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.
Audio layer and other options?
Is audio layer ever on sale? It looks great but boy it’s not a cheap app but then again it it feature rich.
I want to easily record or import samples, slice into parts then trigger from AUM/midi with pitch too.
Don’t really want the perhaps more drum machine / sequencer like beat hawk as want to edit the waves into slices and the editing side doesn’t seem that functional but might be wrong. Plus not really planning on using as a drum machine / sequencer per se.
Layering would also be nice but not a show stopper at this stage. Needs to be AUv3 too. Was thinking possibly segments.
Any suggestions.
Thanks.
Comments
Audiolayer is my go to.
Koala is my second favorite.
NanoStudio 2 is my third love.
Reslice is to Segments, as EG Pulse is to Beathawk.
And all apps lived in harmony with AUM...until DRAMBO attacked.
But seriously, for a multi sampler, Chameleon, Audiolayer, NanoStudio 2, Koala, are the go-to...for now.
Judging from your other posts on the subject, I don't think sEGments is what you're looking for. It's worth having and super fun, but doesn't tick the boxes you've been listing.
AudioLayer occasionally goes on sale. Btw, you mention wanting to slice things. AudioLayer doesn’t have slicing or sample editing.
[edit] if layering isn't a deal breaker than ignore the above. sEGments is cool.
I got Drambo to use as a sampler instrument in AUM, but I loved it so much I use it in for loads of things. I had no interest in getting into modular synthesis but it was way easier and more fun than I expected.. but thats a different story.
I think the samplers in Drambo are fun and easy to use. You can easily set up Drambo to be an "instrument" rather than a groove box if thats your preference in AUM.
I have AudioLayer and found the scope switching between zone, layer and instrument a bit confusing, basically just overkill for my needs. I'm sure there are features that AudioLayer can do that Drambo samplers cant but I'm just not making big sampled instruments and so they are fine for my needs.
I also have Segments its great, fun to use as well but better for playing chopped loops imo as you can only load one sample/file per instance. Drambo does both with different sampler instruments.
One thing other that convinced me to switch was that Drambo has its own great browser for auditioning samples, so I dont need to share from some other app in order to get going, I just keep a sample library in Drambo.
@soundtemple Can Drambo load samples from Files?
@stown yep. you can import from your own drambo sample library or you can select to Import or Import folder which takes you to the normal Files type menu for selecting things.
This is worth a watch if you are thinking it might be a solution for you... https://youtu.be/ZbEWNc4kuJs
Yes and it has different sampler modules. It's really great, I love Drambo. Here, in this little piece the wind sound is loaded into the flexi sampler and adjusted to that it loops:
And the thing with Drambo is that you can use the sampler as a basis and then start modulating the parameters. Want some crazy glitch scratch effect? No problem. Want to build a complete instrument with a different sample on 88 keys? No problem, you could even set multiple velocity layers. It's really crazy what you can do with Drambo.
Drambo looks good but is doing far more than I need and raises more questions than it answers! Will watch some videos but can you then use in AUM with Riffer etc etc to trigger the samples?
Do I have to have a different sample module loaded per each pad thingy each with it's own sample?
So if I have a flexi sampler on a pad/track and a multi sampler on another pad/track how do I trigger each one from AUM midi apps?
Boy I'm confused.
Drambo definitely looks like good fun!
There are midi input filters at each trackhead, so you can set what channel each track receives midi from. That way you can still use Aum / external controllers to play the samplers within Drambo.
And added benefit is that Drambo is also multi-bus output. So if you have 4 tracks / 4 sample based instruments, you could multi-out those to their own channels in Aum.
The multi-sampler in Drambo is easily one of my favorites. Import folder from files, 4 dynamic velocity layers, and 127 zones.
The flexi sampler is equally powerful, with the ability to make fantastic mono or poly instruments from slices (say you have an 18 slice file, each slice a recording of a different velocity. By setting ‘slice’ to ‘vel’, then you have 18 dynamic layers to play).
Anyway, what I enjoy most about the samplers in Drambo is that they are QUICK, and aren’t bogged down by features and menus that make them difficult to use.
