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
This is the home of the @MobileMusic Amateur... but looking through this thread, you are correct.
The video in question is 3 hours of live staffpad music composition by the app's creative director and
company president, David William Hearn.
The Staffpad conversion from live audio or MIDI seems to be a good ways out. The impending update
now in beta adds the ability to add some audio tracks into your score. hopefully, more attention to
MIDI and MusicXML imports to help those that don't have a pencil or just hate handwriting every note
and articulation.
Like all "betas" some testers are reporting bugs... better them than thou... she than thy... those than
these. A those by any other name...
I write orchestral lines in a lot of my music (unintentionally, it just sort of works out that way) and either I play it with my hands or I program it in to the midi editor. I've always played by ear (took many years of piano lessons as a child, but always wanted to write my own music instead of play somebody else's) so I would just play whatever came out of my hands. So now, when I write orchestral lines, its really just whatever comes out of my mind as I'm sitting there. I do not have the ability to write the parts in notation (Sure, I can read music, but scoring an orchestra on a staff is completely different than reading it) but I can "get there" by programming it in Midi or playing the various parts on a keyboard.
I'm not dogging anybody that wants to learn notation because it is interesting to me, but if I'm just trying to get a song written, I like being able to just draw in the automation I need, exactly how I need it, instead of always thinking in my head "how many p's do I need here?", I just draw a curve or whatever. I don't think it makes me any less accomplished at what I'm capable of doing. I think the most important thing is, like others have pointed out, to understand the orchestration part the most, like what instruments play in what key ranges, understand the physical limitations of the instruments, where their sweet spot is in their ranges, etc. I think listening to a ton of orchestral music intentionally by concentrating on the specific instruments through the entirety of a piece has helped me.
I guess, for me, the satisfaction of hearing the result is more important than how I made that result. Whatever get's your idea out is the best tool for the job.
I'm not great at writing orchestral type music, but I love trying. When you suddenly strike gold on a chord progression, there is no better feeling than hearing it and knowing you did that. I've been working on my new MacBook more than my iPhone as of late, but right now, I'm just programming notes in with a mouse and, for me, having nice sounding libraries makes all the difference. I can get decent enough results in Nanostudio 2 on my phone and the IAP's for sketching and actually looking at moving midi back and forth to my MacBook to see how that workflow goes. The Black Friday Spitfire sale is going to end me
@drez you make gold. Carry on. But nothing you can make will rival a good staffpad score for historical accuracy. And the immediate feedback to notations is genius. If you want to be the IOS John Williams this is the best option bar none.
See the SoundClound account of Scott Van Zandt and there are some even more sophisticated due to years of school and professional achievement. To each their own tools.
hehe Mobile Music for life
Could you use SynthJacker with this? To export Berlin brass into a sampler
In theory you could but doing this would miss out on all of the magic that StaffPad does behind the scenes taking care of how the notes are articulated to sound realistic. Should work though if all you want is the samples to sketch with.
No. The outputs of Staffpad are "rendered audio" in a mix or in distinct instrument stems.
No MIDI (network) IN supported. You must draw notes you hear anything or import a MIDI file
with many surprises.
Now... a rendered audio can be imported into many apps... and in AUM the streamed recording can
get chopped (or sliced) and fed to Koala, AudioLayer, etc.
TIMTOWTDI.
I 💯 agree with this. For me, I’m too old to want to put in the elbow grease of going the notation route 😂 I watch a lot of vids on the spitfire audio YouTube channel and have been more than impressed with what people are sequencing. But I agree, “the best of the best” are people basically putting pen to paper.
Thanks. So the best option for me - I just want to compose orchestral parts/arrangements for songs, not score orchestral pieces - is probably to play the parts with say an equivalent brass or whatever patch from another app, then export the midi into staffpad, convert to Berlin brass, and export back to daw as audio. I did a quick test and seemed to work well, i just can’t remember if volume automation in midi files is accurately reproduced in staffpad? Basically if the nuances of playing re order as midi will be picked up and converted by staffpad.
I wonder if garageband strings record in midi… they’re really nicely playable.
I’m really waiting for swam sections. I hope it comes early next year. But in the meantime I was really blown away by Berlin brass particularly as I don’t think there’s a single brass patch I could use on iOS elsewhere (I’m really sensitive to how consistently fizzy and synthetic brass samples tend to sound to my ear at least). The Berlin strings have a nice romantic sound too, i wasnt so sure of them at first.
Don’t suppose anyone has any info on swam sections.
Further to earlier replies, it's important to understand that Staffpad doesn't contain a real-time sampler at its core. Importantly, for a tool like Synthjacker, Staffpad doesn't have MIDI in, so you have no ability to play back the samples in real-time.
