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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Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Cubasis 2 (NOT 3!) vs Auria Pro - moving on from Garage Band...(AU automation wanted badly!)

Hey I know there’s a few past threads comparing Cubasis 3 and Auria Pro and while I’m still not sure what I would choose between those two I was wondering about a comparison between the current status of Auria Pro and Cubasis 2 because...

I am running iOS 12 and still weary to update to 13, which is required for Cubasis 3, and also the fact that Cubasis 2 is about half the price of Auria Pro makes it tempting if it will suit my needs, which are as follows...

I’ve been happily using Garage Band for my compositional/arrangement DAW tool, and continue to be pleasantly surprised with what it can do despite its simplicity (perhaps because of it!) and especially it’s cost, but have become frustrated with the “Optimizing Performance” (which often happens when things get complex, sometimes destroying quality while exponentially increasing the file size), and primarily the lack of external AU plugin automation capabilities, track grouping, and sends, etc. I’m sure there are plenty of other features which I would end up being excited about but for now this is the main reason I am ready to spend some cash to take on a more complex DAW. I am almost entirely working with audio, with lots of splicing and dicing and effects, so MIDI stuff and tricks is not that important to me at the moment.

Comments

  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • Which iPad?

  • @ManWhoWouldBeStrings said:
    ... track grouping...

    There's no subgroups in Cubasis 2 ; only in Cubasis 3.

  • edited July 2020

    Based on "I am almost entirely working with audio, with lots of splicing and dicing and effects, so MIDI stuff and tricks is not that important to me at the moment." I would say that Cubasis 2 is not a good choice given that the editing resolution (PPQ / pulses per quarter) is extremely coarse. It also does not allow for re-arranging of AU fx. As mentioned above there are no subgroups.

    Cubasis 3 may do what you want. Editing and moving events on the timeline is really clunky for me though compared to Cubasis 2.

    If Beatmaker 3 did not have some terrible AU automation bugs that have been there since launch years ago I would recommend it in a heartbeat as for editing audio (as samples on pads) it is fantastic.

  • @BCKeys
    I’ll try to find a good example, but I typically delete the projects as I try to make duplicates as much as possible to avoid the problem. What I remember the problem actually being now was not so much sound quality destruction as much as timing issues...like after an Optimizing Perfomance thing some of the smaller fraction of a second samples no longer were in the right place, just slightly off, and particularly delays just sounded out of sync. And it happens to me anytime a project gets quite complicated and I’m moving around fast cutting/pasting/trimming/altering AU parameters etc...anyways main thing I’m tired of GB for is the lack of AU automation

    @MobileMusic
    iPad Pro 2018

    @AudioGus said:
    Cubasis 3 may do what you want. Editing and moving events on the timeline is really clunky for me though compared to Cubasis 2.

    I’m confused here...you mean that moving events around on the timeline is better in Cubasis 2? But before you said you wouldn’t recommend it for moving audio around...?

    I’m really basically looking for something with the ease and quickness of Garage Band but with a few more features, primarily AU automation and track grouping/bussing.

    It seemed to me the top contenders are Auria and Cubasis, and as I’m not sure yet if updating to iOS 13 is a good idea I’d decided on Auria until realizing I could run Cubasis 2 if it fits the bill. Though if Cubasis 3 is really the way to go for my needs over Auria I might consider updating iOS...thanks

  • For editing multiple audio tracks with fine resolution, Audio Evolution works well, it has become my go-to multitrack recorder and editor, also on iPhone.

  • edited July 2020

    @ManWhoWouldBeStrings said:
    I’m confused here...you mean that moving events around on the timeline is better in Cubasis 2? But before you said you wouldn’t recommend it for moving audio around...?

    The timeline in Cubasis 2 is really low-resolution, even for audio events, so you can't do anything near sample-accurate editing.

    Basically your choices are as follows:

    If you want bussing and good audio editing you need Auria

    If you want AUv3 automation you need Cubasis 2.

    Pick your poison :)

    BTW there is no reason to stay on iOS 12, iOS 13 is absolutely fine and offers some pretty useful features.

  • edited July 2020

    @AudioGus said:
    Cubasis 3 may do what you want. Editing and moving events on the timeline is really clunky for me though compared to Cubasis 2.

    I’m confused here...you mean that moving events around on the timeline is better in Cubasis 2? But before you said you wouldn’t recommend it for moving audio around...?

    Yes, selecting and simply moving events is more solid for me in Cubasis 2. In Cubasis 3 the touch interactions are flakey. If I tell Cubasis 3 to move an event it often pans the timeline. The touch awareness or whatever you want to call it is highly flakey for me and long pressing in Cubasis 3 to select multiple events (or clips/objects whatever you call it) is very clunky and sometimes completely buggy.