@NimboStratus this little jam is done almost entirely with Flexi samplers. Each flexi is loaded with a 5 ‘slice’ sample of a Hohner Guitaret. The slices are triggered randomly so that there is more of an organic feel to the instrument.
Just a very small example of the joy in using Flexi.
@aleyas I just spent the last hour cleaning the oven after my daughter had a cooking disaster. What a lovely piece of music to wind down to!
Great work! Thanks for sharing.
@NimboStratus it does raise many questions and do many things, but remember it can be used as a single instrument. So, if you can avoid the rabbit holes it can be fun and not too overwhelming. The video by Ben Richards is a good one just on the samplers.
To be honest I went down some rabbit holes but have enjoyed that immensely and still feel like I have no idea about half of what people talk about with Drambo and I'm ok with that.
Thanks man!! Glad it could help you chill out a bit! I'll upload some more calming stuff soon too 🎶
So looking at Drambo it seems to do the sampler stuff with ease and then offers all the other stuff and is cheaper than audio layer so starting to think it’s a bit of a no brainer.
But does this mean AUM is not longer needed? Do people tend to use Drambo within AUM?
Also. But off topic for this thread really but if I use Riffer / polyphase etc to trigger should I put these in Drambo or leave in AUM and did Drambo to AUM?
What is triggering the samples?
@NimboStratus
You can use Drambo in AUM no problems.
You can use Riffer / polyphase in AUM to trigger Drambo or you can use them inside Drambo. The possibilities are endless!
At the moment I prefer to use Drambo in AUM and trigger with my Mozaic scripts. Havent been able to get midi routing between AU's and Drambo channels working yet. AUM's midi routing is superior at this point as far as I can tell.
Does drambo do layers?
Looks to me like he’s using the new Euclidean Sequencer module to trigger the Flexi samplers in the video.
@lukesleepwalker
Add a layers module.
Add as many layers as you need (1 - 32+++ i dont know limit)
Add whatever you want to each layer - sampler, instrument etc
@Intrepolicious was right, a euclidian sequencer is triggering the samples. The samples are also receiving their pitch from a random generator > cv quantizer in the C pentatonic scale.
And fwiw, Drambo is fine in Aum. No need to use it standalone if you already have a workflow you're comfortable with.
Thanks @aleyas, @Intrepolicious
@soundtemple PolyPhase is IAA so cannot be run inside Drambo I don't think.
All - is the learning curve for Drambo steep?
It depends on what you already understand about music gear. It isn’t hard to understand it’s basics but it is very deep. Some parts are quick to learn. Some parts require a good understanding of modular workflows.
In the context of what you’ve said you’re looking for in this thread, I’d say it’s not bad. You can focus on just learning basics of the three samplers (Shot, Flexi, and Sampler) and build from there if you like, or not. When you think about it, if you were to learn three separate sampler apps, you’d be learning three totally separate apps, with different contexts, quirks, features, and interfaces. At least with Drambo there”s a unified approach between all modules.
The main challenge with Drambo can sometimes beat not to get distracted by all that it can do. It can be dead simple because you can strip it down to just what you need, and nothing else if you want.
Ah yes, but round Robin or random between layers? Choke groups?
Our artist @tk32 has just done the round robin thing:
https://forum.beepstreet.com/discussion/comment/16275#Comment_16275
You can also round robin over up to 4 velocity layers. The Sampler itself will play all 4 velocity layers at the same level and if you feed your ADSR by MIDI to CV velocity, independent from your round robin cycle generator feeding the Sampler's velocity input, you have both RR and velocity response.
That’s very cool, thanks! Which module could make that random rather than round Robin?
Thanks for the tag @rs2000 and @lukesleepwalker
I’m working on a random robin version now. Essentially I just need to use math to modulus a random integer by 5 to get a random value between 0-5, then use that to modulate the transpose module.
There’s a “little” detail in AudioLayer that makes me choose Drambo, but maybe I’m missing something... I usually import samples from a folder and use name mapping to be able to quickly make an instrument.
The difference is that AudioLayer doesn’t “fill the gaps” where Drambo does map a sample until the next one.. Here’s a screenshot of the same samples (C samples for different scales, C0, C1, C2...) in AudioLayer and Drambo. With AudioLayer you’d have to extend each one to fill the gaps.