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
When people talk about Dumbles, literally everyone sounds different. So, I am not really sure that there is really a 'true Dumble' sound. When Dumble made the amps, he intentionally built each one with settings particular to the person that ordered them. If you listened to Robben Ford's ODS it would be different from John Mayer's or Larry Carlton's. So, some of these boutique Dumble imitators have very much what people think of as the Dumble sound.
@JoyceRoadStudios : i don't have that bundle that has the Dumble rigs, what say you?
It is exactly as @Tones4Christ says, as with many of the “native th-u” rigs, vintage vol. 1 rig sounds blanketed and somehow distant, and for my taste also thin compared to Choptones rigs. But the Dumble and Music Man captures are really really good, probably because they have a certain ice pick presence and mid scoop that takes advantage of that “thinness”. So those are the hits there, but I still wouldn’t choose them over Dang or Bassman or most of the other Choptones.
Don’t get me wrong, not all of the Choptones and BHS rigs are perfect. There are plenty of the Choptones rigs that are way too compressed sounding, and the BHS rigs can get extremely thick and woolly in the lower mids. But overall I am convinced that Choptones/BHS rigs sound fuller, bigger frequency range, more open, and more forward in your ear.
Also, some players like the multi rig packages, because you get 3-5 profiles of a bunch of amps, rather than 200 profiles of one amp. But all the multi amp rigs are native th-u as far as I know, and they don’t go into depth about the amps really beyond model and year. With Choptones rigs there’s more in depth info on the specific amp, where they got it, if it had mods, if it’s from someone’s collection, etc… so I have found that if a Rig is incredible it’s probably because Choptones/BHS had their hands on a great specimen of the amp.
I tried to capture the touch sensitivity of the Dang. I am playing the Bright Bluesbreaker. Neck humbucker with the tone rolled down. I am using the Ownhammer 2X12 Vox cabinet rather than the rig's cabinet. You'll see Chow Centaur but it is being bypassed. The volume pedal in the rig is just there to set the input level. Its setting didn't change while I was playing. The input level in THU and Nembrini (just as with actual amps) has a big impact on the sound.
Wait… since when is there a volume pedal in th-u?? Was that always there or did it come in an update. With midi control exp pedal that is huge!
Also, very nice tone, and there is quite a bit of responsiveness to your picking dynamics.
@espiegel123 Tasty bro! Really tasty tone there! Brings back so many memories!
Gonna get the Dang rig next time sounds really nice!
@JoyceRoadStudios yeah, the volume pedal is nice to have; i can’t wait to learn to program it thru midi to do some nice swells with delay and reverb! ❤️
In essence that’s why I kind of want to stay inside the THU universe to program presets and set & forget it.
That tone reminds me of my very first amp I bought at a Pawn Shop in LA back in ‘83, it was a small Music Man don’t even remember the model, loved that amp with all my heart! Sadly it was stolen from our church along with all my equipment. 😔
The tones were like you died and went to heaven! My wife recently found the only picture i have of it and brought back so many sweet memories! Was with my grandpa as we both were entering church on Sunday morning!
It’s incredible how a sound can bring memories!
That was really nice @espiegel123 ♥️🙏👍🏼🎸☝️
@Tones4Christ I owned a 70s Music Man head with a matching 4x12 cab about 18 years ago, gigged with it for a couple years while in college, and it also got stolen! I loved it so much, it was very much a fender style amp but with even more bite if you wanted it. I ran it pretty cranked to always teeter between clean and and raunchy, and used just one pedal in front, a TC Electronic SCF.
@JoyceRoadStudios yeah, those amps were so awesome! The one that burned up on me was really heavy 2-12’s i think it had four huge output tubes or six don’t remember but it sounded so amazing as well! Back breaker though 😆!
If for those two amps the Dumble & the Music Man, the Vintage Collection is worth it. I like how you can experiment with on Rigs cab and apply it to another! Really nice! Even the Overdriven rigs, you can lower the Gain just enough and sounds clean with a bit of tube warmth! Really amazing technology! We are so blessed!