There is a method to this madness. The likes of the Berlin and Spitfire libraries on the desktop are often 100s of GB in size, but more importantly, to maintain live playback of a full orchestra of strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion takes at least 32 Gb of RAM.
The libraries in Staffpad are custom versions of their desktop siblings that have a vastly smaller storage footprint (each of the larger libraries are approximately 2GB). By forgoing live sample playback, Staffpad is also able to use a minimal amount of RAM. It reads the music ahead of time and streams the required samples back on a bar by bar basis. Much as the latest generation iPad Pro's come with a minimum of 8GB RAM, older generation Pro's and Airs are nowhere near as well endowed. The Staffpad versions of the premium orchestral libraries are able to offer such a lean memory footprint as they only offer a single mic position (this is the main bloat with the desktop libraries), plus they use a bespoke lossy file compression which achieves great audio playback with massively reduced storage requirements. There's also some smart morphing going on through the expression multi-sample layers that deliver parity with the desktop libraries whilst requiring fewer samples.
I own some of the Berlin & Spitfire sample libraries on the desktop and can honestly say that there's little discernable loss in quality. The Staffpad sample playback engine is a true wonder of modern software engineering, which shows just how profligate the desktop libraries are with computing resources. I held off purchasing Staffpad for a while as I hated having to purchase anew something that I already own and for that purchase to be locked to iPadOS. But having worked with Staffpad for a number of months I now have a far better understanding of why the Staffpad team want you to pay again for something you already own.
The worse part of Staffpad is its handwriting recognition. Although even here, if you think of it more akin to Graphiti on a Palm Pilot you become more attuned to what Staffpad expects. The handwriting recognition in Notion is far more forgiving. Having said that, I didn't purchase Staffpad for its handwriting recognition. I was primarily interested in the playback engine, and on that level, it's more than met my expectations.
Over the next few years as base iPad specifications change I'm hopeful that Staffpad will eventually be able to offer something closer to live playback even if it's only able to audition one instrument at a time.
The main thing I miss when working in Staffpad is the ability to noodle around on a keyboard before writing the notes. To remedy this I set up Sampletank in the background whilst in Staffpad (with background audio enabled) as that enables me to noodle around whilst Staffpad is playing back. I need this crutch after 30+ years of DAW use. Those that have been composing manually on manuscript paper for years are often able to build a mental picture of the orchestral colours available to them without the need for live playback but they're generally far better educated in orchestration than the average iPad musician!
If you already own Sampletank, it's worth knowing that IKM are currently offering Miroslav Philharmonik v1 with a 50% discount. This is nowhere near as good as v2 of the same library but as something to noodle with in the background, to help you build a mental picture of how the Berlin/Spitfire libraries will sound once you've written your notes in Staffpad, it's more than good enough. If memory serves right Miroslav Philharmonik 1 is currently around $10 with the 50% discount.
This pair of cheap pocket guides are great to have on hand when working with Staffpad if you're a bit rusty regarding notation. They're in no way a replacement for weightier tomes on orchestration but they cover the essentials.
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Essential-Dictionary-Orchestration-Characteristics-Considerations/dp/0739000217/
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Essential-Dictionary-Notation-essential-dictionary/dp/0882847309/
+1 on everything @jonmoore said there, thanks for sharing your comparison with the desktop sounds as well. I never owned any decent desktop orchestral sounds so it is enlightening to have a viewpoint from someone who is familiar with both.
Thanks so much for this fantastic reply.
That’s really really enlightening. For my own use case, I’m not going to learn scoring - just a matter of how much use it would be to me relative to time invested - as I’m a songwriter, piano, guitar, synths, in lots of genres but I use orchestration and love the timbral qualities of music. So it’s not a scoring first scenario more as ornamentation. On desktop i would just use a keyboard and play the parts, for sections, then swam for more expressive individual parts. But I use iOS exclusively now, kind of, and re sample tank Etc… I’m the same as you here. I like to noodle and compose on the fly; unfortunately I really dislike all orchestral libraries on iOS and own them all. I’m so fussy with timbre and aesthetics haha. As you say it’s ok for noodling though if I can later convert to something I find usable. And Berlin sounds fanstastic imo.
So. I’m thinking now of just recording parts in midi with a lesser orchestral app, then importing to staffpad, converting to Berlin, exporting as audio. Ive very briefly tested with staffpad’s default stuff and it worked. Sorry for repeating this part I just wasn’t sure if you’d seen and as you gave such a helpful and thoughtful reply wanted to run it by you if you get the time.
