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
Is there an option to turn on the visibility of the grid?
I'm only 1/4 note vertical grid lines even when setting the grid to 1/32.
I’d like to sequence Korg Gadget from Helium in slide over mode. How do I make the midi connection? I’ve done it with Fugue Machine and the connection is automatic. Note: I’m running Helium as a stand-alone app to get the slide over function.
Is anybody copying and pasting remotely? It seems there’s no way of achieving this, but I hope to be wrong.
Dragging a note duration changes the velocity. This is a wierd bug.
There is an option to disable what I think you are seeing in Settings, Velocity Edit On/Off. This stops the velocity changing as you drag the duration of a note.
why would anyone want this on? why would I want changing note duration to change velocity? and it doesn’t change linearly either; if I drag the duration back and forth, the velocity gets lower and lower.
I want it on. I don’t have chubby fingers.
What does chubby fingers have to do with anything?
And I'm still wondering: why would anyone want duration and velocity to change together?
And why would you want it to change more in one direction than in the other?
Really seems like a bug and not a feature.
That's how it works in Ableton, except it also does that when you first draw the note. The idea is that you can set both the length and velocity with one "tap and drag" motion instead of two. I like this feature. I wish Reaper had it.
I use it all the time. It’s so I can change the velocity and the duration together at the same time. A really great feature.
I think, the idea of in-app manuals is great. But a download link is still important, because a full-text search is not possible in the app or simply because it can help with the purchase decision.
So, I'm sure someone has the PDF in his Dropbox, right?
While Helium has some great features, the basic timeline editing is too tedious for me, The color schemes are still not easy to see, the grid doesn't show through, there are no grid markers for a selection ... LK, Atom2 and Xequence are much better in this regard. I wonder why the developer does not optimize these basics ...
I think it’s because Paul is the only developer, and he has many apps on the store, and he seems to perpetually make and release new apps.
If you reach via FB, he will eventually respond. I had a couple requests, and the one which was easy to implement he did implement it and put it out in a recent release a couple months ago.
I try avoiding editing at all costs, so I know what you mean. For me, it makes for a killer live MIDI looper and even live composing and arranging tool, and it’s all thanks to the RTC. However, I spent weeks building my template that way. It is a complicated nightmare involving many instances, and I need to work backwards on the time line to avoid stuck notes.
Does anyone know if it’s possible to record multiple channels of MIDI in Helium simultaneously like in Atom?
Yes, but not without setting up multiple instances of helium. So if you plan on editing than it’s obviously a terrible work flow. But I don’t edit midi with that particular setup. Instead I use it as a live midi looper. You also need to spend considerable time making a template so that each instance has identical snap-shot regions. This way one trigger press brings them all to the same point of the time line.
In conclusion, it can be done but not worth it IMO. Xequence 2 handles this much better, but it’s not an AU nor does it support AU. So if that’s important to you, again, you need to cobble something together using Audiobus + AUM + Xequence + ad nauseum.
Maybe Zenbeats?
Haven’t seen anything in this thread about my question:
Does Helium MIDI Sequencer have “Catch Playhead” ?
It does have an "Auto-scroll" feature that will move the grid view to follow the playhead if it reaches the end of the screen, and it will jump to the position of the playhead in the grid. Here's an example: Load it in AUM, and set host sync on in Helium, and "Auto-scroll" on (I believe it is on by default. Hit play on the transport and the grid will move to keep the playhead in view. Fast forward or reverse in AUM by using the transport control and the grid will move to keep the playhead in view. Stop the transport in AUM, manually scroll away from the playhead in helium, and then hit play in the AUM transport - it will jump to the playhead position, which is in sync with AUM. Does that help?
This is not the ideal solution, but I've used the select text option from iOS, selected the entire help screen, including pics, and then pasted it into something like Notes, which brings over all of the text and pictures, although the URL links don't convert, but that's a minor issue for me. The formatting loses the line breaks between paragraphs but it's still quite readable, imo.
It looks like the grid lines below 1/4 only show when you are selecting or editing a note - see the pics below for a examples. In these examples, High Contrast is turned on (which can be done by long pressing on the "Menu" button, and selecting that from the several options that appear).
Edit note (grid set to 1/32)
Select multiple notes
Yeah, thanks!!!
I missed that settings option…
The way Helium using “catch playhead” is OK, but, I rather prefer the way Logic Pro acts - there is the playhead still in the middle and the pianoroll moves…
But, as I said, Heliums way is OK!
Next question from me:
When I import an MIDI-files, Helium MIDI Sequencer doesn’t import tempo?
Also, some advanced MIDI-files I’ve got has variable tempo in the file - in Logic Pro for iPad the import gets right and there’s an tempotrack with drawing automation…
Is this something Paul have mentioned to be implemented later?
That's interesting. I didn't realize that Helium doesn't pick up the tempo information from MIDI files that contain that info. I have not heard mention of any plans for that feature myself.
I have to correct myself - when I continue to load different MIDI-files with variable tempo, it all of a sudden work as expected… Hmmm…
Perhaps there were some quirky thing between AUM and Helium concerning Sync…
I will continue my testing today and see if I could have Helium to play files with variable tempo, not only that Helium recognizing inital tempo…
I really like Helium MIDI Sequencer - bought Atom v2 when it was released, but, although it has a great arsenal of features I couldn’t stand the lack of “catch playhead” and the fact that is was very laggy when I loaded big MIDI-files…
Also, the developer of Atom v1 and v2 has abandon this app - he seems to totally disappeared from the software business…?
Any suggestion on other AUv3 sequencers with great amount of features?
How many scales are in Helium, I saw a great @sfm video by Leo but it only showed Major and Minor?
Am I missing something, didn’t Xequence 2 (@SevenSystems) do everything that Helium does? What sets them apart aside from personal preference and the obvious UI differences? Are they still in the top 5 solutions for midi capture in AUM?
Xequence v2 isn’t AUv3 as Helium is…
Oh! Fairly fundamental then. That explains it. Thanks.
It has Major, minor, modes Dorian-Locrian (including Aeolian), and chromatic.
There appear to be 9 scales available: Major, Minor, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian, Chromatic, although to be exact, all of these except one are modes of the major scale. Here's a link to the part of one of the 4Pockets videos where it talks about the feature:
Helium - Scale and Key
Edit: @CracklePot - you got it, too me to long to hit post, lol
Thank you, both 👍