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.

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2020 current best sequencers / generative apps for ambient music?

Wondering what people's recommendations are here. Saw a lot of love for Aphelian some time back but then maybe sensed that people were leaning more towards Polyphase. Both of these look really good to me, but I would prefer to only buy one. I really love Ionarics, apart from the fact that it doesn't save notes. Don't like Cality very much, seems a bit too random. Stepbud is pretty nice. Autony is a bit better than Cality for me, but no shuffle, and not quite musical enough. Not enough control over parameters.

I like Fugue Machine but it is not random enough. Ideally want something that can be a bit random while still being very musical, but also possibilities to work creatively with the sound, with a focus on live performance. Stability in AUM is important! Don't mind a steep learning curve as long as it pays off. I know there was a thread about this a few years ago, would appreciate more current suggestions though! Also, there was a new thread about sequencers recently, but here definitely my focus is on ambient music and something with a good generative aspect. Thanks in advance folks.

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Comments

  • edited April 2020

    Drambo. It’s all i use now.

  • That's a good point, I got it in the recent round of sales but have been focusing on learning other things, still haven't got round to exploring it properly at all yet

  • I would have thought anything modular would do the job. I made a conscious decision not to get into MiRack but I bet that's perfect.

  • @Gavinski said:
    That's a good point, I got it in the recent round of sales but have been focusing on learning other things, still haven't got round to exploring it properly at all yet

    Open it. Learn it. Explore it. Use it. Love. Love it. Drambo is everything you need...trust me...

  • Mirack with all it’s turing machines and marbles. Then AUM with autony/cycle + few mozaic mutators like minimal wizard and random. Or just get some generative scripts in mozaic if you don’t use MiRack.

  • Wotja20 for generative music. Its quite a different experience!

  • edited April 2020

    I’ve used Cality a lot. It’s just fast and I like how it changes phrases at 80% or so reliability. It’s not solid enough to be my nr one though.

    Polyphase is beautiful but for me it requires a bit of preparation, ie saving snapshots.

    Xynthesizr random is great at small amounts. This is my fav plugin of all times.

    These two however are not AU and that’s a bummer for my workflow.

    I’ve used a number of Mozaic scripts lately: chordial, MSG II. Midi marble is great.

    I’ve been playing lately with Suggester feeding poly2. Suggester takes time but the combo allows for complete progressions.

    I want to like stepbud but that + - hit and miss button drives me nuts. How difficult is it to drag and drop?

    Cykle, which may be not generative but the results are so unpredictable (for me) that it is always a surprise. More scales @cp3 !! 😎

    Check also the rozeta plugins. Rhythm feeds scaler. Scaler’s pre-transpose is modulated by an lfo. Let it run.

    Drambo is not for me. Too time consuming.

  • edited April 2020

    @Gavinski not to hijack your thread, but here’s a little example of something ambient in nature i composed using Drambo. It was a bit of a breakthrough for me...this piece made me realize that i have 5-8 OctaTracks at my disposal using Drambo all within AUM. That just blew my mind. FWIW, I’ve only had Drambo for 2 weeks, so I’ve barely scratched the surface of what it offers...

    Here’s the track...not sure if it’s in your style or some variant of what you like composing, but I’m in the 70-85bpm range when i create my pieces. 🙏🏼💕

  • so many great things for ambient on ios...

    my suggestions

    poly 2 is great to get random / generative sequences that you set the control over before hand, it’s really easy to do... and it sends midi out to any synth you want, as well as great for playing samples. i’ve been really loving this recently

    fugue machine. i love to open up fugue machine and a synth and set them up , open on the same screen , half size em at same time and make little jams on the fly , its so easy, just pop in some notes and let it play while you adjust synth parameters manually, occasionally switching out the notes , changing the play heads and adjusting the out pitch slider n fugue. for live play and coming up with jams and ideas this is my fav exercise. i do it everyday 😎

    then drambo. if i had to pick only one.
    with drambo you don’t really get the fun of live play in the same way as fugue, but for creating complicated songs with changing parts and structure, this is the ticket. it’s a beast even if you only use it as a sequencer for your other synths

  • edited April 2020

    Beside my guitar and everything @reasOne and @echoopera said I add Riffer to the table. 🙌🏼
    Great thread

  • For those saying Drambo, can you suggest how to get generative sequences out of it? I assume not using the sequencer itself, but I'm not sure which modules could create generative triggers (and can you quantize the pitch?)

