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
Innit. Solid work rate.
Audio Evolution Mobile Studio 4.3.4 for iOS has been released:
Wow @dwrae you are so productive! It’s really awesome to see that app is developed so fast.
Is there any roadmap or plan of features? Or at least backlog of your current work?
Yes, but since there are always external influences (bug reports, deadlines from third parties, other apps to work on, etc.), it's a bit hard to tell when something is ready. For the 'short' term, MIDI remote setup and tempo change are planned. Don't ask what 'short' means in this case!
OK, I just have one project which ideally needs both CC automation and tempo change. (I want to port it into AEM from NS2 and mix with TB plugins). And I thought about waiting for tempo change in AEM (to rewrite some parts which needs automation in AEM) or dropping CC automation and render everything in NS2 as-is and mix only audio in AEM.
Well, I would like to wait for AEM.
At least your “short” seems to be much shorter than Steinberg’s “short” (hello to cubasis)
@dwrae I haven’t got standalone TB barricade, so I don’t know whether it is an expected behavior, but demo for IAP barricade has strange UI gliches.
Video example: https://drive.google.com/file/d/188Gd7PpuihAEivMCcfd_09COKcpyZEMS/view?usp=drivesdk
iPad Pro 2nd gen, iOS 14
Not happening in AUM on my iPad Pro. Was just in there.
Thank you. That’s should be an AEM bug then
I get exactly the same behaviour in barricade. It was introduced a few updates back.
I'm running non demo Barricade v4 in AEM standalone on Android*
I'm not fussed, I just ignore the flashing but @dwrae if you want any further details logs or whatever from me I'll be happy to assist.
(*I don't own any ios devices! oh boy, it feels good to get that dirty secret out. I hope you guys all don't mind me posting here, I really like this place.)
😂
Same, I will gladly provide any details
Wow, is it comfortable to do music production on Android? I was a QA for an Android app many years ago and this system doesn’t look reliable for connecting all this fancy plugins and instruments with a DAW
It's considerably more limited than ios, but totally workable.
I use just SunVox and AEM day to day. Occasionally Caustic and Fractal Bits.
I used to suffer from option paralysis (on desktop) so the limited app pool works to my advantage.
If there was the equivalents of audiobus/aum/au I imagine it would be horrendously unstable on Android. I have a strictly one app at a time workflow.
Have to give credit to Davy. AEM with Tone boosters gives me all the tools I need to learn DIY mastering with (it's mainly ear training from here on in).
LMAO!
Thanks for reporting this, I can reproduce it and will look into it as soon as possible.
"Just here for the top banter"
👍
I knew that SunVox will be in your list
Very impressive software, especially if you don’t learn from scratch and already know some theory about synthesis and composition. Learning this things in tracker UI was too complicated for me, so I don’t use it right now, but have some plans on it. And yeah coupled with AEM for proper mixing and mastering it should be a good setup
Thank you! And also thank you for allowing to test plugins and understand their capabilities before buying
Well put. That's it in a nutshell; take it as far as possible in SunVox then stems onto AEM.
One thing that might be worth your consideration is samples. They're particularly helpful when I hit my synthesis limits. Mainly one shot drums, breakbeats and synth samples.
I’ve Been doing some song vocal tracking in AEM, testing out the Apogee Symphony Desktop seeing if it can stand up to the rigors of heavy tracking thru multi-hour, multi-take sessions and so far it’s been pretty nice. I’ve been recording at 96k to add a little more heat to the stress test and aside from a couple sample rate resets (I dont know if its AEM/Apogee SD/ or the hub is leading to the issue) everything has been fine. No major crashes. BLEASS effects (eq & compressor) are having issues and reseting/disappearing (might be related to iOS 15). None of these are showstoppers and there’s a high chance they aren’t related to AEM. Everything else worked great, and was very stable, so great work @dwrae ! The ‘split’ mode is a godsend, I was taking out the ‘air gaps’ between a vocal take out, and it was a dream to not need to place the playhead and then hit ‘split’, and repeat.
A Couple of hopes I have for the app 🙏 , that i think would greatly improve the workflow are as follows:
Mouse and trackpad support. Using a keyboard is nice with AEM due to it’s keyboard shortcuts, but mouse and trackpad support is non existent. For those of us with keyboard/trackpad case (magic keyboard case/logitech combo touch/etc) variants, this would be great. Like really really great, as navigating complex projects with dozens of tracks is less than ideal currently.
The arrow keys haven’t been working to navigate the track, since iOS 15. On iOS 14 it worked fine.
