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.
Modular nerds out there: Gauss-alike modules?
Hi all,
Away from the iPad, I’ve gone down that rabbit hole to modular ruin, still feeling my way.
I’m aiming for the rack modules to major in things I can’t readily do with my small but perfectly formed collection of analog and digital monosynths, inc an MC202, a Neutron, MicroFreak, and Sound Machines’ Modulor 114, (which I’m treating basically as a bang for buck collection of mini modules for the rack, at which I think it excels.)
I’ll also probably leave effect and sequence duties up to Ableton via the DC coupled ES9 interface I have on order, so am most interested in real-time tweakable, time-domain sample torturing for generating long low and evolving dark ambient drones, using raw material generated on the rack or from iPad wavs into my TipTop Sample player module, so I’m open to suggestions for modules that can do Gauss-alike things to audio, only with real knobs and cv inputs. Any ideas gratefully received. My wallet already hates you. 
Comments
Make Noise Morphagene and Mimeophone.
Instruo Arbhar
Bastl Instruments Thyme and Microgranny.
You don’t really need two kidneys, you know.
Assimil8or can do SOS. It can also sample on trigger, with fwd/reverse looping options and variable bit depth (for that 1984 mode goodness).
Orthogonal Devices ER-301 can also do live looping (in addition to about a thousand other things).
But you know what, a good delay with a long delay time and insert into the feedback loop will allow you to do looping and SOS.
I don't have experience with this one, but the Eventide EuroDDL has a max delay time of 160 seconds, with delay send (so you can patch FX into your feedback loop). It also has reverse.. but I'm not sure if that will reverse the existing buffer.
Basically, just set delay time to like 10 seconds+, feedback at max, wet at max. The long lengths turns delay 'repeats' into 'loop passes'. Put a VCA before the input, and turn up the gain any time you want to record into the buffer (aka' tape'). A bit of LFO to delay time CV will simulate wow and flutter, and some sample rate or bit rate reduction in the feedback loop can give it that digital, Gauss like sound.
For a sequencer I have the Westlicht Per Former. Well, I have 2. One for my Vermona DRM Mk IV and one for other things. They're in a Tip Top Audio Happy Endings kit in the rack on my studio desk. Check out the Westlicht, I think it's your kinda thing.
Clouds! But now, it's replacement: Beads by Mutable Instruments. Granular, delay, oscillator, and more. It's on my wish-list.
Definitely recommend Mimephon and Morphagene by Make Noise, have both of those, great combo. Mimeophon is in my top favs for delays. If I'm using my modular, it's almost always involved.
Also, folks love Magneto.
@ashh Where did you get your Westlicht? Been looking around for one.
Yeah they are not easy to find. I got a kit and then I thought it had been lost in transit so I bought another. I am convinced that I got a couple of the last ones. I have the user name of a builder on Muff Wiggler who had a few for sale, a couple of months ago if you're interested, @auxmux?
Yeah, that would be great, considering it, thanks!
Morphagene is excellent. Here’s a really good album of drones featuring it:
https://blackfelt.bandcamp.com/releases
@aleyas : interesting thought re the delay, thanks. And thanks for mentioning Assimil8or, never came across that before. @Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr, @Philandering_Bastard : thanks for the heads up re the Make Noise kit, Morphagene is on the horizon for me, I think. Not too clear what differentiates it from Mimeophone and whether just one of the two would do? I have already got Typhoon, an expanded version of Clouds, for granular noises, which pairs so well with my Jak Plugg nRings clone - to the extent that I understand a Rings/Clouds combo is something of a Eurorack cliche, next to the mini potted plant and mini plush toy... @auxmux - Magneto is another I hadn’t come across, will need to check that out. What is the phrase for the Instruo Arbhar? Oh yes: ‘reassuringly expensive.’ Not so bad applied to beer, maybe , but ...
@ashh : I’ll add the Westlicht to my list of ‘interesting if it pops up cheapish somewhere’ units. I think my ES9, when it finally arrives, should let me use all the weird and wacky sequencers you can get for Max4Live directly with the rack. I already have an SQ1 and a Beatstep Pro (and a MonoStation and an Akai Force) so conventional sequencing is already covered. If I were to get a rack sequencer it would be something more free form and interactive, like Rene, I think. Down the line I like the idea of putting a ‘no keyboard’ performance skiff together, maybe Rene, Pressure Points, some triggers and a joystick or two. But that will be after the second bankruptcy, and once I have recovered from the kidney donation auction...
Finally: Anyone got experience of Nebulae V2? It looks like it could do a lot of what the Morphagene can, and more, as it seems to be getting a lot of firmware upgrades, in the way that Parasites did for the Clouds clones. The only thing that puts me off is that it seems you have to be a bit of a rocket scientist to get the best out of it. Which come to think of it, might apply to modular in general.
Thanks all for the suggestions. Plenty of food for thought.
Also: Black Felt: Nice! Might have to get it for inspiration.
Rings and Clouds do sound great together. You can preview those modules for free on iOS: Resonator and Granulator in the Burns Audio Spectrum bundle.
Or get miRack, and an Expert Sleepers ES-8 (or ES-9) and use best of both worlds. There are quite some Mutable Instruments modules ported to miRack.
@Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr : I have the Burns Audio apps, and my Typhoon & nRings modules. I love both, but it is interesting that the directions my noises go in using the hardware versions end up in very different places than when I use the apps. Not better or worse, just different... @Bietfriek : yes! I have an ES9 on order, with Mirack as one of the use cases I made to justify the purchase.