I’m really sorry for hogging the thread but does anyone have opinions on staffpad Berlin vs Cinesamples vs spitfire?
Ive seen people talk up Berlin a lot but then I remember cinesamples desktop seemingly being favoured on an iOS orchestral group - unless I’ve got this confused with another ‘cine’ library set. It’s difficult to judge from the samples on the store as they don’t always play back and I much much prefer the cinesamples piece to the Berlin ones (the piece itself).
The unfortunate reality here is that each of the main sample libraries excels in different areas and I believe the Staffpad team specifically chose these component libraries to maximise income. But having said all that I'd still recommend the Berlin component parts as a first buy collection. Each component library is expressive and because the component parts were Decca Tree recorded in the same space (Teldex in Berlin) they all have a nice ambient component that mixes well with both dry and wet instruments once your bring your orchestral parts into a DAW to co-exist with non-orchestral material. They meld together as a coherent whole a little better than the Spitfire and Cinesamples libraries too.
But the Spitfire packs have their own unique qualities too. The Chamber strings pack is delightful and is really nice mixed in to larger ensemble groups too. The Spitfire symphonic strings are great too but I find their expressive range harder to work with than the Berlin strings (it's hard to make the Berlin strings sound out of place). But the Spitfire strings are larger ensembles that equate to bigger Wagner-esque sound as a whole. I also rate the Spitfire woodwinds as marginally better than the Berlins but it's really too close to call. However, I far prefer the Berlin Brass over the Spitfire.
The thing that disappoints me a little with the Spitfire material is that I know they have better libraries available on the desktop. Both the BBC orchestra and Abbey One cinematic libraries are as good as it gets right now IMO. But I can't see Staffpad offering these as they want you to purchase individual orchestra components. Plus taken as a whole, any effort to customise the whole of Abbey One or BBCSO for Staffpad would possibly make them prohibitively expensive. The iOS music market is small enough but the iOS notation market is a small fraction of that already small pie.
Where I like the Cinesamples stuff is 1.) the percussion has a wonderful bottom end (but overall the Berlin percussion is a superior set of samples), and 2.) their overall hyped artistic direction. But I wouldn't want to live with a hyped library as my only option.
Avoid the piano's full stop (although the Spitfire felt piano is a lovely flavour to have and at £18 is a reasonable price at the moment).
Hopefully, that gives you enough to go on for the moment. I'll finish by saying that over time I'll probably end up purchasing virtually all of the Spitfire and Cinesamples offerings (I already own the full Berlin enchilada). And that's what the Staffpad team is banking on. The premium libraries are £60 a pop when discounted (and that happens regularly throughout the year) so they potentially maximise the value they get from each customer to a scary amount judged on the typical iOS app economy (but their sales volume is far, far smaller). As long as the Staffpad team are delivering on the quality, I don't mind being fleeced inch by inch!
Again, thanks so much for that, really comprehensive reply.
I can definitely relate to your second point on the cinesamples. I think the cinematic sound is what gets its emotive hooks into me listening ti the demo, and why they chose that piece (gits). But I know that would grate a bit were it my only option if I was more of an orchestral composer than a songwriter. As a songwriter I’m less sure but then a great armada of strings swooping through my pieces every time may rob them of their intimacy lol. You don’t always need to be saving private Ryan, sometimes he can fend for himself.
I wouldn’t go for the pianos. I don’t like grands generally, much prefer the upright sound, and find pure piano and ravenscroft have lovely relatable intimate sounds. I think your comment in the brass has sold me as that was where I was vacillating. I do like the spitfire chamber strings - for similar preferences as my feelings on piano - but that’s probably a secondary purchase somewhere along the line. And I feel like the swam app may have filled that hole by then, if they do chamber stuff. Woodwinds are slightly vexing. I’ve a feeling I have woodwind sounds i quite like elsewhere on iPad. Perhaps they’re more forgiving for my usage, than strings and certainly brass.
Anyway, thanks so much!
Staffpad libraries, the internal tech involved, the reasons Staffpad libraries are distinct from their desktop counterparts and an excellent Workflow Tip for anyone that wants to use a keyboard to hear new ideas (i.e. sidecar an instance of SampleTank w/ Miroslav's Philharmonic V1 for $10 - now). I think more should consider IOS Sampletank even if it is close to 10 years old.
Thanks @jonmoore for the in-depth analysis and advice. This is the #1 reason people lurk here... to
study these tips from pros and gifted amateurs.
I on the other had seek interesting dialogue. I wish we had a Staffpad beta tester here to skip us more clues.
