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.
Best Grand Piano? Piano shoot-out update
I've found a history of long threads comparing grand pianos for iOS. (links below for reference) I'm asking now for an update--any new developments since the last extensive polls?
**My question: ** What piano app would you recommend now for the most realistic grand piano sound? This is for a guy who used to own a Steinway M baby grand. The cost isn't a big issue. (Efficient CPU use is.)
I see raves for** Ravenscroft 275.** Has Ravenscroft eclipsed Colossus? I see raves for Salamander, but it require Auria, right? I don't have Auria. Is Salamander so good it's worth buying and installing Auria?
Any newcomer that's challenging the incumbents for great sound?
I play ambient and weird, classically-influenced, electronic music. I like to merge acoustic sounds with synths and effects--I play a real clarinet with a pickup, for example, and integrate it as a lead instrument. Now I want to integrate an iOS piano that sounds like have a Steinway D in my studio.
I'm using AUM as my central platform; a 6th gen iPad; a **Roland 88-key stage piano **as my principle controller.
Thanks,
Steve
ThinAirX
Some previous piano threads:
Piano World Cup, Resume
[https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/27342/piano-world-cup-resume
The Piano poll
(https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/20334/the-piano-poll/p1)
The Piano Poll - part 2 (with new samples)
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/26407/the-piano-poll-part-2-with-new-samples/p1
App Auv3 with the best piano sounds?
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/38764/app-auv3-with-the-best-piano-sounds
Comments
Ravenscroft 275 is the best combination of stability, sample quality and piano extra details.
Salamander is a very nice sample and can be obtained as an SF2 and loaded in a few apps for free (SoundFonts for $3, BS-16i for $8 and some DAW's).
Colossus has many pianos options to choose from and the biggest/most expensive ($54?) is truly wonderful but only for solo playing. It's too big even to record on most iPads in AUM. My solution is to load it on an iPhone and record using an audio interface into an iPad. I tend to just use Ravenscroft and forget about it.
Korg Module has a nice IAP Piano from the Ivory folks called the American Model D and it will run in AUM. Lot's of keyboard options available for the Module app. Makes you iPad like a Workstation really for keyboard coverage.
But RC275 is really the best overall. It gets discounted typically 1-2 a year but is worth is price. Nice FX and extra pianos types too. I wish they made more apps other than this one and BeatHawk. They have excellent sampled instruments for desktops so they could make us more apps. Their prepared piano is wonderful on desktops.
For $3 try SoundFonts with the Salamander option from:
https://sites.google.com/site/soundfonts4u/
Salamander won the listeners shootout but solo players would choose
the RC275. The listeners liked the bright qualities of the Yamaha grand
on a flashy Rachmaninoff concerto. Not really typical piano repertoire.
Moonlight Sonata in a listening test might have a different result. Probably one with extra reverb in the samples or the playback engine. RC275 has reverb as a feature along with some EQ control and MIDI Velocity Curves.
Ravenscroft is by far the best IMO. Sympathetic string resonances and pedal sounds are what sets it apart from all the others. You also have some decent control over timbre. There just isn't anything else on iOS that comes close.
The Module pianos are decent, but they don't do the sympathetic string resonance, so when you're playing with the pedal down they don't have the realism of Ravenscroft.
And BeatHawk had a good position.
Nothing new from my side.
I like the tone of BeatHawk Acoustic Grand. Lacks a layer or two at the extremes but it may just be ticket for ambient.
Piano sound is my most craved desktop instrument (I only do iOS). The possibilities out there are truly
Impressive, from the sampling to the mic positions. I have never read of anyone porting a desktop piano performance into iOS. But as I just got access to a laptop maybe someone here will explain it, like @McD. You can also port in DP piano sounds Both midi and audio using a capable AI. I did this to good effect with the Shigeru grand on a Kawai dp.
That aside, I use RC275 exclusively, sometimes coupled with the BeatHawk acoustic.
beathawk piano? didnt saw that coming ..is that iap? edit; i found it on YT yeah hard to tell from here..
@ReflectiveHaze:
From the Audio Layer page on the app store:
• Stand-alone App
• Sample import for EXS24 and SFZ Format
• AUv3 AudioUnit Instrument and Music Effect
• Inter App Audio
• Audiobus 3 Input/Effect with state saving support.
• Audio recorder with share function.
• Ableton Link compatible.
@noob, yes BeatHawk in app Acoustic Pianos
Sold! Ravenscroft 275! I'll buy it today.
Stability is important. I have a lot going on in AUM. The sympathetic string resonance sealed the deal. And I like the mention of extra samples at the extremes of note velocity--the sound of big chords and low notes hit hard on a big grand is unique, and very musical.
I'm tempted to buy Auria to get the MIDI functions, but will hold off for now because I already have too much going on. I've never heard of SoundFont before. Another rabbit hole of amazing sound, I'm sure. I'll wait.
Ravenscroft seemed to be the crowd favorite in those earlier threads. Thanks for confirming it still is.
Steve
ThinAirX
still got salamander for us poor noobs sf2
One additional detail on the Ravenscroft. I have thrown a massive amount of MIDI events at Ravenscroft (and every other synth and piano app I own) and it holds up better than
all the others with fewer missed notes, hung notes or crashed apps. I have buried a few times but usually with a defective script that was putting out more notes that you'd want to hear.
OT, has anyone heard the demo of a MIDI-ed upright piano that can simulate a human voice with just massive amounts of struck piano notes. There are some tracks where they set up to just create massive waves of piano notes similar to laying a 2 by 4 on the keys and rocking it about.
Sometimes I send a very busy drum track at a piano and play with adding extra octaves
of the notes. It's essentially a percussion instrument because of the hammers which are just cantilevered mallets really.
I wonder what WooTT will do to a piano track playing lots of dense note clusters sent by a drum machine app... might make a good Mozaic scripting project to add extra notes in randomized clusters that might even throw away the original note to insure it's more percussion than a pitched chordal instrument. Then test all the piano apps with that to rate them for the efficiency of the code.
FYI: Ravenscroft and BeatHawk come from UVI... so the BeatHawk samples are also good but it won't have all the extras RC 275 has.
I use Salamander loaded into AudioLayer as my main piano. Very CPU efficient
I see AudioLayer is 50% off right now — $29.99.
@McD I like your attitude! Push the new tech to the limit on its own terms, see what happens.
I bought Ravenscroft last night and so far love it. One of the first things I did was hook it up to an arp and set the rate to 16th notes and fed it through a delay.
Do you know Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997), composer. Most of his pieces were manipulations of piano rolls to do things no human could ever play on a keyboard. He started this in 1940. Hugely ahead of his time.
Here's a sample. Drop the needle at about 2 or 3 minutes.
Steve