Regarding the volume pedal in th-u, the reality is that the midi mapping is quite comprehensive so you can just map an expression pedal full sweep heel to toe 1-127 onto any knob or parameter really. So you can map an exp. pedal onto the app’s master volume, output, input gain, amp level/gain, or any level knob on any component to achieve your volume pedal needs. So the actual volume pedal component just seems like a visual comfort. What I wish Overloud would actually do, and what I’ll ask them to do, is to find a way to be able to stick that volume pedal after our interfaces but before the app’s input level/gain stage. That way you can actually control the signal going into th-u like an actual volume pedal after your guitar, rather than just lowering the output of a signal which is all it can do. TH-U on iOS still doesn’t have an input gain knob or an input level control, but they do on desktop. And all the other guitar apps on iOS (Nembrini, Bias, Amplitube, etc..) have an input level control and an output level control and a master volume. It’s no deal breaker, but I think th-u needs it.
Putting the volume at the beginning of the chain lowers the signal amplitude and has the same impact as lowering the volume coming out of the interface into the plugin. That’s why I used it.
That’ll be great!
I wonder if adding an instance of THU with just the Volume pedal before your main Instance do the same trick?
Personally, I don’t use my volume pedal right before the amps, I usually go full blown with max volume on guitar, in fact volume and tone pots are all maxed out. I place my volume pedal right after all my overdrives or amps sims, but right before all my modulation effects like Chorus, Delays or Reverbs. Mostly for volume swells in slow songs.
Really? I’m not so sure, I just opened th-u with no interface or guitar plugged in and put a volume pedal at the begging of a random chain. When lowering the volume pedal param only the right side of the screen goes down (the output meter), the left side (input meter) doesn’t change. So yes you can lower the signal coming out of the volume pedal into the next component, but what if your actual signal from guitar and interface is too hot for th-u? The volume pedal would just make a distorted signal quieter. The problem is it lives after the interface, so it’s actually the interface that is the “volume pedal” for the guitar. I don’t believe the volume pedal works in the same way that the Nembrini input gain knob works or the other apps I mentioned, the input level control in those apps actually lowers the initial signal going into the app.
Yes that’s a good idea, the first instance’s output essentially becomes the second instance’s input. But you still don’t need to use the actual volume pedal component in the first instance, you can still map you exp pedal to the master output level or master volume of the first instance. Perhaps I’m wrong and the sweep mapping on the volume pedal is more realistic or exact compared to mapping onto the master volume. Haven’t tried it.
The gain reduction happens as soon as it encounters the volume pedal. It doesn’t matter that it is not literally lowering the gain before the plugin. As long as it is at the beginning of the signal chain, the result is the same as if the signal from the interface were lower. I have tested this. You could also put a gain reduction plugin before THU, if you want to test. You can compare the result of turning down the input level on your interface to the other two methods.
All the meter on the left tells you is what the signal level is at THUs entry. The volume pedal just reduces the signal level going to everything after it.
The only case it makes a difference that it isn’t lowering your interfaces gain, is the case where the signal is distorted coming from your interface.
Yes absolutely, I have nothing to say that contradicts this. I was specifically talking about that specific use case in your last sentence. Because I’ve had not one not two but three audio interfaces that don’t have their own input gain knob nor a trim. So since th-u doesn’t have an input level knob, my humbuckers on the Les Paul were way too hot for th-u as you remember in my very first video clips, it put the th-u input meter way in the red, unless my guitar’s volume knob was around 6, and that’s not a tone I want from my guitar. And of the three interfaces, only one would cede to AUM where I could actually lower the interface’s signal going to AUM. The other two wouldn’t allow AUM to be set anywhere below 100% input gain. So yes the volume pedal does what it does, but the root signal from the guitar and interface has to be reasonable in the first place. This is not a situation that exists with a guitar and a real volume pedal. In that scenario the guitar’s actual signal is lowered before it hits input stage of the amp. But in the digital scenario even though the amp sim has an “input”, the actual input being hit is the interface.
