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.
Anyone tried Pianoteq 7 ?
I recently bought the stage version of this plugin and am seriously impressed. There is some sort of voodoo magic going on here. It sounds so authentic.
Anyone else? What are your thoughts?
Comments
They offer(ed) a Raspberry Pi product but still no IOS love. I'd pay dearly to have some of those pianos that use my CPU and not the RAM/audio block mixing effort of the usual Piano Apps. Modeling is the future and in N years we'll avoid sampled instruments because they just won't scale in complex arrangements like the models do.
Fully agree- look at the SWAM instruments- 40mb and seriously impressive. I love Pianoteq and would love to use it in iOS.
I hope @quantovox applies their DSP skills to make us some CPU-focused instruments for their 3rd IOS App. It's an app category that's underserved in IOS.
It’s improved with each new version, and with a weighted keyboard it’s a pretty good piano.
For something with such a small footprint compared to huge sound libraries it’s very impressive.
Maybe
And it's not an unknown field for us. It's interesting to watch how the state of the art evolves, or how concepts that commercially failed in the 90s are now subject to renewed interest and more acceptance.
But speaking of state of the art, it is clearly demonstrated that improvements are in fact needed if sampling is to be dethroned in some respects (even though in some areas modeling offers superior features, but fidelity issues can occasionally pop up), and that is a very challenging, research-heavy endeavor in this field. That decision is not to be made lightly when other projects are also on the horizon...
@quantovox In the end it's the sound that counts and I'm sure that pianoteq have found enough workarounds to achieve what they have today.
All I know is I really look forward to this on iOS if it can provide a really good piano without the huge footprint of big sample based instruments.
Pianoteq 6 is already a really good package, not only for piano but also for the many other abailable instruments. Worth checking out.
I won't yet get rid of my huge sampled piano libs though because they sound different enough.
BTW, from their twitter page:
Yes, I use it for piano practice every day
. It's really good, my favorite piano is the C.Bechstein but the rest is also great.
I've got 7 and I upgraded from the Stage to the Standard version. I've been playing Pianoteq for several years and continue to be … I don't know … maybe stunned is the word. All the various pianos that came with it; including some historic keyboards. I paid for a 2nd modern grand. With the Standard version you can alter many physical characteristics to make your own sounds; there's a random function that produces all new instruments. And now with 7 you can take 2 instruments and morph them to make a hybrid. there's a slider that goes from mint condition to worn. I'm not getting any kickbacks from the company but maybe I should be.
Pianoteq is much debated on the Pianoworld forum. Lots of people like it but many hate it claiming it is artificial sounding. I tried the desktop demo. It didn’t leave me salivating. But, for sure, I would get it on iOS.
The examples that people have played for me have not sounded as good to my ears as the best sampled pianos.
Not sure, I do know on Pianoworld people seem to be in the "sampled" camp or the "modeled" camp, and I sometimes think their likes and dislikes are based more on that distinction than on the actual sounds. Also, I think the quality of the pianist can make a huge difference. If you listen to the best VST ever being played by a mediocre pianist, it's not going to sound very good.
I would suggest watching youtube videos by Phil Best to get an idea of how Pianoteq sounds when recorded well and played by a master player.
Having said all of that, I would be inclined to agree that if you just play a single note, then the sound from the best sampled VST's may sound slightly better. But when you actually play them, play a piece, not just a single note, there is something that feels and I think sounds better with Pianoteq. Anyway, this is what I've noticed with the two VST's I have, an excellent sampled VST (Garritan CFX ) and Pianoteq 7. I have heard people describe Pianoteq as feeling more responsive, more "alive", and that fits with what I've experienced.
Those who hate it, are they people who are used to play real pianos or people who are used to play sampled instruments?
I find it amusing how one can love or hate Pianoteq in general without comparing specific piano models in the sampled vs modelled domain.
I've used many different sampled pianos for a long time, I still do, and each of them has its own character and up- and downsides, besides the fact that no single piano library fits all styles.
For solo work, I'm sure I'll stick with sampled pianos for another while but for most compositions including at least bass, drums and keys or synths, Pianoteq fits the bill quite nicely. The wide choice of mostly great instruments, the sound tuning options and the short loading times make it a keeper, no question.
And who knows if the existing models couldn't be edited to sound more like my favorite sampled pianos...
I strongly dislike even the latest versions of Pianoteq (at least in the higher registers) and I grew up playing a real grand piano. For the past ten years or so I I’ve been playing the Synthogy Ivory Steinway and really like it.
I've been listening to world class pianist playing classical pieces on Youtube. They sound amazing and just like a classical piano recording. Quite impressive.
I found it sounded a lot better after I calibrated my keyboard velocity response. It sounds much more alive now.