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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FH-2 virtual guitar amp, beta testing discussion
This thread is for discussing the new FH-2 virtual guitar amp. Full disclosure, I'm the author 
. FH-2 is a universal app, compatible with iPhone and iPads running iOS 13 or better. It also has AUv3 support.
The app is now in beta test. If you would like to join in with the testing, just drop me a PM with your email address!
In this short audio demo, I'm playing my Gretsch 6118 through an Apogee Jam, into Garageband on a 1st gen iPad Pro. Everything you hear (apart from drums obviously) is FH-2. There are no additional FX or post processing.
Beta test requirements
I suspect you lovely people are well versed in iOS requirements, but for completeness here we go 
. You will need:
An iPad or iPhone running iOS 13 or better.
An iOS audio interface. Good choices are the Apogee Jam, iRig HD. I honestly cannot recommend those cheap guitar interfaces that plug into the headset socket, they generally sound awful. Any interface that plugs into the lightning connector will sound oodles better.
Most USB audio interfaces will also work with iOS, when connected via Apple's "Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter".A decent sounding set of WIRED headphones. Virtual amps do not work with wireless headphones, the latency kills the experience.
Of course, if you have a recent iPhone - you don't have a headphone socket. Nice one, Apple. In this case, you will need an iOS audio interface that has a headphone output, like the iRig HD 2.
Comments
Have fired up the beta in standalone, sounding sweet so far.
I understand what you mean about wireless (Bluetooth) headphones, but I’m playing through Arctis 7 wireless gaming headphones and the latency with them is negligible (for me at least). I found them through a recommendation on a guitar forum a couple of years ago and haven’t got tangled up since. Right, back to it.
So far so good on iPhone 7+ iOS 13 and line 6 sonic port (just had my flaky lightning port replaced, so a double joy to be back playing sofa guitar on a smaller device). Had a run through the presets in standalone and as AUv3, got lost in playing which is always the best thing.
@DaveB are you just looking for bugs or are you open to feature requests? Getting one in before you get the chance to answer that, I’d like to see the preset name persist in the display window and an up/down button for preset switching if possible?
Loving the sound(s) though. Will give the midi control a work through next time.
EDIT - there’s a strange noise (effect switching artefact?) when changing presets, I was quite enjoying that as a quirk, but I guess it’s not ideal if you’re beyond my headphone noodling level.
Happy to take feature requests. In this case, the preset name not persisting is a bug, I'll look at that. There are Next/Previous buttons above the bank & preset lists for quick preset switching. These can also be triggered via MIDI CC #39-42 (see online manual). Is that what you're looking for?
That's the delay lines morphing between the presets.
@DaveB - I see in the manual that there are midi ccs for all of the controls. Is it possible to expose those same parameters in in AUM and other AUV hosts? There are just few exposed now, would be good to see all of the others as well.
Great app, wonderful sound, inviting UI. Thank you for bringing this back even better than before.
Be good to have basic preset switching on the front screen to complement the more comprehensive choices round the back.
I am not seeing any cabinet choices, just bypass. Should I be seeing some?
IPad 6. IOS 13.7
Sounds pretty good to me, simple to use and nice looking interface. I don't know if it's just my guitar or not, but many of the presets seem quite bass heavy and I find myself trimming it off straight away...
Open it up in standalone first if you haven’t yet and then it’ll show up in the auv3 version. I had to do that a minute ago and the cabinets started showing up after I reloaded the auv3
Yes, you should see this popup. Have you tried completely deleting the app, then reinstall from TestFlight?
It seems that one has to launch standalone first. Perhaps the AU could detect this and put up an alert if it is instantiated before the standalone has run.
Nice catch! That also reveals all the factory presets. I'll take a look into that.
Just downloaded and cranked it up. The tones are like a breath of fresh air. I now realize just how much I missed the sound. The effects and cabinets are easy to use and I can dial in about any sound I’ll ever need for my guitars. One of my favorite things about FH has always been that it sounds great on Electric or Acoustic guitars. Haven’t tried it on my Bass yet. Is there a way to set the Delay to a host’s BPM? And does “Room” deal with Mic distance to Amp or is it a Reverb room size thing? Thanks for this new Go To app and I wanna pay NOW!