    In the end I think Cubasis 3 checks a lot of your boxes and some devices do not seem to have the problems that mine do (2017 base and 2017 ipad pro). On my wife's base 2018 ipad it seems to work much better. They are updating it and there is a long history of good support so... yah I'd just go with 3. If it has quirks and issues now it is a good bet that in time they get ironed out. If you are in a major rush or have a real project, go desktop with Reaper. ;)

    When I said 3 was better than 2 I meant in terms of the resolution of the timeline. If you want to slice an event (clip in most software) and offset the start or end point and move it you have a finer degree of time units (even with snap off) to do this with in 3. With Cubasis 2 you may go to slice a sound on a hard transient but the resolution is so low you may never get it close enough to the transient.

    I’m really basically looking for something with the ease and quickness of Garage Band but with a few more features, primarily AU automation and track grouping/bussing.

    Maybe Zenbeats? I have not used it much but some people rave about it. As for it's AU automation you had to draw it in by hand last time I tried it.

  • AEM also supports fine-grained, editable AUv3 parameter automation.

    It also supports buses, except they're called groups in AEM. And you can add as many as you want.

  • edited July 2020

    @rs2000 said:
    AEM also supports fine-grained, editable AUv3 parameter automation.

    It also supports buses, except they're called groups in AEM. And you can add as many as you want.

    (Ahh this one... curious) https://apps.apple.com/us/app/audio-evolution-mobile-studio/id1094758623

  • edited July 2020

    There is no point in sticking to iOS 12 if you are serious about music production. iPad Pro 2018 that launched with iOS 12 will gladly take iOS 13.p and all the way to iOS 15 or 16 or 17.

    After doing some extensive research, I upgraded my Air 2 from 2014 and also iPhone 6s to iOS 13 this month and the performance is better and smoother on iOS 13. I was concerned about not bricking my old hardware due to my prior bad experiences with iPhone 4 and iPad mini 1 upgrades but this upgrade went really well. Kudos to Apple considering Air 2 is the oldest model that iOS 13 supports! My 11” Pro 2018 was already upgraded to iOS 13 last year - no issues.

    Once you are on iOS 13, you can go for Cubasis 3 which is recommended over v2 and v2 is just a maintenance version going forward meant for older hardware while v3 will get all the new enhancements (or your choice of another DAW).

  • Awesome, thanks for the info.

    I guess I’d heard bad things about updating to iOS 13 breaking older apps, but truth is I don’t use much older stuff now anyways. Feeling more confident about updating now...

    Which I guess then opens back up the Auria vs Cubasis 3 scenario for me, which I have seen a few other threads about so I’ll have to look into that more, although now this new option of AEM seems interesting and pretty substantial, and the price is certainly more enticing... curious what big features AEM is lacking in comparison to either Auria or Cubasis 3?

    @richardyot said:

    If you want AUv3 automation you need Cubasis 2.

    Auria doesn’t have AUv3 automation?

  • @ManWhoWouldBeStrings said:
    Auria doesn’t have AUv3 automation?

    It's patchy, it only supports touch events which not every plugin reports properly back to the host.

  • edited July 2020

    Hey thanks again for the info and suggestions here guys, especially to @rs2000 as I ended up going with AEM. Somehow I’d never actually heard of it before, and after a few days I’m pretty happy with it. I wouldn’t say it’s exactly “rock solid” as I find some things a little difficult and the stability of routing AUM into it for recording via IAA or Audiobus seems quite bad, but for the most part I am really happy with it and all the features, just had to get used to some of the workflow, which really hasn’t taken long. I was wondering though, do you know what this does? (See photo...)

    [EDIT: IAA with AUM is actually fine. The issues I was having with routing AUM into AEM seem to be a matter of how I was loading it up. If I had an unconnected port open in AUM first, and then connected to it in AEM it seems to crash often, but if I first add the AUM port in AEM, then add the port in AUM, it seems to be much more stable. Still gets disconnected sometimes when bouncing around and doing things which AEM alerts you “cannot be done with an armed track”, but if you remember to disarm the track before hand it seems to be fine. Just wanted to clear that up in case anyone stumbles upon this thread in the future while researching this great app AEM :)]

  • edited July 2020

    @ManWhoWouldBeStrings
    This is the little genius Pre-Fader/Post-Fader switch 😊
    Pre-Fader: The signal of this track is sent to the FX bus at constant level, independent from the channel volume fader position.
    Post-Fader: The track signal is sent to the FX bus after passing through the channel fader so if you turn it down completely, no signal is sent to the chosen bus ("group").
    Both can be useful.

    I agree that the workflow is somewhat different from other DAWs but nothing to worry about.
    It has everything on board to write great songs using a rather classic DAW approach.
    If you find any issues then there's a good chance that David will take care of it, just let him know.
    He also has an account here although I'm not sure how often he checks in:
    @dwrae

  • By the way, AEM will soon get a tempo and time signature track, something many have been waiting for!