Anyway I was just remarking on how apps like Bias and Amplitube actually appear to have an input level knob, as does Nembrini on their amps. Do those input level knobs actually lower the interface’s gain that the app is receiving, or simply turning down the output level of the interface. I’m not sure, but I think there is a difference. And that’s what confuses me, because while some apps say input level/gain but it just lowers the volume of the signal coming into it, the AUM input gain control actually lowers the gain of the interface (apogee jam + for example). With that interface in AUM I have to run the input gain there to 35-40 percent, so that th-u input doesn’t distort.
And then there are apps, and maybe even interfaces, that have a secret limiter somewhere in their design, and then nothing makes sense when what you play and what you hear and what third party apps are showing on their metering doesn’t match.
My sense is that if an interface doesn't have an input gain knob, it is likely to not provide access to input gain via the driver, either. Those input level knobs in Nembrini are, I believe, nothing more than an amplitude adjustment at the first stage, just like inserting the volume pedal in THU or putting a gain adjustment before the AU.
Yeah I have no idea why some interfaces cede control of input gain and others don’t. Actually both the xtone and the motu m4 do not provide access to input gain, not in AUM and not in any daw, but unlike xtone the motu has a gain knob for each input and it’s been my saving grace. Those interfaces also disable the volume buttons on my iPad Pro. I would love a list of interfaces in that class that allow access to input gain, whether or not they have their own knob. And then the Jam plus just stands in its own world… it has a gain knob (albeit rotary and can’t go all the way to zero), it allows control of its input gain via AUM, it has a great headphone out but no other outs, and it gives access to the iPads volume buttons since they become the jam’s output control, because the jam doesn’t have its own output knob.
Which standalone Bassman rig do you mean? The only one I can find is the Bassface 65, which I think is the same as the one in the funk pack. I don’t see any Choptone Bassman.
Choptones FendBass50
@espiegel123 🤟🏼🎸
Just prepared a preset consisting of free THU's gear (included in the free version) PLUS SuperCabinet with couple of IRs.
SuperCabinet is a "revolutionary cabinet IR processor" but its available in desktop version only. But it you create the preset on desktop with SuperCabinet module within, you could transfer it on iOS. As far as I see, it works good regardless of purchasing SuperCabinet's libraries for desktop.
Here is the preset:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9e3mor3awq464io/THU Free Preset.ovp?dl=0
Everyone can download this one to your iOS device and download into the THU.
This preset has two scenes.
Scene "A" use SuperCabinet and 2 IRs within. First one is Fender Princeton Custom Reverb '68 1x10 with Celestion Ten 30 speakers. Second IR is Marshall 4x12 1968 with Celestion GH12-preRola speakers.
Scene "B" turn off SuperCabinet and turn on regular THU's cabinet (2x12 OB Green) which available in the free version.
Here is screenshot of SuperCabinet module within:
So, now everyone can try the SuperCabinet on his device and compare with the regular cabsim
@JoyceRoadStudios yeah I totally agree on the signal input thing. I guess since I’m using an external preamp I’m able to see the meters before sending my signal to my Beringher UC202. So the signal is not in the red but barely reaching unity (0 db).
But i have definitely noticed a difference in signal output between regular Amp sim in Overloud than the output of the Vintage Collection. The Vintage Collection is definitely lower for some reason. I’ll try to upload two presets later hopefully so you can test it out. I tried to match the outputs but them the Vintage Collection begins to peak past Unity.
You can adjust the output gain in the preset and save it if you want to match some other volume.
Also, do spend some time exploring the impact of reducing the signal level (either by turning down the input gain on your interface or by using the volume pedal at the start of the THU chain). The signal level reaching the amp sim or rig has a big impact. You don't always want a maximum signal level reaching the amp sim's input stage. These sims respond to input level. If one is going for touch sensitivity, you often get better sensitivity with a lower signal level reaching the amp.
