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 Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Why Vacuum Tubes are the (my) future of music production.

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Comments

  • @Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr said:

    @Svetlovska said:
    :) @michael_m : not just me then! I was a kid in the 1960s, so CRTs were the only game in town. And my completely non technical dad could fix the tv if it broke by looking in the back, seeing which valve had burnt out, and taking it to buy a replacement from the valve shop. I’ll say that again: the valve shop.

    And you tell kids that today, and will they believe you? And we had onions on strings because it was the fashion in those days, mumble mumble...

    In the US you could buy replacement tubes in drugstores well into the 1970s. There would be an entire display that included books of equivalents in case the brand on sale had a different number than the one you brought in.

    I was going to mention the tubes in drugstores thing. Thanks for confirming that I was not hallucinating that memory.

  • Does anyone know much about casing electronics like this sort of thing? I’m having a lot of fun on the breadboards but it’s starting to get to be the time to nail some of this stuff down. I’ve found a few cases/kit type things for sale that look halfway there but I’ve not found anything that screams solution at me yet...

  • Before you go into artwork, you may consider you‘re dealing with high impedance circuits ;)
    Which means your current results are likely off from those with a proper construction.
    Breadboard contact plates have significant (!) capacitance and long cables add inductance.
    (you add both „features“ on a random basis and if output pleases you, it may sound even boring in the plain circuit version, f.e. on 2 post point-to-point mounting boards)

  • That’s interesting, the one oscillator that I have soldered down is incredibly mellow sounding compared to the breadboard versions. I thought it was due to me possibly making a mistake transferring to stripboard but that could be it...

  • edited June 2021

    @Krupa Your valve nonsense is a true work of art! 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

    BTW, I'd keep both versions if the sound is so different.

  • Cheers @rs2000 , your encouragement is highly welcome :)

    I think I’ll be keeping a lot of them, next order is many potentiometers, some ‘easier to solder for an amateur ham fist’ prototype boards, and some sort of project boxes that can house them nicely...

    At the same time I will be starting to experiment with tape loops, the actual art installation is starting to take form in my imagination and on the page, where the writhing lengths of tape will serve nicely as both audio carrier and visual cue of running water in a sculptural context...

    Mystery served 😁

  • Sh*t just got real, I blame @Hainbach - already plugged it up and it definitely musics 😁

  • First mess about, heathkit on pure tones, krupostinator filter on badness and blackhole on sweetness…

  • edited June 2021

    Musicality of the Heathkit, switching tones with the big snap dial things, then using Audiokit’s auto tuner thing to map the frequencies to a scale, then drambo enveloping, followed by a bit of eventide into dub delay…next time will be timeless, I keep forgetting to update my standard input aum comp :)

  • Wow! I absolutely love reading this posts and grateful that you're updating your progress too. The sounds your producing are beautifully analogue! :smile:

    If you decide to make a wee sideline out of this even just supplying the kits to build ourselves would be awesome!

    I think "big snap dial things" should be the official name of the controls you're talking about! :smiley:

    Thanks for sharing.

  • edited June 2021

    Cheers @Jelleebean , it’s nice to know someone’s checking it out, though it’s quite a nice record to have of my identity as time goes on 😆

    I’m not sure I’ll be doing any kits anytime soon, though I am getting to the stage now where I really need to make some of them more permanent than the breadboards I’m currently working with.

    My current plan is to adapt older gear to incorporate the circuits; I’ll be receiving a bizarre old tape later this week that was used in schools to play a single tape to multiple students - my thinking is that it’ll have excess space inside to house my gear, and the multiple output holes will nicely accommodate either potentiometers, or ‘modular’ jacks or switches - I like swapping positions of things like feedback paths or capacitor values.

    I got it well cheap off eBay, and I’m amassing an interesting set of search terms there - I’m looking forward to car boot sales soon as well, also regretting a few recent and not so recent items discarded or donated that could have worked well, but then again, I don’t live in a warehouse anymore so I can’t keep everything 😁

    What I should do is to share some circuit diagrams perhaps? I’ve made a couple with various tools, but I’m hoping that iCircuit gets an update to include vacuum tubes soon as I find a lot of the desktop/online ones not great to use and really tricky to get the right spice models loaded and functioning.

    Thanks again :)

  • @Krupa said:
    Cheers @Jelleebean , it’s nice to know someone’s checking it out, though it’s quite a nice record to have of my identity as time goes on 😆

    I’m not sure I’ll be doing any kits anytime soon, though I am getting to the stage now where I really need to make some of them more permanent than the breadboards I’m currently working with.