  • @rs2000
    Thanks for clearing up the pre/post Fader switch, seems obvious now!

    By tempo and time signature track it means the ability to automate changes to those?

  • edited July 2020

    @rs2000 said:
    By the way, AEM will soon get a tempo and time signature track, something many have been waiting for!

    Not really on topic strictly but AEM on Android already has these tracks, plus an onboard Synth One, among other big changes (it’s v5 on Android)

    And 5ms latency.

  • @ManWhoWouldBeStrings said:
    @rs2000
    Thanks for clearing up the pre/post Fader switch, seems obvious now!

    By tempo and time signature track it means the ability to automate changes to those?

    Yes, that's the point.

    @Littlewoodg said:

    @rs2000 said:
    By the way, AEM will soon get a tempo and time signature track, something many have been waiting for!

    Not really on topic strictly but AEM on Android already has these tracks, plus an onboard Synth One, among other big changes (it’s v5 on Android)

    And 5ms latency.

    Yes, David announced to add it to the Android version first, as AEM's heritage is on Android.
    5ms is indeed magical by Android measures.

  • @rs2000 said:

    @ManWhoWouldBeStrings said:
    @rs2000
    Thanks for clearing up the pre/post Fader switch, seems obvious now!

    By tempo and time signature track it means the ability to automate changes to those?

    Yes, that's the point.

    @Littlewoodg said:

    @rs2000 said:
    By the way, AEM will soon get a tempo and time signature track, something many have been waiting for!

    Not really on topic strictly but AEM on Android already has these tracks, plus an onboard Synth One, among other big changes (it’s v5 on Android)

    And 5ms latency.

    Yes, David announced to add it to the Android version first, as AEM's heritage is on Android.
    5ms is indeed magical by Android measures.

    Did he mention whether he’ll be including Synth One in the iOS version?

  • @Littlewoodg said:

    @rs2000 said:

    @ManWhoWouldBeStrings said:
    @rs2000
    Thanks for clearing up the pre/post Fader switch, seems obvious now!

    By tempo and time signature track it means the ability to automate changes to those?

    Yes, that's the point.

    @Littlewoodg said:

    @rs2000 said:
    By the way, AEM will soon get a tempo and time signature track, something many have been waiting for!

    Not really on topic strictly but AEM on Android already has these tracks, plus an onboard Synth One, among other big changes (it’s v5 on Android)

    And 5ms latency.

    Yes, David announced to add it to the Android version first, as AEM's heritage is on Android.
    5ms is indeed magical by Android measures.

    Did he mention whether he’ll be including Synth One in the iOS version?

    No sign of it but you never know... One day?

  • @rs2000 said:

    @Littlewoodg said:

    @rs2000 said:

    @ManWhoWouldBeStrings said:
    @rs2000
    Thanks for clearing up the pre/post Fader switch, seems obvious now!

    By tempo and time signature track it means the ability to automate changes to those?

    Yes, that's the point.

    @Littlewoodg said:

    @rs2000 said:
    By the way, AEM will soon get a tempo and time signature track, something many have been waiting for!

    Not really on topic strictly but AEM on Android already has these tracks, plus an onboard Synth One, among other big changes (it’s v5 on Android)

    And 5ms latency.

    Yes, David announced to add it to the Android version first, as AEM's heritage is on Android.
    5ms is indeed magical by Android measures.

    Did he mention whether he’ll be including Synth One in the iOS version?

    No sign of it but you never know... One day?

    My bet is yes.

  • @AudioGus said:

    @AudioGus said:
    Cubasis 3 may do what you want. Editing and moving events on the timeline is really clunky for me though compared to Cubasis 2.

    I’m confused here...you mean that moving events around on the timeline is better in Cubasis 2? But before you said you wouldn’t recommend it for moving audio around...?

    Yes, selecting and simply moving events is more solid for me in Cubasis 2. In Cubasis 3 the touch interactions are flakey. If I tell Cubasis 3 to move an event it often pans the timeline. The touch awareness or whatever you want to call it is highly flakey for me and long pressing in Cubasis 3 to select multiple events (or clips/objects whatever you call it) is very clunky and sometimes completely buggy.

    In the end I think Cubasis 3 checks a lot of your boxes and some devices do not seem to have the problems that mine do (2017 base and 2017 ipad pro). On my wife's base 2018 ipad it seems to work much better. They are updating it and there is a long history of good support so... yah I'd just go with 3. If it has quirks and issues now it is a good bet that in time they get ironed out. If you are in a major rush or have a real project, go desktop with Reaper. ;)

    Well I don’t know if the latest iOS update helped but dayum selecting events and moving them around is so much better for me now. It really does feel like Apple may have tweakered something GPU or touch related that helped... or something.

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