphing' one. Hoping though for more suggestions that don't involve knowing how to patch cables together mind u, this is a bit beyond me at the moment, though is probably worth learning
This is what appeals to me about how this is handled in Shockwave.
Is there also any way someone could explain to me the actual rules behind how envelopes actually sequence melody and rhythm. From playing around in Shockwave, I am getting some intuitive feeling for it, but I am very far from understanding it clearly. Love the potential though and will certainly be learning as much as I can about this over the coming weeks and months. Probably actually Ripplemaker manual is a perfect place to start learning. I've been more of a preset tweaker til now so didn't explore this much before. These Heinbach explanatory videos have been a kind of Damascean conversion.
If you want to learn, here's an entertaining video on making a Krell Patch (which is an archetypical self-generating patch):
The easiest starting point on modular, is by realizing that sound is being generated all the time. You just can't hear it unless the VCA is opened up by a gate signal (usually coming from a note trigger). However, you can also rhythmically open/close the VCA using e.g. an LFO. Try this and you have the foundation for a self-generating sequence
Here it is on my 0-Coast: just a single cable, connecting "CV" (which works like a secondary LFO on the 0-Coast) to "Dynamics" (which is the confusing Makenoise name for the VCA*). This rhythmically opens/closes the amplifier.
The next step is to make the LFO trigger the Envelope instead, and make the envelope open/close the AMP, etc.
It's loads of fun (to me at least
)
@brambos Thank you Bram! Entertaining video indeed! And yeah, you are right, self-playing patches are insane fun. So do only modular synths produce sound all the time? Is there any way that AU parameters of existing synths can be in some way hacked to make them capable of this kind of self-patching? How to get out of the rut of note- and sequence-based playing in the majority of synths? I’m not sure if I am expressing this clearly, excuse my ignorance, lol.
@rs2000 I downloaded your drambo patch, very cool indeed, thanks again. I will link to it here again for anyone interested: https://patchstorage.com/cross-modulation-xmod-example/
This kind of self-patching is not available in the Moog iOS synths, is it? Perusing the Model 15 manual it seems not for that one at least, though maybe I missed something.
It is possible, but requires a few more cables (because the Model 15 is not "Normalized"). Patch an LFO and an Oscillator into the VCA and the VCA-output into the output Trunk. Freestyle from there
I don't think the Model 15 allows an envelope to trigger another envelope cycle though, like Ripplemaker or 0-Coast. Krell setups are a very "West-Coast" concept
The video sounds like Ipulsaret (granular synth) to my ears.
@Gavinski here is Factory S&H self-generating sound:
Love that video! This tutorial made S&H clear for me actually
Factory is an incredible synth plugin! One of my favs really
Speaking of experimental. Does anyone know which plugin(s) could be used to achieve a sort of „Count to 5“ Pedal?
@brambos I tried that with the Moog but didn’t succeed, guess it will take a bit of manual diving haha. Good to know it is possible. @bleep going to watch now, I’ve been wanting to buy Factory for a while, but held back, if it can do this self-generating stuff, I’ll be sold! @david_2017 that’s a bloody lovely-sounding pedal.
Any Sugar Bytes apps surely...like Aparillo and Factory...endless inspiration and hugely complex....
That S&H video is the last in a series on Factory. Well worth studying them all.
Pitch shifter in a delay’s feedback loop.