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
Go on desktop , keep the iPad for ultra portable production & quick sketching . (or treat it as sound module or fx processor )
Both.
I use my iPad Pro 3g to do almost all of my audio recording in Cubasis. It's plenty powerful enough for all the tracks I need (usually about 12-18+), and I prefer the innovation of most of my iOS apps/plugins over even a lot of the high end ones on my Mac DAW. I prefer the immediacy, and portability, of recording on the iPad, keep my effects limited while recording, and usually get recording projects done way faster on it.
But, every now and then, I have a need that I can't yet manage on the iPad, so I use Cubase on the Mac. It might be vocal tuning, or using a specific plugin or synth not available on the iPad. Not hard to move tracks back and forth when needed.
And sometimes, I mix projects on the Mac because I still have more post/mastering tools there - though even that is getting to be a wash these days.
I record guitars and bass that need virtual amp sim. You run out of processor juice fast with those.
When you tear off a sticker, or an adhesive tape, in the dark, you can see a feint glow of light discharge. This is called triboluminescence. It is related to charge, it is a phenomena not fully understood, but it isn’t really enough to cause a shock. Anyone who says so is exaggerating.
Currently have a windows 10 Laptop
IMO whether going desktop or mobile, it is worth considering “printing to tape” when using your amp sims. It frees up CPU and removes a temptation to over-tweak after recording.
You can, if you want record and mute the dry guitar if you absolutely feel like you need to be able re-amp everything.
I used to find that on some PCs, but haven’t had that issue on a Mac. I assume it’s something to do with the different bus architectures.
I print the processed tone so that I'm not tweaking later and free up the CPU - whether I'm on Mac or iPad. Tweaking kills my time, and if I really don't like the tone, I can usually re-play the part quicker than the time I spend tweaking. If nothing else, record your raw track while listening to your sim, print the sim tone while leaving your raw track, but save your raw track if you want to-reprocess. Just get the amp sim out of your cpu while working. Or just freeze the track if your daw allows.
That would now really work for us because we write in the daw. Moving , adding parts to fit the arrangement.
Not sure how that makes a difference, as I feel I write/arrange in the exact same way. I'm sure you have some other reasons, though.
I used to try to run multiple tracks with Amp Sims on them, even on my Mac. The additional processing just adds up too quick, no matter what the platform.
I went back to using my Windows PC for both production and mixing (I was producing on iOS for awhile) two years ago. iOS can't compete in several areas, though I expect those differences to continue diminishing over time. I sometimes use my iPhone now for MIDI related things, generation, etc. I also added some hardware synths, and everything is wired through my DAW.
I can use iOS for audio out to the PC but not the other way around (studiomux is still a failure but it's being tinkered with so maybe some day... heh heh heh). But I never find myself doing that. I'll probably have an iPad to mess around with in the coming months as we get a new basic one for the family and the other one, 3-4 years old, becomes available.
I personally wouldn't bother with the IK stuff, but if you really like it, that group buy seems like a good idea.
I was a long-term Windows guy (30+ years), but forked out $1,200 for a refurb MacBook Pro about year ago and have not looked back, especially since FL Studio runs on Mac now.
The level of integration with iOS (my main music making platform) is just so painless and fluid that it feels like one big device that I can use in whatever way fits the task at hand. I couldn't be happier.
I have nothing against Windows, but I wouldn't invest a penny in it now when it comes to music making. That's why I asked the OP whether "PC" meant "Windows". I would change my from PC to iOS if I had thought of that earlier.
Don’t you have to unfreeze and refreze every time you do a change? Or you record new guitar on new track , freeze and move to initial frozen track?
That is very good to know. Thank you!
Many people seem to have it for IK. I really enjoy using Mixbox and is one of the reason I would buy. Plus T-Rack seems cool. Hammond sim is a plus but I have a Hammond keyboard.
If I buy a new iPad, should I get the new 4th gen air or refurb 2020 pro?
I would miss headphone out. Also Apple Pencil 1st gen would need to be replaced.
Would I need new audio interface? I have UR22 MKii.
For software that work on both Windows and Mac, did you need to buy new licenses, or were you able to just download the Mac version under the old license?
In the case of FL you can use it on both platforms. When I had Reason, same - no new license needed. In most cases you won’t need to shell out for a second license if it’s cross platform and you are the only person using it
Sounds like you are wanting realistic midi to sample drums. iPad just is not powerful enough to do that. I don't know Superior Drummer specifically, but BFD3 for example, you are talking about several hundred samples PER drum with velocity and round robin. So you can have 3000 samples at hand easily.