    My current plan is to adapt older gear to incorporate the circuits; I’ll be receiving a bizarre old tape later this week that was used in schools to play a single tape to multiple students - my thinking is that it’ll have excess space inside to house my gear, and the multiple output holes will nicely accommodate either potentiometers, or ‘modular’ jacks or switches - I like swapping positions of things like feedback paths or capacitor values.

    I got it well cheap off eBay, and I’m amassing an interesting set of search terms there - I’m looking forward to car boot sales soon as well, also regretting a few recent and not so recent items discarded or donated that could have worked well, but then again, I don’t live in a warehouse anymore so I can’t keep everything 😁

    What I should do is to share some circuit diagrams perhaps? I’ve made a couple with various tools, but I’m hoping that iCircuit gets an update to include vacuum tubes soon as I find a lot of the desktop/online ones not great to use and really tricky to get the right spice models loaded and functioning.

    Thanks again :)

    I'd really like to see your schematics.

    I use KiCad. It does feel clunky and complex at first, but once you get used to the workflow it gets pretty fast and relatively easy to use. I tend to have some pretty weird parts in the things I do, so I end up making a bunch of parts and footprints to use. After I got used to doing this it became so fast that I stopped trying to find libraries and I'd generate them myself faster.

    Another big plus to KiCad for me is that places like OSHPark will take the KiCad project files directly. It makes getting boards produced pretty easy and less error prone than when I had to generate the Gerber and drill fills and send those in.

  • Only just catching up on this thread and am absolutely loving your experiments. I've got several boxes of salvaged components under my bed that I have vague designs of synth DIY activity with, but so far I've done very little besides modding a Monotron Duo to make it work with CV control.

    Please continue to keep us posted - this is great!

  • Cheers @NeonSilicon I’ll check that out, I’d hoped there’d be a recommendation ;)

    In the meantime, here’s the best one I’ve made so far, I’ve since replaced the transistor with a tube, and extended it with an overdrive that really pushes it into new territory...

    The resistor values have been changed too, I need to get it done properly, but this gives a general idea of the basic filter I’ve adapted from a micro pentode design :)

  • @PeteSasqwax said:
    Only just catching up on this thread and am absolutely loving your experiments. I've got several boxes of salvaged components under my bed that I have vague designs of synth DIY activity with, but so far I've done very little besides modding a Monotron Duo to make it work with CV control.

    Please continue to keep us posted - this is great!

    Cheers @PeteSasqwax I will do, and I’ve done the same collecting/harbouring thoughts about it for years, then something happened in the winter lockdown that got me started, and now I’m struggling to stop 🤣

    You’ll get yours when you’re good and ready 😁

  • @Krupa said:
    Cheers @NeonSilicon I’ll check that out, I’d hoped there’d be a recommendation ;)

    In the meantime, here’s the best one I’ve made so far, I’ve since replaced the transistor with a tube, and extended it with an overdrive that really pushes it into new territory...

    The resistor values have been changed too, I need to get it done properly, but this gives a general idea of the basic filter I’ve adapted from a micro pentode design :)

    Cool! Thanks. So this is the filter that's on your first HeathKit example? With the modifications of the overdrive and second tube? That's definitely got some excellent tone mangling in it.

    If you do go with KiCad, a three button mouse can be very helpful.

  • I pretty much added this after it, then added the output from this into the feedback path through another pot, I’m a terrible scientist though, I’ll literally change the paths during a recording, sometimes swap out a component if I think I can get away with it 😄

    This is what Usagi electric (great YouTube channel, really clever guy and great educator) helped me with, changed resistor values on the initial pentode, and a cathode linked dual triode deal as boost - though I can’t remember now if I used this configuration, or another, a cathode follower one - this is why I need to draw them up, and sim them so I can maximise the gains etc..

  • That overdrive on it’s own is well worth a go, loads of tube tone for not much effort, and I think a bit hotter at twelve volts ;p

  • @Krupa said:
    That overdrive on it’s own is well worth a go, loads of tube tone for not much effort, and I think a bit hotter at twelve volts ;p

    Very interesting! I do happen to have a few 12A_7 tubes of different types sitting around not being used. I may have to try some experiments.

  • @NeonSilicon said:

    @Krupa said:
    That overdrive on it’s own is well worth a go, loads of tube tone for not much effort, and I think a bit hotter at twelve volts ;p

    Very interesting! I do happen to have a few 12A_7 tubes of different types sitting around not being used. I may have to try some experiments.