  • imma add stepbud to the list as it is a very unique sequencer , and it’s workflow has you creating patterns you probably wouldnt have thought of with other workflows... is great to do arpeggios, bass , pads, drums... it’s one of my fav ways to come out of a creative slump

  • Great thread indeed, thanks guys. Mirack is tempting because definitely I like the idea of the power of modular, and there are all those patches ppl have done on patchstorage, but it is a bit daunting for my current skill level, I'm kind of in the same boat as @SpartanClownTide here. That said, I have plenty of free time at the moment fortunately / unfortunately, lol, so it's maybe the right time to dig in. But it is not AU yet is it? I do buy non-AU stuff from time to time, but am overall reluctant to do so. Also Drambo seems probably easier to learn and is maybe similar in what it can do?

    @echoopera this piece is very nice, listening now. I'll watch it later to actually see what drambo is doing here.

    @god haven't heard of wotja20, thanks, will check a few vids, doesn't seem to be AU though.

    @david_2017 yes, I bought both playbeat and riffer a few weeks ago, messed around with Playbeat more, thanks for reminding me to check out riffer, had actually already kind of forgotten about it haha.

    @reasOne yes, Poly2 is another one that is tempting, Fugue is great definitely.

    @Monome lots of good tips here, thnx a lot

  • Don't see Gestrument Pro mentioned much here btw, any fans?

  • mirack ! right now that’s where my focus has been going, ive been delaying long enough on really understanding modular...
    so i’m mostly using mirack/drambo/poly2 right now... with aum of course

  • yes, gestrument pro for president!

  • @Gavinski said:
    I like Fugue Machine but it is not random enough.

    Send Fugue to some randomizer scripts in Mozaic before sending to the destinations? There are probability gates, randomize velocity, scalers, generators based on incoming midi, ...

  • Poly 2 is great for ambient noodles.

  • @Gavinski said:
    Don't see Gestrument Pro mentioned much here btw, any fans?

    never got along with it, lots or bouncing around and can’t get into the flow, but i’m probably doing it wrong lol

  • @reasOne said:

    @Gavinski said:
    Don't see Gestrument Pro mentioned much here btw, any fans?

    never got along with it, lots or bouncing around and can’t get into the flow, but i’m probably doing it wrong lol

    Yeah, it was one of the first apps I bought, I also didn't gel with it much, maybe worth a revisit though. I really felt the lack of pitch bend there. @bleep good idea about piping fugue through a randomizer, don't know why I didn't think of that 😂.

    Watching some videos with cykle now, looks nice, very few vids on YouTube for this though... Interface looks appealing for live play. Poly2 is definitely tempting also.

  • @bleep said:

    @Gavinski said:
    I like Fugue Machine but it is not random enough.

    Send Fugue to some randomizer scripts in Mozaic before sending to the destinations? There are probability gates, randomize velocity, scalers, generators based on incoming midi, ...

    very.

  • edited April 2020

    Thing is, I like stuff that has pitch bends and a kind of morphing feeling. Not sure that any of these randomizes will bring to fugue the quality that I am looking for. One thing I really love, for example, is the kind of fluid morphing between melody and rhythm that self-patching modular synths do. It’s the lack of this quality that puts me off things like Autony. So use mirack, you say...Well, I’m just looking for some other ways to achieve that that don’t involve cables etc. Still may end up going down the mirack/drambo route though

  • I'm a bit of a broken record on this one, I know/sorry, but if you're OK with it not being AU, Quantum will prolly make you real happy if you spend a little time with it.