What guitar do you play?
I created the factory presets using a Gretsch with filtertrons, which sonically sits somewhere between single coils and humbucker, and should therefore be a reasonable starting point.
But the factory presets will only ever be basic starting points which need to be fettled to match your own gear.
Cheapish Thinline copy, maybe it's the hollow body... and for sure agree that presets are starting points, just thought I should flag it in case
Not at the moment. But I can have a think about how to add that.
Ah, please allow me to explain. I'm rather proud of this bit
. The cabinets are stereo impulse responses of real cabs. But I recorded them using a mid-side mic pair. The mid mic points at the cabinet, the side mic captures room ambience.
The clever part is that you can dial in the amount of room ambience by varying the level of the side impulse. That's exactly what the room knob does. Set it to minimum, and you hear a cabinet with a single SM58 mic. Set it to about 3 o'clock, and you feel like you're in the room with the amp.
All assuming you're using decent headphones, of course
(I recorded each cab at 3 positions - close, edge and a couple of feet into the room. You select that from the cabinet popup menu)
Holy Ship! That’s why that button sounds so good! You’ve got my money!!!
@DaveB im really digging the sound so far, I’ve only briefly played with it so far but I’m going to really shred it later when I’m through with work. Thank you for the tuner implementation, the ease of use is perfect. I can’t believe no other multifx AU has done this, at least this conveniently anyway.
It sounds nice.The speakers sound good.
Not fond of the fxs.
I must be fair...It’s not my favourite app sim app,but I can see myself using it here and there.
Bravo.
Cheers !
@DaveB Phenomenal so far, especially what you did with with Room knob as well as the Reverb and Decay knobs. You absolutely should be proud of that. I started off with a Motu M4 and Les Paul using .12-.54 gauge strings, in the bridge position, I don’t find it bassy at all, the balance is right.
It’s not clear in standalone what the default sample rate and buffer size is, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to switch it in standalone. I haven’t detected any latency, so you probably have it set where you want it, though some people like to play in 96kHz and 128 buffer to get it even lower.
I loaded the app in AUM, and it sounds quite different at 88.2/96 vs 44.1/48. When set at 88.2/96 you sort of lose half the sound and the richness. It sounds a lot better and fuller at 44.1/48. This might be worth addressing.
The sample rate is also important when I load my own IRs in Thafknar and bypass the cab. I’m supposed to match the IR’s sample rate to the sample rate of the host app or project I’m working in, so it would be good to know if this is strictly a 44.1/48 app. It seems to me that when I load my own IR and bypass the cab I should turn the Room knob completely off, would you agree?
I might be imagining this, but does the tuner act differently or show slight discrepancies depending on which factory preset I’m on? It’s hard to tell since the tuner turns off the sound. Maybe it could be possible to have a silent tuner but also a button to get direct monitor when tuning?
The gain knob seems to act like a saturator that adds a little crunch and break to picking dynamics when maxed, rather than a volume gain knob or an input gain knob.
I feel like the input and output metering shows red way too soon, or that there’s no intermediate yellow region. The in/out meter on my Motu went in the yellow at best, but red for sure in the app. I wonder if it’s worth differentiating between “red” and the actual ceiling of “red”. It never clipped on either side, but looks like it is.
The EQ knobs section is extremely responsive and versatile, great job!
As others have mentioned, it would be good to see the name of the preset on the main page while playing.
The noises when switching presets don’t bother me and make sense, but I wonder if in a live setting, using Midi to switch presets, it may be undesirable. Perhaps it is what is, and you can toggle pedals on and off successfully and just switch preset between songs. Something to consider also when recording a track.
Maybe this is a pet peeve, but I set the input gain on my Motu perfectly and guitar volume knob maxed, and I get the input and output pretty much where I want it, but then switching presets can cause drastic changes in volume, because the Master knob is quite variable. Maybe a solution could be to have an option to “lock” the master knob no matter which preset you’re on? Or perhaps just tweaking the presets and re-saving is the answer?