One reasonable way to use staffpad without a pencil is to generate MIDI clips in Piano Motifs and
import them into a new Staffpad score. Then "copy" the resulting notation and clip it into yet another
Staffpad project and build up a significantly longer score this way all generated by Piano Motifs.
The pencil would help to change actual notes but if Piano Motifs works for you this would get you started for $40 and no need for a pencil. Then you'll start to save for a re-furb'ed or used pencil or
a new one. They are pretty slick little pieces of tech. Lots of fun for fiddly UI's and to sketch pitches of
your cat(s).
When it comes to woodwinds it's hard to compete with SWAM as solo instruments. The same goes for most SWAM solo instruments woodwind or brass. But the orchestral libraries from Spitfire and Orchestral Tools deliver as sections. It's one of the reasons I have a slight preference for the Spitfire woodwinds. The a2 instrument samples in tandem with the individual instrument samples sound a little more convincing than three separate instruments when building sections with the Berlin woodwinds.
And this isn't really about symphonic/orchestral music vs the myriad of other music genres that make use of orchestral beds to enrich the music. The Spitfire and Berlin woodwinds both sound more convincing as a complete section than a multitude of SWAM instruments mimicking an orchestral section. Much of this comes down to the Teldex or Lyndhurst natural ambiance that's an inherent part of the instrument samples.
The great thing with the Decca Tree micing of the Spitfire and Berlin libraries is that they add a lot of timbral weight ambiance without adding too much of a dissipating tail. Within Staffpad, that makes it easier to add a layer of IR reverb on top which helps blend instruments from different libraries. I’m guessing that it’s an IR reverb as the Staffpad team have said that their reverb is modeled on the Bricasti M7 algorithmic reverb (there’s plenty of Bricasti IRs out there but recreating what’s probably considered to be the pinnacle of algorithmic reverb design as an algorithmic reverb is probably an ask too much from the Staffpad programmers!).
For those like @wingwizard and myself that mainly have an interest in creating stems in Staffpad for use in a DAW, the Spitfire and Berlin library Decca Tree sampling approach is equally useful for the exact same reason as stated above. The Cinesamples based libraries are a little more problematic on this front as even though they also use a close miced approach, they have a little too much tail. When you add reverb on top of reverb you often end up with mushy results unless the reverb is very tight as is the case with the Berlin and Spitfire libraries.
A number of the Staffpad beta testers hang out here. It's also a great place to hear examples using the premium libraries.
https://vi-control.net/community/forums/staffpad-other-pen-entry-notation-devices.184/
There doesn't seem to be any discussion of the beta there... they probably read the fine print and
follow the rules. I'm just glad the company didn't under under but merged with Musescore and
it seeking to add more compelling features. I would like to see more library offerings since the
3 major vendors tend to cover orchestral options and little else.
The Felt Piano and Tina Guo Cello are great at 30% off.... almost an impulse buy price. The guitar pack is
disappointing as marketed but the sounds are useful for plucked string ethnic sounds and the Ukulele
works as a serviceable small harp... I didn't check but it might be $7. I made a video of the "guitar" sounds with articulations in the pack.
@jonmoore : Thanks for the Mirospav links. IK Multimedia hads hinted on more than one occasion that eventually Sampletank ios will go Auv3 .
I spent my BF money on some Synth libraries from "AudiOllie" (Scoring Synths) and StaffPad (Essential Drummers).
Unlike AUv3/IAA synths these are actual hardware synths that were brought to recording halls and the synths we recorded with mic's from speakers placed in the room.
For many styles of music the having control of the "attack" is important. I created a quick
"cut and paste" project to show how the synths and drums fit with strings and brass. It's
pretty blah but with a lot of effort I think some interesting work could result but mostly in
a pretty non-rhythm orchestral style.
Putting out the results as audio stems and shifting tracks a bit to tighten up the groove is
needed. Something I could only do in Logic Pro X I think.
I would love to see soemthing like this available on the iPhone. It sounds like maybe StaffPad is too robust, but maybe something like a lite version for those of us who primarily use their iPhones would be fantastic.
It requires the Apple pencil and believe me it needs a lot of screen space to draw in the notes with accuracy. At times I expand a single bar to completely fill the 9.7" screen.
My best iPhone experiences are with MIDI generating apps controlling AUv3 apps in AUM.
I do wish more of my app purchases were universal because my iPhone has twice the storage of my iPad.
Oh thanks for links. Listened once again to sound produced in staffpad and suffered terrible pain once again. Solfeggio is somehow biologically repellent for me (as well as accountancy) but sound is just marvelous.
And considering e-instruments reply about their string libraries been ported to ios (one day, maybe), I’m cornered. There’s only one escape route - pc.