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
Chapter 12 in the manual 😉
Really must learn to read properly. I looked at page 12 and gave up!
Thanks @rs2000 !
@Jocphone 👍🏼😊
So mozaic sends the pattern change to the DN and DT at the same time. The DN then sends its program change to AUM, which has drambo presets saved in it. You can do the same thing with the DT, though. In AUM, save your drambo preset in AUM itself, then under the midi stuff, add an action, assign the PC channel and number, then match it on your device.
You are welcome, glad it's all sorted for you.
Ok so I picked up the Digitakt… what a wonderful machine. Soooo fun.
Then again, I struggle with mixing the iPad with the Digitakt….
So I’m what I’m doing is just get something going with the DT and then record each track (soloed) to Zenbeats.
Im hooking the DT via my Behringer 204 interface, not usb… I want to be able to record guitars or whatever. The start/stop midi sync works great, just press rec on a Zenbeats clip and you get a perfect loop from the DT…
Is this a lame way of using it?.
Btw I found this trick to simulate time stretch for loops in the DT, it’s great. And with some tweaking (and errors) you can get interesting variations. It’s got a grainy feel to it that it’s quite nice.
@rs2000 it reminds me of a looper you did for Drambo… I believe it’s a similar concept.
Yeah, and I've done a similar thing on the DT as well to do some "granular synthesis" 😄
Zenbeats + Digitakt could be a good combo I think. If you could match Zenbeats Clío scenes to DT patterns you could work in parallel. Record audio and midi synths in Zenbeats and have corresponding patterns in DT.
Then you could switch scenes/patterns in either and have Zenbeats and DT sync. Does that sound right?.
The problem is that Zenebeats doesn’t seem to respond or listen to program change messages, which is what the DT sends when changing patterns… I can midi learn scene launch in Zenbeats, but it seems like only works with CC messages….
And I can’t seem to do it the other way around (Zenbeats - DT) either, I can’t send a PC message from Zenbeats to the DT on scene change. It’s another case where DAWs seem to “simplify” automation with midi learn and stuff but end up limiting functionality. Why not let me specify what I want to send?. I don’t want to send sustain pedal message, I want a program change, or a specific CC…
Maybe with a Mozaic script or something in the middle… but it’s already quite complicated as is and that’d be quite intricate.
Hey @tahiche, did you get anywhere with this Zenbeats-Digitakt syncing? Would love to use something like this as an augmented DT song mode.
No, I didn’t.
Zenbeats has very limited midi messages that can be automated. This is a handicap not only for DT but for automating other apps, like triggering a pattern change in DigiStix, for example, which is something I also encountered recently.
The idea would be to send a PC message with every scene to sync the Digitakt… Ok, so if I can send a mod wheel message and translate that to PC with something like Mozaic… Seems like you can’t either. In my experience, and please correct me if I’m wrong, anything CC or the like is somehow filtered in the MidiFX slots, doesn’t even get there. Put a midi monitor in there and you’ll see the notes but no CC’s.
IMO This is something that Zenbeats needs to open up because it’s very crippling and there’s no workarounds. Take Loopy, you can’t automate CCs, but it’s flexible and open enough to find workarounds.
Hmmm, could this be achieved without automation? What if you had a MIDI channel that nothing except Mozaic was using (or even a zero velocity note), and used a specific note at the beginning of each scene, which Mozaic would then convert to program change messages for the Digitakt?
Automation is just a way, it would be the easiest. But the point is that you can’t seem to send CCs or PC from the MidiFX slots.
Here’s an example where I’m sending midi to AudioBus3. I have a note, like you say, and then Mozaic loaded in a midi fx slot. In this case I’m just transposing the note, for demonstration purpose.
That’s external midi, just like it’d be the case with the Digitakt. When you set up a track to send midi to an external source.
The midi note is sent without transposition. BTW Mozaic has to be setup as MidiFX there’s no other way…
Even when sending midi internally, from one track to another in Zenbeats, MidiFX is “omitted” from the flow… seems like MidiFX only works for the track it’s placed on…
I guess you can send the midi notes from Zenbeats to Audiobus or AUM, do the Mozaic thing there and send to Digitakt from AUM.