Also, When first starting a recording there’s a slight dropout/delay to the song being audible. Maybe a second or 2 but it’s a nightmare for ‘punch ins’ as it makes you have to start the ‘punch’ further back, which (Depending on how you lay out the song while tracking) can overwrite your prior take.
And speaking of ‘Punching in’, it’d be nice to be able to have the track playing back and enable recording at will, while playing it back. Maybe this is currently possible and I’m missing it, but if not, it’d be a nice edition.
Some other cosmetic things to consider:
Option to ‘hide the grid’ behind the audio track waveform. The : dots : on the audio track is a little intense to look at on a big project, but I also don’t want to turn off the grid completely as I like the grid magnetism when editing, I just don’t want to have to look at it on the actual waveform.
Separate Monitoring and Recording Arm options instead of a blend of the two. Think cubasis.
The playhead on playback is a little glitchy/skippy. If it could be smoothed out, great.
Hopefully you’ll consider this feedback, thanks.
What I like in AEM, it seems like features and stability is more preferred than extra-polished UI. And I think it’s great. We’ve got a ton of DAWs for iOS that have fancy design, but lacks core features. I think it will be nice if @dwrae focuses on features and stability and after that sell redesign as separate version or IAP. It seems to a fair bargain both for users (they will be sure that AEM really does the job) and @dwrae (he will get extra money to continue development and support).
And what do other users in this topic think about that?
Thanks for your feedback! It is always appreciated, although I cannot always directly fix this. Some things you mention are architectural issues and not just simple 'bugs'.
I'm sure that I will have tens of thousands of complaining users when I would change the design/UI. Some already start screaming when a button is moved or renamed. The only thing that is gradually changing is the move from iOS standard dialogs (white) to JUCE (grey) dialogs, as it looks on Android.
Hmm, I understand you, that’s a power of habit of old users
. Sometimes it’s a really hard work to make a design which satisfies all the users (especially old ones).
And I’m glad that you don’t dig into this work (as some other iOS DAW developers do). This is my first impression of AEM: it’s focused on doing the job, not on being a fancy toy with bells and whistles. It’s very rational, and I like it.
Audio Evolution Mobile 4.3.6 released for iOS:
Thank you very much! Now Barricade doesn’t blink
I’ve found strange behavior in TB Compressor right now. Looks like it ignores side-chain input and still uses the track it’s applied to. Side-chain works with built-in compressor (as well as with RoughRider AUv3 btw). Should be anything configured in TB compressor additionally?
@dwrae i don’t know it it’s something that can be fixed, but iOS 15 update has broken the ⬆️ ⬇️ keyboard shortcuts. It’s not possible to select/scroll the tracks with them anymore.
Ah, thanks. Yes, that was related to:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uikeycommand/3780513-wantspriorityoversystembehavior
I fixed it for next release. Hopefully it doesn't interfere with anything else, but since it was the default before, I guess it should be ok.
Thank you for you dedication, @dwrae . There could be an issue with the midi tracks when using an external controller and also wanting to drive an external synth. So let's say I have a midi keyboard, for example Novation Launchpad Mkiii Pro and want to send midi from it via AEM to an Arturia Microfreak (again, an example).
I create a Midi Track and set input from the Novation, output to the Microfreak, then Arm the track and...nothing comes on the audio track which receives sound from the synth, neither is the synth receiving any midi. Now if I record blindly some notes from the controller on this track, then play the track they will indeed trigger the synth. Therefore it's not an issue with channel allocation or the like (and I double checked anyway, both the external synth and controller are on the same one).
So the track does output correctly if there are midi notes, but not "in real time" - like what monitoring should do, right? If the input is set to the internal keyboard, again the Microfreak plays, so this only happens when the input is an external thing.
With Midi Instrument tracks this doesn't happen, if I set the input to the Launchpad it drives any AUv3 without any issues when it's armed (and before recording anything).
Don't know if it matters that everything is via an USB hub, as the Freak receives midi via usb cable as well. I suppose it's not a problem since as mentioned before, it does receive midi from notes on the track, just not from the controller.
So ... if I'm understanding you correctly, you need MIDI Thru. Not all apps have this, and I don't see an option for it in the MIDI settings so I'm guessing MIDI Thru isn't supported.
I did think of that, but in that case its own virtual piano keyboard wouldn't work either (the virtual controller, not the piano roll). Because that also generates a midi signal (even if it's made "locally") at the input which is then sent to the output (the synth).