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
Think I remember someone said the manual is not up to date, is this the case?
Bug with preset loading:
Loading 'init' will remove note labels from sequencer, but keep playing notes back
Quick play with Musk player sending midi in to MidiSTEPS.
I got this to roll ok in AUM, but was a lil wonky ( adding notes_). Then I used a mono synth (pwawou) and it was ace.... I bet this is all gonna be worked out. Cheers
One tip for entering multiple notes on a step is that the notes are added to the step once all the keys are off.
It takes a bit of practice but once it clicks it's pretty neat.
Loved it as a stand-alone and am grateful that it’s now AUV. @artkerns - just one request: would be great if the patterns had repeat and follow actions, maybe as a long press on a pattern (similar to Drambo). Feel a little sheepish for asking - I’ve had MidiSTEPs for years and now feel like I have a new app for free.
You can sustain notes. If you place more than one note at the same pitch and connect them with a tie the notes will be held.
You can do slides with troublemaker because all you need to do a slide with it is to overlap notes. You can adjust per note note-lengths so that they end up overlapping. As @samu says, some apps handle slides with "glide", like troublemaker does, and some with pitch-bend, which I doubt would work with midiSTEPs.
It's not like an arp and not like a piano-roll either. It's more like somewhere in the middle between Rozeta XOX or Bass Line and a Piano Roll. Or maybe StepBud is a better comparison. Rozeta Cells is kind of close too.
TBH, a few years ago when I first tried midiSTEPs I simply couldn't see why people liked it, having come from the background of piano-roll sequencers. Now it sits well with me though.
I remember someone said it was similar to the sh101 sequencer... IS that so? Just curious, cheers. Glad the app is back from the slumber rest.
@_ki I heard back from the developer. Apparently the output channel is saved with the preset, and this is just a bug with the display of the channel number only. Will be fixed in the next release.
I haven’t verified - just passing the word along.
@wim Thanks for the update, i’ve added it to the AU Midi Generators wiki page
Q: for ppl who use it:
does it have an "advance to next cell"
when pressing a midi key/note ?!
thanks.
Yes, in 'rec' mode
edit: it doesn't have a dedicated setting for this, it's automatic
I hope the timing will improve in this, right now it's far from great
this app
is very cool. are there any plans for it to work on iphone, this could be very helpful
Is there no way to do ratchets in this? I have got so used to that in Arp Bud 2, super handy, not seeing that ability here
@Gavinski said:
I’ve been thinking about this app for the past couple days (waiting for your vid till buying), and I was literally just wondering the same thing about ratchets like 5 minutes ago. Hopefully Art Kerns would be willing to add it.
oooo that would be perfect.
I’ve emailed Art, ratchet is toooo useful not to be in this!!
What about ratchet with optional velocity ramp up/down?
StepPlolyArp Unit does that
Email him if you have suggestions, Samu!
Sounds like a killer idea btw
I don't want to 'bloat' midiSTEPs too much and I've grown to use it 'as is' and it's very close to the MicroFreak sequencer.
...used to send bug reports way back in time and most the wishes ended up on the to-do list so I'll just give the app a bit more time to mature now that it's finally an AUv3
There is the overwrite option in the AU if you don't want it to add cells automatically, but you do have to set it each time you open the app. I'm not sure that option exists in the standalone, but probably I'm just overlooking it.
Yes, there is. Didn't want confusion. When host is running you can choose between add / overwrite. But sending notes into MS when host stopped will always auto advance - at least to my understanding
Ahh - yes you're right about that one. I hadn't caught that.
Yeh, it's a particular and pretty different workflow, but for some reason I enjoy it.
Should be noted that the advance only happens with 'rec'.
So once the pattern is 'ok' switch from 'rec' to 'play' and it won't advance when transport is stopped.
Over all even with some 'things' midiSTEPs is one of the most 'fun to use' step sequencers on iOS and I'm happy it made it into AUv3 land...
I love the advance feature. it’s so fun to input notes and chords, and then hear them play back instantly. so cool
Yeah, it's a real gem for various applications
timing, timing timing 🥺
after all, we're ready to move on to the next stage, desktop DAWs...
Of course but some sequencers introduce the idea of a "Control Only" port/channel to avoid this. That'd be quite handy here.
Agreed.
However, you can just send notes to the Pattern parameter in AUM or other host that has AU parameter control, rather than to midiSTEPs. This works well and can be sequenced from a midiSTEPs instance as well.
[edit ... hold that thought! I thought I had that working but it isn't at the moment. I'm either nuts or making a mistake atm. Or most likely both.]