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.
ARP with Randomizer - recommendations?
I’m only aware of ArpBud and Steppolyarp - can anyone comment on the quality of those apps’ randomizers, how musical the generated results feel etc?
Any other apps that fit the description?
Comments
You can run Riffer as an arp of sorts these days.
Ah cool, didn’t realise. Always thought Riffer had to be programmed in advance (sequencer not accepting live chord input). How musical are the results?
Riffer is widely reputed here to be among the most musical sequencers on iOS. You can set the randomize function to refresh every x bars, use Y number of root notes, etc. With the last release you could use note inputs as well.
Just been reading a Dec 2020 thread on it - last update clearly received much love. Seems a good candidate, thanks for flagging it
Snag Fugue Machine and StepPolyArp, or use a few Rozeta modules into StepPolyArp. Or smash random keys into StepPolyArp.
Sounds like some interesting combos @slicetwo
Interested in finding a good arp as well.
My favorite arpegiator is the one on Reslice by Vyrsin. I think there’s a standalone arpegiator by Vyrsin but I believe it’s not auv3. Can someone comment on this?.
I didn’t know Riffer could act as an arpegiator. Maybe Cykle, which I already have, can too?.
I don’t know that app but just checked out the history of Cykle updates on the app store - v1.2 talks about arp mode and responding to midi note input. So that could indeed be another option
Riffer has a dice button!
StepPolyArp works with the notes you input, and its randomiser simply picks a random note from those. It doesn't generate random sequences the way that other melody generators do e.g. Riffer, given a key\scale etc.
So if the results aren't musical it's usually either down to the notes entered, but then "musical" is highly subjective and your post supplies no detail about what sort of results you're after or what you consider musical.
How about Aphelian? It’s great for AUv3 midi and super fun as a stand alone groovebox:
Wow!. Love the concept. Very unique and imaginative.
I prefer both complex or chaotic to random. I like to hear a hint of a pattern. You can easily get this by combining apps. Send a sequencer or arpeggiator into another arpeggiator and you'll get a lot of variation. Depending on settings, it can be variations on the original theme, or it can go to completely chaotic.
Yeah I noticed that, looks like a furry one you might find in a Ford Capri
Understood, thanks for the input. I’m looking for people’s personal opinions without being too prescriptive - ultimately I want to know what apps offer this kind of thing. That said, I’m not really after chaotic
Awesome, I can see mileage in this - thanks!
Fantastic idea - sounds worthy of some experimentation, cheers. Definitely with you on wanting a hint of pattern.
Anyone using ArpBud?
Vyrsin Arpeggist is the one I was talking about. Sadly It’s not AUV3. Seems like their apps, such as Reslice which I mentioned, implement this arpegiator, I wish they would release it standalone.
Can anyone recommend something similar?. For me it’s got the right balance between good features and ease of use.
I tried Cykle. It does respond to note input but I couldn’t make it work with chords. Anyway I don’t really like arpegiators with multiple pages like StepBud I prefer to see it all in one go on a grid, like the Vyrsin one. I believe StepPolyArp is like that, right?. I owned the non auv3 version and remember it being similar.
What kind of random are you looking for in an arp? Randomizing of rhythm, octave, step division, playback direction, etc? Or randomizing the chords and notes being fed to the arp as well?
Just pattern typer stuff ie. rhythm, octave, step division, playback direction etc
I will feed it chords so I control keeping everything in key
If you have Drambo, I’ll upload a midi arp randomizer (which randomizes all the parameters you mentioned) for you by tonight 😉
That’s very kind of you thanks but I dont have Drambo
Does ‘s Riffer’s new(ish) performance mode expect to receive chords (and it puts the notes of the chord into a random pattern) or does it expect single notes that Riffer then converts to chords?
No, for that functionality, I’d suggest Strummer by 4 pockets. The randomization button is a little hidden but it’s very cool.
Check out Gavin’s video at about the 29 minute mark:
Sorry mate, just to be clear which of the 2 behaviours I mentioned does Riffer not do?
It doesn’t put the notes in a chord into a random pattern.
Got it - thanks. And will check that video out later (queuing for a vaccine just now!)
I really found SPA to be a fantastic arp machine. It reminds me, in some ways, of a super beefed up Elektron Octatrack arp designer.
Yeah I've heard nothing but good things about SPA
SPA is an essential piece of kit. I have espoused the virtues of other solutions in this thread but SPA is my go-to for almost all my arp needs. Congrats on vaccination day!
So a couple of StepPolyArp (SPA) thoughts that might be useful ... firstly worth checking out this thread about it.
I get the thing about not wanting chaos - I like controlled randomness to create interest, but often want more structure than pure randomness will produce.
SPA can create controlled amounts of randomisation based on notes entered, so if you wanted to create a semi- random bassline for example, you can specify certain steps to be randomly selected from the input notes. The amount of randomisation can be tweaked to your taste or musical purpose. I posted about this in the thread above which was about how to get interesting results from this plugin.
If you want to create chords, the same approach will work, using multiple note tracks in the same instance of SPA. I often use this as follows: send MIDI chords to multiple apps, to generate a pad chord from some apps, and arps from SPA. The result is always musical because everything is working with the same chord, but they handle it different ways #easyambient
ArpBud is super easy to use and fast. Also it has a configurable randomiser. You can assign each step a chance factor for randomization so basically you can randomise the randomisation!
@cem_olcay beat me to it. Yup that’s a good one.