    One of the many interesting features in Quantum that sets it apart from other step sequencers is it's ability to set the step time per step. By default, each step is 1/16 like most other step sequencers. But any step can be set to any (musical) length. So you can set step 1 to be two bars and then steps 2-5 to be 32nd notes. You can do this across 64 steps. Then set it to one of the jillion play directions and leave the room. You can also (while it's still playing) select a set of steps to play so you could set a sequence of, say, 16 steps and randomly (or methodically) select sections to play.

    You can also use another sequencer rack (it has 6) to adjust the timing (or transposition) of any other sequence.

    Imagine this simple set up:
    Seq 1 = 4 steps: c4, e4, a4, b4. (any old notes will do)
    Seq 2 = 5 steps: notes don't matter but set the step durations to: 1/16, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/1. Set the play back to random.
    Seq 3 = 3 steps: C, D, E. Set each step duration to 1/1 (1 bar)

    Make Seq 3 the transposition source of Seq 1.

    You'll get the original sequence for a bar, then the seq transposed up a whole step for a bar (D) and then the sequenced transposed up two steps for a bar (E).

    Then make Seq 2 the timing source for seq 1. I have no idea what you'll get but it'll be the same notes, each at very different timings.

    That's before you add any of the step probability, skip/mute steps, follow actions, etc.

    Quantum is a universe.

  • @syrupcore have you tried stepbud? seems very similar to quantam and is auv3. i don’t have quantum but from your description stepbud sounds like the closest thing to it... it has parameter locks / per step rates/ ratcheting/ velocity/ gate / pitch bend/ probability / repeat count / portamento / swing

  • Gestrument is amazing but is a world in itself. I like it but I just limited time to learn new things and my priorities are somewhere else.

    The same with quantum. It is really deep but has its learning curve.

    I was also thinking on miRack. With AU you can have all those synths, filters and sequencers incorporated in your usual workflow. I don’t know if it’s ready now or coming soon. Been busy with other things.

  • Yes, that will be pretty amazing when it becomes AU. Mirack is so cheap right now there seems no harm in buying, but I know that I want something right now that will not be so hard to learn. Definitely long-term I want to get there

  • edited April 2020

    @Gavinski said:
    Yes, that will be pretty amazing when it becomes AU. Mirack is so cheap right now there seems no harm in buying, but I know that I want something right now that will not be so hard to learn. Definitely long-term I want to get there

    Not hard to learn and generative... I would go for Polyphase. It works well in stand alone (the synth sounds sweet) and as IIA. Four voices, solid and really well thought.

    Regarding miRack, it's not yet AU but IIA. There is a good integration with AUM (haven't tested other hosts), you can send and receive MIDI this way. Drambo's workflow seems faster but I have fiddled a little with VCV rack so I think I will stick to this if I'm in the mood of building things before playing them.

  • @echoopera said:
    @Gavinski not to hijack your thread, but here’s a little example of something ambient in nature i composed using Drambo. It was a bit of a breakthrough for me...this piece made me realize that i have 5-8 OctaTracks at my disposal using Drambo all within AUM. That just blew my mind. FWIW, I’ve only had Drambo for 2 weeks, so I’ve barely scratched the surface of what it offers...

    Here’s the track...not sure if it’s in your style or some variant of what you like composing, but I’m in the 70-85bpm range when i create my pieces. 🙏🏼💕

    That's beautiful, @echoopera as always. Listening while writing to @Gavinski

  • @Monome I’m leaning a bit more towards Cykle as it is AU, and it seems the dev has been really amazing at updating the app since it came out. Do you use it?

  • FPCFPC
    edited April 2020

    Cosm can take you down a certain path. More of an audio toy / relaxation noodler than a synth or sequencer but I find it quite inspiring.

    A challenge to get it to do what you want so I tend to start with it and let it dictate key and feel etc then add other stuff around it.

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