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
Ableton's Probability pack, or max for live in general. its worth learning how to use. You can use some of abletons built in MIDI FX as well.
wotja pro 21!! - the best. huge learning curve but well worth it.
https://tonecarver.wordpress.com/nova3-generative-sequencer-vst/
@Gavinski : I have no idea, being new to the whole orders-of-magnitude more expensive world of desktop VSTs, but I am glad you posted this, as I can’t wait to find out.
Riffer is there of course, but I have it on IPad already.
I do have one, relatively affordable, and rather clever candidate, the Orb Composer Suite 2.0 from Hexacomb, https://www.orb-composer.com/shop/ , combining a fairly decent wavetable synth with chords, bass and melody line MIDI autogenerators that you can drag and drop as clips direct to channels on your DAW (which the desktop version of Riffer also offers, apparently). I bought it a while back on a Black Friday deal for about fifty quid, and use it to flesh out and progress some of my iPad midi noodles into something a little more substantial once I have fileshared them over from AudioShare to Ableton:
https://www.orb-composer.com/
The best things about it are it is easy to try out multiple developments of a basic sequence or chord progresssion, with bass accompaniments and a melody, and you can dial up the complexity and density of all the moving parts while the thing runs, for rapid prototyping. More often than not it comes up with usable parts.
My other top tip if you are an Ableton Live Suite user is to check out the Max For Live forum. There are a crazy number of auto generators, arps, and sequencers there, many of which are free or just a few dollars as MFL devices. Snake is one of my favourites.
https://maxforlive.com/library/device/4771/mdd-snake
m4l
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-random riff+chord+groove generators by audiomodern
-hexo+autotrig+tatat by k-devices
-all max devices by Martin Russ aka synthesizerwriter
-turing machine!
-modular sequencer by soundmanufacture
-midichop+polydrip by weightausend
-percolate pack by Tom Hall
-kaigen by Jeff Kaiser
-acdgen pattern generator by spektro audio
-stochastic midi by Will Savin (this one is esp for you caus it has harmonic minor scale selection
-kairos -sequencer-
-pythagoras -sequencer- inspired by Moog Subharmonicon
-uzz step sequencer
the ones I like + remember
Ableton is not ideal currently, though the Max stuff looks great. I am experimenting with using Reaper, I need something cheap and mpe compatible. Wotja - I actually have version 20 but I need to learn how to use it properly, the interface is not my cup of tea but I recognize the power of it for sure.
@Svetlovska Orb sounds interesting.
@cazel wow, that is quite the list, thank you!
By the way, I asked Marcos, Polyphase dev this question, and his choice was Numerology, though he said it is maybe too complicated.
I don't quite understand the generative midi thing. Spawning random midi notes in random rates doesn't sound like "musical" to me. But I guess all plugins mentioned above has their own spice
I like Rozeta Particles on iOS, but would like to hear more what's your ideal generative midi plugin look like. I can see there's a market in there and people like that stuff!
Free and open source: https://stochas.org/
I didn’t either.
Letting the notes create themselves gives you room for twisting knobs and modulate the sound. Another way of musical expression.
Electronic music in general and modular in particular is full of examples.
There’s a history behind and an element of inspiration too.
But if you are going to explore the market I’m all in 😊
@cem_olcay : I base everything I do around random ‘seeds’ of something, usually a fragment of midi, sometimes an audio sample, and interacting with that seed by shaping, warping, editing, building... I fully concede that this is because I can play no conventional musical instruments (well, drums - make your own jokes), and I never construct ‘songs’.
I do however greatly enjoy producing soundscapes, and so far have been gratified to find that the resulting noises have been listened to over 5 and a half thousand times in the eighteen months I’ve been at it by other people who seem on the whole to have liked them too. If interested, you can find them here:
https://soundcloud.com/irena-svetlovska
If I was being pretentious, I’d say the IPad, and the AUM eco system in particular, is my instrument!
@cem_olcay glad to see you commenting on this! I would echo what @despego and @Svetlovska said. Some are much more musical than others also - Polyphase for example or Piano Motifs.
@despego thnx, I downloaded Stochas yesterday and will try to watch some youtube vids on it later
Main uses -
Getting inspiration for your own melodies
Producing melodies and chords that you don't have the technical skill or theoretical knowledge to produce yourself
Having something pleasing to listen to while you are free to tinker with both hands on synth parameters, fx apps etc
I love complex rhythms and enjoy creating them “by hand”. But auto generators come up with unusual rhythms I never would have come up on my own that sound musical to my ears.
Thanks. This looks interesting.
Logic's stock MIDI Scripter isn't to be overlooked.
You ser welcome.
Well, I have had Logic for three years now and this is news to me. Off to YouTube
Phrasebox, Cthulhu, Reaktor midi FX and all the good midi FX from Logic.
Numerology might be really powerful but I do not like the GUI and workflow really.
thanks for mentioning stochas!
another great project by the amazing surge team
which reminded me -> VCVRack & Mirack also have great generators+sequencers + both free on macos
Google’s Magenta, melody sauce, Live’s follow actions. Few off the top of my head. This kind of thing is good for a pattern interrupt. Key thing for me is using the ones don’t require deep learning of the app, would rather put that into something else. Wotja doesn’t appeal to me partly because of that.