I set my guitar input levels with the guitar turned up to full. Then, when playing, I turn the guitar volume down to around 7, and adjust amp gain and output volume to get the levels and crunch right.
Then, guitar vol goes up for more dirt, or I just hit the strings harder.
I also have a bass cut pot on my guitar – it's a custom wiring scheme I did so long ago I forgot how it's wired – and I like to be able to add a bit of guitar volume back if I cut the bass, because bas cut affects volume more than treble cut.
Bass cut is an amazing tool with dirty amps and over drive/fuzz. It cleans signals up by reducing flab, but still (if you also increase volume) has plenty of bite and crunch at the high end. You could also use an EQ pedal first in the chain to do something similar.
I know, somethings work for some and something different for others. There’s really no wrong way or right way imho. I think ultimately is our ears that tell us what is sounding good to us. There’s a tone guru that played many years at our church who got me into pedals setup and stuff and he always placed the volume at the very beginning and he had beautiful tone. He said it is basically the same thing as if you’re controlling your volume pot on the guitar except you’re doing it with your foot. He placed it right before all his drives.
Then i showed him my setup and he liked it because it allowed him to get the hottest signal into the drives but still allowing to do great volume swells and as you decreased the pedal volume, the swells would still sound with the delays tails playing through.
He was able to do the same too, it just depends on your taste. I agree the volume pedal in the beginning is same a controlling how strong level goes into tube amp with out overdriving the input of the amp.
Try expressing that opinion on The Gear Page and see if you survive the encounter
This sounds like a great idea, especially in digital where there's no interaction between the guitar's pickups and fuzz pedal, like with some analog setups.
On my non-TH-U setup, I have a Hudson Broadcast fuzz. It's an amazing pedal. One surprise as that, if I put digital dirt pedals before it (Eventide H9, for example) then it makes the digital distortion sound way, way better.
Right? That’s why i kick it here cause of loving fellow rockers like you.🎸☝️😂
@mistercharlie Try expressing that opinion on The Gear Page and see if you survive the encounter
I have to revise my comment that I get too much hiss from the TubeMP. For fun I dug it back out and found it's just fine with the iPad. I think I haven't used it since way back when I was recording into a Windows PC amp sim
. Either that or it was because I was running the line-out into a hi-z guitar interface. I used a microphone cable instead this time.
It sounds great warming up the tone going into the iPad!
Piggybacking on the warming up the iPad topic, I was just researching this new pedal that came out from Source Audio a few days ago…
https://www.sourceaudio.net/zio-analog-front-end-boost.html
Now this has a lot of potential to me as the link in between the guitar and the audio interface, but also as a dual path. It has 4 analog preamps to choose from, which could give our bus powered home studio interfaces a lot of color and feel. Interfaces like motu and focusrite etc… they’re going for transparency, fidelity, best signal to noise, etc… they’re not going for color. So a pedal like this right before the interface could be a big factor in improving the guitar’s core tone and feel pre digital, before any sound is even processed inside the iPad. The pedal can be a unity gain sound or a boost if you want, it has a capacitance toggle which simulates different cable runs (which I think is actually just eq curves rather than actual capacitance load changes). But the most exciting sneaky feature is that it has both an output for an amp and a line out for di. So I can run this pedal out to my actual amp and pedalboard, and also to my interface and iPad at the same time! On top of that there’s a “mute” toggle option which means you can press the footswitch to bypass just the amp out but the line out still passes signal.
I know there are so many devices like this with so many feature sets, but this one is intriguing just for the pres alone…
For me ,in the digital world of amp sims,the sound of the guitar should stay the cleanest possible before hitting the amp simulator.
Using this pedal with a real amp would be without a doubt a great thing to do,but we're not talking about real amps here.
No preamp tubes to drive more and more with pedals,etc.....
I think the goal is to respect the most possible the sound of your guitar
For me,it is much more important to spend time understanding the meaning of setting right input and output level settings all along your signal chain.
Sure,that's only my point of view😉.