The manual is very good and informative, and it confirms that the app is quirky!
Looking forward to playing more with it and testing each fx individually. What you did with the Room knob and the IRs is spectacular! This is what will elevate this app above most of the rest. It’s interesting how much the stereo image can change from preset to preset, based on the Room knob. The room/reverb/decay situation really diffuses the harshness that many amp sims are known for, there’s a hint of Blackhole in the sound, and the trail at the end is just gorgeous and doesn’t sound digital to me at all. The overdrive and distortion sounds are better than you claim, just takes some tweaking. Yes it’s not a metal high gain app, and frankly there’s enough of those. I’m getting a Fender/Vox vibe from this, beautiful like Gain Stage Vintage Clean, reminds me a bit of Ge Labs except less digital and better on the tail. I really like what the gain knob does.
Done with first impressions, delving deeper soon. Congrats and cheers!
Nembrini and Overloud are the new generation of guitar apps, and they are next level. The closer you can get to them and the further away from the harsher and more processed digital sound of Tonestack or Bias or Hotone, the more success FH-2 will have. I think FH-2 sounds better than guitar racks and modules in apps like IFx Rack and certainly compares favorably to the MixBox guitar modules, and this is largely due to how you implemented the “room” and IRs. I would use it as an alternate to Gain Stage Vintage clean, which is a beautiful app not unlike yours though sans fx. This is above my pay grade, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to charge $15-$20 for FH-2, though $10 would be better 🤑
I've not had a chance to play with it yet, but just to add to the discussion about harshness and digital sounding tone, one reason Gain Stage Vintage Clean sounds so good is because there is user-selectable oversampling (2x 4x 8x 16x). It would be good to have something similar in FH-2 if possible.
@DaveB i’ve been trying midi control, using a meloaudio MP100 (with its Bias FX preset). The bank and program changes are working perfectly for stepping through presets.
The CC numbers though don’t seem to correspond to the manual. I tried 21 (drive), 30 (delay) 24 (phaser) and 35 (chorus). Only 35 did anything and that was to turn the Tremelo on and off. There’s a possibility I could be introducing an error, as I’m using NuRackFX to convert the CC numbers from those set on my controller, but I’ve not had issues with that previously.
Pretty close though, CC numbers showing up in the display and the patch changing is perfect. I’m thinking maybe just the published numbers are wrong? I’d experiment with the numbers further, but it’s nearly time to go to bed and I’ve got to squeeze some playing in
EDIT. Found on/offs for delay 38 and phaser 31, no sign of Drive.
All that is for AUv3 in AUM. Is it possible to route midi in to the standalone?
You should never hear aliasing or digital harshness in FH-2, as I employ multiple techniques to ensure that doesn't happen. If you do, please let me know as I would consider that a bug which needs fixing.
Thanks for this. There's definitely something up with the MIDI. I'll sort it in the next beta release, along with exposing the params so you can use MIDI Learn in AUM etc.
The standalone runs @ 44.1kHz with 128 sample buffers, to keep latency tight. Since the FH-2 standalone is meant to be a simple "pick up and play" app, I hadn't considered adding options to change that, but I can if there's a need.
The AUv3 plug-in always runs at the sample rate of the host app.
Thanks, I'll take a look at that.
Yes, when cabinet = bypass, turn room right down.
The tuner takes its feed directly from the input signal, so current preset & settings have no effect on it.
That's correct. The gain knob pushes the FH-2 input circuits into overdrive. The DRIVE effect in comparison creates a solid-state style of overdrive.
You can get some nice crunch tones by combining gain and DRIVE, exactly as you would using a OD/boost pedal in front of a valve amp.
Tip - if you set DRIVE:level to minimum and DRIVE:tone to maximum, it works as a clean boost to push the input circuit a little harder for more grit.
Fair comment, I'll have a think about that.
Since FH-2 is meant to be easy to use, the meters are not precision monitoring tools but rather a quick visual guide. If the input meter is in the top half, you know you have a healthy guitar signal. If the output meter doesn't peg out at maximum, you know you aren't clipping the output.
