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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Good vibes (vibraphone, marimba)?
I'm seeking authentic vibraphone and/or marimba sounds. I just bought Ravenscroft 275 for the grand piano sound and love it. Anything comparable for vibes? AUv3, if possible.
I've been putting the piano sounds through Enso's reverse engine, and yaleD reverse delay. The sharp attack makes a special effect when reversed. I want to do that with vibes too.
I see some recommendations for Beathawk. I don't own Beathawk. I have Thumbjam, which has some great-sounding acoustic instruments (cello, harp) but, alas, no marimba or vibes that I see. Is there a soundfont of some sort that plays nice with Thumbjam?
What's your favorite?
Thanks,
Steve
ThinAirX
Comments
ThumbJam has vibes, marimba, and glockenspiel.
I don’t remember, but you may have to access them through the download samples option.
ThumbJam does have excellent vibes and marimba. You might just need to download them as they are not part of the initial package.
Avoid the ones in BeatHawk as they are drenched in reverb which cannot be removed. A shame as they are otherwise good.
There are a few good free SoundFonts out there. I like the ones here, they can be loaded into BS-16i or the SoundFonts app.
https://sites.google.com/site/carillonsvirtuels/home
FWIW, I like the Thumbjam vibes and tuned percussion but I go to Beathawk every time.
PureSynth Platinum has many acoustic sounds you might like, including vibes. Not as reverbed as BeatHawk. It also has fine acoustic guitar, EPS and other stuff. A great value. I use the BeatHawk vibes to good effect in spite of the reverb, and The marimbas are excellent.
My personal favorites come from Soniccouture.
They have a great choice of NI Kontakt instruments and both the Vibraphone and the Grand Marimba libraries are excellent if you need relatively long and clean sustains, I have yet to find better ones out there.
I have re-sampled them for use in AudioLayer when it arrived on iOS (only the non-tremolo version which is better emulated using the available controls inside AL, in order to keep the tremolo of all notes in sync, like on the real instrument).
Now that AudioLayer has the Auto-sampling capability, what I did a while back would certainly be a much more straightforward process now.
Indeed, like @LinearLineman said, also check out Pure Synth Platinum, it has some quite usable sounds in its large library although I would much prefer the Marimba in BeatHawk too.
It's a real bummer that the BeatHawk Vibraphone is practically unusable. I mailed the devs about it but they don't seem to be interested to fix the deadly reverb in the instrument.
I like Mersenne for non trad percussion.
Thank you for your suggestions. I hadn't gone deep enough in ThumbJam to discover the downloads. I'm doing that now.
I have PureSynth Platinum but didn't think to look there. Doh!
Mersenne looks interesting--ios synth dedicated to tuned percussion. I'll check it out.
I googled Soniccouture and Kontact, which are both new to me. Is there an inexpensive way to access some of those sound libraries on iOS? Is that what AudioLayer does?
Steve
ThinAirX
(PS. I changed the name of this thread. I missed an obvious pun when I first created it.)
None that I know of. You need a Win or Mac machine, Kontakt and the purchased libraries.
Someone should ask them to release compact versions for iOS...
Yes, it’s easy to make marimbas/vibes by turning the resonance down and a applying a low-pass filter.
Also, Laplace works well for some tuned percussion.
Ice Gear!
Johannes Roussel has a nice vibraphone in his soundfont collection, http://johannes.roussel.free.fr/music/soundfonts.htm. I'm using it in the SoundFonts app.
Actually, Thumbjam has an excellent vibraphone. It may be recent. Not a lot of reverb.
Any FM Synth. Specifically, KQ Dixie.
Update: UVI have indeed fixed the reverb issue in the BeatHawk Mallets IAP so I can recommend it now.
Is there a way to listen / play with sound fonts stuff on ipad without buying an app. I'd probably but a AU app at some point if I liked the sounds. Thanks
Some DAWs include a soundfont player (Audio Evolution, Gadget?), so you may already have one. But soundfonts are a mixed bag. They vary from excellent (Soundfonts4U) to dubious. They originated with the SoundBlaster PC sound cards, but new ones are still being created today. So liking "the sounds" will be very dependent on which examples you happen to find.
Edit: Check this older thread. It has lots of details.
Where I can find presets for this?
Anyone knows if the vibraphone in Thumbam is velocity sensitive?
New alternative in 2021? I want to buy the best vibraphone, marimba and xylophone on iOS but I'm not sure which.
https://www.thisdx7cartdoesnotexist.com/
You can find thousands of DX7 sysex files online, and they load straight into KQ Dixie. The problem is sorting though to find the good ones. Dixie can access a zip file directly, so you can load a whole suite of patches in one file.
Oh wow, didn’t realize kq Dixie can load those. I bought it a while back. Thanks for the link @Edward_Alexander. I’m trying to figure out how to load that into kq Dixie now...not seeing how at the moment.
Dav
I've finally built my own with AudioLayer but the Mallet pack in BeatHawk is quite good indeed. If it doesn't exactly fit your sound, a bit of EQ (LRC5, LRC7 etc.) can do wonders.
You can Share the downloaded syx file with Dixie (Open In). The Cart will appear in the Dixie Imported folder. To use the cart in Dixie AUv3, you need to load it in Dixie stand-alone, and save it to the Audio Unit Extension folder.
The free Spectrum bundle also contains several apps designed for tuned percussion synthesis. You can’t beat it!
You can always shave off baked-in reverb by running the audio through FAC Transient.
Thanks, @uncledave. I was able to do it in safari. Before I was trying “open in” using iFiles where I had downloaded it and Dixie would not show up.
Dav
Where did you find your samples?
When you build your own, is this velocity sensitive?
If I remember correctly it's 6 velocity layers. I've sampled from a great Kontakt Vibraphone library (on desktop).
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/soniccouture-vibraphone
Did they remove it? I cannot find it.