    You definitely should, it’s ripe for experimentation that one, and so quick, the one on the first page is also good with your 12a7 types, and is the one that got me hooked..

  • I finally got to grips with the simulation software (Tina-TI) in this instance and got my fuller working in there. Already found where the crazy stuff lives, so there’ll now be an extra pot to control that - you can see in the graph where it goes from normal filter to crazy oscillation... very interesting to see how similar the sim is to real life, and great to optimise/play with the design before moving it onto a soldered board...



  • I'm just putting together an application for a grant (Developing your creative practice from ACE) to really dig deeper into all this stuff from an fine arts perspective and I'd like to include a bit of education into the mix; does anyone know of any electronics courses, formal or informal, that would be suitable for this sort of hacky audio stuff?

    I'm thinking that some basic safety stuff would be smart (in terms of both heat / fire etc, and in terms of passing (audio) signals about - impedance etc). Also useful would be more broad design techniques, so that I can start to solve problems, or come up with ideas or ways of using things in different ways that what was intended...

    I've been looking about a fair bit, but it's mostly quite general courses that I've come across (that might be all there is, and what is truly suitable)

    I'm also wondering about some sort of mentoring, but that's another story...

    cheers,

    Chris

  • @Krupa
    This one is specifically about tubes, a bit of background included:
    http://www.tscm.com/NEETS-v06-Tubes.pdf

    For an index to more of the series, find "NEETS Manuals on Basic Electronics" on the page http://www.tscm.com/reference.html

  • Cheers @rs2000 that tscm is quite a resource, some very interesting looking stuff in there!

  • @Krupa said:
    Cheers @rs2000 that tscm is quite a resource, some very interesting looking stuff in there!

    Definitely, and it's explained very well from what I saw in a few randomly picked documents.

  • The Art of Electronics is a solid reference. It's been a primary source for doing electronics instrumentation in physics labs for a long time now. It's expensive and pretty heavy (in weight and content), but it is practical in its presentation and would be a good thing to include as a reference resource for further investigations kinda stuff.

    The ElectroBOOM guy on youtube is entertaining and informative. He could be a good resource to link to on basic safety content. Here are links to his first and latest videos on his channel:


    I'll dig through the docs I've got saved from when I was relearning electronics and see if I can find anything useful. I've got a bunch of web links saved too, some of them may still be alive and useful.

    TI has a bunch of docs both from themselves and all the other companies that they've bought up over the years. These are generally really well done but are more specifically aimed at semiconductors and IC's.

    Do you have an idea of what sort of level you want to aim at? Tube/valve specific or more general semiconductor, IC, passives, etc?

  • Oh brilliant thanks @NeonSilicon

    They all look very useful, that book is massive and probably a really good purchase...

    I’m mainly going to be making the tube stuff a bit more gallery friendly, modularising the units so that I can install them in whatever configuration I end up with, but I’m also going to pursue a few other ideas; tape and wire recording/playback/archival loops as sculptural elements, relays as sequencing/noise making, theremin-like contraptions as ways of interacting with all of the above, as well as looking at pressure plates, light sensitive, and even wind sensitive - I’m thinking of ‘windmills’ s as voltage or current sources, driven either by natural airflow, or more likely well placed fans... so all sorts really. I so wonder if I would just be wise finding a local night class type thing, I’m also going to get in touch with my local hackspace and see what they might recommend... thanks again 👍👍

  • edited August 2021

    This stuff sounds awesome. I may have to take a dive into researching it cos I now have in my possession two large boxes of tubes and a bunch of test equipment and about 7 or 8 tube radios

  • @Fingolfinzz said:
    This stuff sounds awesome. I may have to take a dive into researching it cos I now have in my possession two large boxes of tubes and a bunch of test equipment and about 7 or 8 tube radios

    You really should, I’m still on 12v but might graduate to 24v / -12v to +12v soon… I’m being tempted to stray higher, 60v and 400v but I would prefer to have some expert tuition before risking that 😁

  • @Krupa said:
    I'm just putting together an application for a grant (Developing your creative practice from ACE) to really dig deeper into all this stuff from an fine arts perspective and I'd like to include a bit of education into the mix; does anyone know of any electronics courses, formal or informal, that would be suitable for this sort of hacky audio stuff?

    I visited here quite a few years ago when they were in Hackney.

    https://musichackspace.org/about-us/

    They've grown a lot since then.

    Here is the page to their free courses.

    https://musichackspace.org/all-courses/

    It maybe what you're looking for.

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