I also don't think Tracktion is an ideal DAW for rock music. Surely it would work, but again you are ultimately making it hard on yourself. Take a look at Reaper as you noted a budgetary issue. The non-full time music professional version is like $60 and it is a lot more efficient for audio recording and editing.
iOS is cool for a lot of things, but you're making it hard on yourself doing rock recording on it.
I integrate a lot of things from iOS into rock. For example, sitting here setting up some patches for my drummer in Drambo to trigger with the MIDI drum pad that's now part of his otherwise acoustic kit. Some of the 'drum' sounds are from field recordings with iPhone, oi, got a sick cymbal(?) sound out of some cicada recordings!
But no. Not recording a full band audio on it. Obviously you could...I recorded to reel to reel 8 tracks back in the day that had more limited capabilities that the iPad plus USB hub plus audio interface, but now a mid-tier laptop plug that audio interface has ridiculous power and easy of use. It is a question of speed and efficiency as much as ultimate capabilities.
Maybe your are right but I tought it would be possible. Maybe I bought too much into the hype.
On the flip side I learned a lot , had fun and started producing electronic music. I never tought I would do that as a Rock/Metal guy.
Shameless plug of my first song. I hope to release more when the neck get better.
I am using Tracking because I know it so well (about 10 year of use) not because it is now free. We did a album and a EP with Tracktion. It worked well. I do have Reaper as a backup plan if ever needed.
I’m loving the combination of iOS and the Mac for audio. Despite Logic being the single most important part of my setup, I dont think I’d be making music today without iOS. I used to have a fairly nice home bedroom studio with everything permanently set up and all the time in the world, but traded that for a family :-) ios was and is my gateway back into music.
Anything started on iOS inevitably ends up in Logic. I have completed stuff on iOS but much prefer Logic for actually finishing stuff. But a hell of a lot of the audio in any “finished” track of mine will have originated on iOS. I don’t have the time and space to make music the way I used to and it took a while to find my current process, which has result in me making more music again after many dry years. As soon as I stopped trying to replace Logic with iOS, everything made sense.
As for IK, I can’t personally get excited by the 25 yr anniversary deal. I did almost jump in, I love a bargain and got as far as adding the first app to the basket :-), but realised I won’t actually get much that I want that I don’t already have in Logic. It's clearly a great deal if you're into IK apps but as I don't use the IK apps I already have, I doubt I'd find much use for any of the others either -- Maybe my ears are too old to hear any improvement between the IK apps I have or have demoed over the stock logic plug-ins. (For example the classic EQ and 760 vintage compressor don't really make my mixes any better, or better enough, to my ears than the stock stuff especially in the context of the mix). And I'm not personally interested in any of the Sample based instruments at all.
Logic is one of the best DAW deals going in my humble opinion, and Logic on an 'entry level' M1 Mac has got to be the best value for money Logic systems there has ever been -- Notator Logic 1.2 was £400 I think and was 'just' a MIDI sequencer.
FL Studio, Reaper, Live, and Zenbeats were the only ones I checked. All except Zenbeats can be cross installed with no extra licensing.
Unfortunately I purchased Zenbeats for Windows not long before switching. I haven't purchased Zenbeats for the Mac. Love it on the iPad but don't feel the need for it on desktop.
I totally freeze up creatively on the desktop anyway - probably from decades of wrangling desktops 10+ hours a day for work. So nearly all of my dabbling with apps on the Mac is just to see what works and what doesn't. I'll happily put up with a ton of inconvenience on iOS without any moaning to break free of that paralysis.
I think IK are unfairly maligned these days. Some of their plugins are really top quality and subjectively as good as anything else on the market (IK Tapes, MixBox, Modo Bass, Hammond, Stealth limiter, etc.) They continuously engage with customers and haters with a history on KVR, Gearspace, and now here (no real haters here though). And then they pull off this group buy which is just crazy value. They haven’t quite got the customer experience bit fully down yet but they are still looking very good in my books.
Nice!
yep.
Learning curve is a totally valid consideration with DAWs imho. Most all of them can do all the crucial functions (looking at you Ableton that only recently added comping) so knowing them well is a practical efficiency factor.
My current setup includes a Tascam mixer and recorder. Tascam taught me a lot that helped me understand AUM better.
Right now I can take MIDI from my Akai pad controller or my digital piano and play my iPad instruments. I can also route any audio signal from real or virtual instruments through the iPad or through my Tascam.
I also have the iPad setup as a send loop in the Tascam as well as the Eventide h9.
Anyway, my main point is consider the Tascam products, including the model 12. The ability to deal with actual hardware faders on a mixer is a good thing.
I am locking at the Tascam. That thing look sweet. But you are confusing me even more.
Yeah I can see that. The main point is you can use a Tascam or Zoom or other mixer / recorder instead of a PC or iPad as your destination for audio production.
That's an expensive way to learn AUM. LOL