(Actually, the output has a soft limiter, so it never clips harshly, but rather softly compresses to keep the final output below -0.5dB)
Dave.
Yeah that makes sense - the original app never had any of that nasty stuff in it, one of the reasons I liked it so much.
Regarding sample rates - be aware that all of the newer devices (phones and iPads) that don't have a headphone jack will lock the sample rate to 48k, unless an audio interface is connected. Obviously it's pretty hard to play a guitar into FH-2 without an interface of some sort (so unlikely to be an issue), but just a heads up as this has caught many devs out in the past.
One scenario where this could be a problem: a user wants to put an iOS synth through FH-2 and using the Apple headphone dongle to connect headphones to their phone or iPad. Or maybe someone has recorded dry guitar and it re-amping it with FH-2 on the FX bus. In both those situations the device sample rate will be locked to 48k and I don't think the host app can change it. Of course if FH-2 just follows the host app it will be OK.
@DaveB very good idea with the soft limiter on the output. I think that GE Labs employs this too but theirs is more obvious in the release, it just doesn’t cascade right to me. Do you have the option of implementing a limiter on a specific frequency band? I switched from Les Paul to Strat copy I built with Mojotone Quiet Coils, there were some presets where the top end was little ice-picky and harsh. I will have a play with lowering the treble and presence knob today, I just wonder if the top end can be eased off a little without muddying the entire spectrum. I like a tickle in the top end just not a stab. Some other apps can go too far the other way and be all lows and mids with a cloudy top, you can’t please everyone and every kind of pickup. I will give another go today an hopefully expand on my discoveries with different guitars and interfaces. The answer could be a spongier attack so the player can dig in or not dig in, or a slight ease or limiter in the treble. I’m sure you know this but take a look at Gain Stage Vintage Clean params like oversampling, limiter switch option, and the 5 band eq both for input and output stage. I’m not implying that FH-2 is harsh, I simply crave for it to shed the old guard of guitar apps as much as possible so there’s not a hint of digital harshness or behavior (which some players actually prefer!). The awesome Room/IR/Reverb params largely conceal the fact that we’re still playing a software sim. It was extremely smart to skip cabinet emulation and go with IRs.
Perhaps you have zero interest in this, but have you considered releasing the Room/Reverb/IR implementation as its own standalone AU? It is truly stellar, and could simply be another revenue stream for you.
Definitely has a Voxy sound if wanted. Can also get the Fender sound. I’m not hearing an ice pick top end, but I have only used a guitar with gold foil pickups. I will try it out with a Telecaster later as well as something with humbuckers.
I just updated an old StreamByter script to send the MIDI CC listed in the manual from my Xtouch Mini controller. All work as documented, both knobs and buttons. Using the AUv3 in AB3, FH-2 1.0.3. Given earlier reports, I expected a struggle, but the process was simple: build mapping table, implement mapping, exercise controls.
I notice that FH-2 seems to listening Omni in this situation, not only to MIDI channel 1, as set in Settings. This means it hears a lot of noisy info on channels 11 and 12 that's used to control the Xtouch. It doesn't seem to respond to this data; maybe it just displays it in the message window. I suggest that it should ignore MIDI messages on all but one channel.
MIDI learn would be nice, but this is pretty OK anyway, although it requires a script.
Edit: 2 hours later. Boy, did I speak too soon here! Loaded the same script in an AB3 config with another instrument, and it's all crazy. FH-2 still reports the correct CC numbers, but the results are all over: CC 7 controls Master, 25 is Gate On, 26 is Gate Thresh, bonkers. Returned to the original setup, with just the controller and FH-2; flawless. Both AB3 on same iPad. Over to you, @DaveB.
Trying it out for the first time this morning. I’ve got two guitars that I’ll be trying it with, one, my Les Paul Custom w/EMG 81 and 85 model pickups (ZW sig set), and the other guitar I’ll try is an el-cheapo Ibanez Destroyer 2 with stock pickups.
I’ll post my thoughts on the sound later, but right away, two things, first, I agree with the above poster that host sync for the delay would be very helpful.
The other thought I had was, are there any plans to allow import of 3rd party IR files?