Kind of thing that makes you happy for 0,8 seconds and miserable for sure after that as those Inter-app complicated setups are a nightmare to keep track of.
Thanks for trailblazing all this nerdery, @tahiche — your past problems are very helpful to those who follow. It’s a pity these limitations make it just shy of something tantalising!
Digitakt and iPad work great together for me.
My setup is:
The digitakt as audio interface for the iPad.
AUM sends midi clock.
AUM can apply master FX for the digitakt.
Sampling goes in both directions.
The same for sequencing. I rather use LK for sequencing synths inside AUM than using midi tracks of the digitakt because of more flexibility, longer patterns etc.
interesting… thanks! but how would you route audio from several external synths into the Digitakt? I‘ve got a bunch of Meeblips and Shruthis laying around which I want to sequence and record with my iPad. Do I have to buy a seperate mixer/audio interface for that?
The audio inputs of the digitakt are still free with this setup, so no problem connecting your synths. I'm not sure if you can route the digitakt inputs to the iPad separately or you need to mute all channels...
I have to admit, I haven't tried it yet but I assume the Digitakt's audio is summed into one channel in AUM and elsewhere on the iPad - unfortunately there's no Overbridge on iOS yet ;-( but I will try that out for sure asap.
hm I get what you're saying: muting channels on the Digitakt and recording stems into AUMs channels. I wish there is a less stressful possibility to record live into AUM. My guess is I have to save for an Audio Interface with lots of inputs such as the Behringer UMC1820. I'll see how that workflow suits me. Maybe recording and sampling bits and pieces is the fun I'm missing all along. thanks for the inspiration!
The DT inputs are summed with everything else to the stereo output.
If it had more outputs, specifically dedicated ones for the DT audio inputs, I’d make it a nice audio interface.
Say you want to record a bass or guitar over a Digitakt rhythm sequence, you have to mute the sequence, which makes it sort of useless as an audio interface. I don’t know why on iOS it’s limited to a stereo output.
Using Overbridge you can separate the Digitakt’s analog inputs from everything else. not on the iPad, of course
If I recall correctly, without Overbridge, just using the interface I/o you still have access to separate outputs. Right?.
I don’t get why it’d be an iOS limitation, maybe they just haven’t implemented it for some reason.
It should be exactly the same on the iPad as the Mac. They both use the same class-compliant “driver” right? Weird that it doesn’t.
Even if elektron would make Overbridge for iOS you got to keep in mind that on the digitakt you have to chose whether the USB port is used for Overbridge or audio. When you switch to Overbridge then the digitakt wouldn't act as an audio interface for the iPad
This sounds super snarky, but it’s a true story, and I’m not trying to be negative… The best thing I did is to sell my digitakt and focus more on the ipad.
interesting opinion! But I'm not willing to give up just yet. Sure, making songs and jams on the iPad is very fast. But for some reason I bought all this gear and invested this much time already. Why is going all Hardware so annoying and unnerving? This cannot be so simple!
I've got my trusty Zoom R16 set up now. unfortunately it is not class compliant. But I can export the stems and load them into AUM for further use. Maybe it is even advisable to stick to loops and not whole jams/recordings to save disk space. let's see how this goes...
Hello ! I like to make use of the reload pattern function after mangling the pattern up with my digitakt. The problem I have is while the MIDI CC values are reset to what I saved , the reset value are not sending to the ipad :-(
Someone use the digitakt like this ?
Thank you :-)
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Hello!
I can't figure out how to route Midi back from AUM into Digitakt. There are too much settings both in Digitakt and AUM to mess it up
I have connected the Digitakt and my Korg Microkey to AUM.
Digitakt is running a pattern.
I play Model D App with my Microkorg and want to record the Midi into Digitakt.
I hear both sounds from Model D and Digitakt but no Midi is recorded.
Some hints would be helpful?
Maybe it’s got to do with the midi channels?. There’s a setting on the Digitakt where you set a kind of “master” midi channel that will record to whatever track is selected. So if you select channel 14 you’d send from AUM to Digitakt on channel 14. Then the Digitakt will receive that on the selected midi track.