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.

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Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Am I first to notice the AUM update

1235

Comments

  • edited November 2021

    @lukesleepwalker said:
    Thanks @Janosax! I was thinking about another use case the other day that makes use of helium’s exclusive stacking mode: you could have different instances with different parts of a song, all stacked in a bus. Then when you select one part of the song it excludes the other parts and vice versa. You could do this without the exclusionary stacking feature but it would take longer to work out the MIDI controls per instance.

    Longer term, it’d be much easier to set the song parts in one instance of helium (or any other sequencer), instead of messing with separate instances.

    Great idea!! You could also do it with remote loops in one single instance. Loops can use as measures as you want. It can be possible to make song bits using loops and song mode to make 8 or 32 bars songs sections then flattern them to make a Song of Songs and controlling them at the end with loops remote.

    It’s not that easy to see when midi busses are superior to normal method BTW.

  • @Janosax said:

    @lukesleepwalker said:
    Thanks @Janosax! I was thinking about another use case the other day that makes use of helium’s exclusive stacking mode: you could have different instances with different parts of a song, all stacked in a bus. Then when you select one part of the song it excludes the other parts and vice versa. You could do this without the exclusionary stacking feature but it would take longer to work out the MIDI controls per instance.

    Longer term, it’d be much easier to set the song parts in one instance of helium (or any other sequencer), instead of messing with separate instances.

    Great idea!! You could also do it with remote loops in one single instance. Loops can use as measures as you want. It can be possible to make song bits using loops and song mode to make 8 or 32 bars songs sections then flattern them to make a Song of Songs and controlling them at the end with loops remote.

    It’s not that easy to see when midi busses are superior to normal method BTW.

    Great idea on the remote loops! Will give it a go.

  • @RajahP said:

    @espiegel123 said:

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @Foleslaw said:

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @lukesleepwalker said:

    @d4d0ug said:
    Awesome update.

    Probably shouldn’t mention my #1 feature request, because it’s been raised lots of times before… but I will anyway 😁…. I’d love to be able to zoom out (see and work with all my channels) and not have to scroll scroll scroll. This has got worse with the advent of multi audio out apps!

    Alternatively a ‘fold’ function would also help.

    This is my first usability complaint for sure. It's a lot of scrolling, for sure.

    Yes it's a common complaint :) I haven't yet figured out a solution that would give a good user experience.

    Zooming out 50% means you can't see/read what it says or use the knobs or buttons etc.

    Grouping and folding a bunch of channel strips would work, but what would the folded group look like? And wouldn't that lead to a lot of tapping to fold/unfold?

    Another idea is tabbed groups, so you can have tabs showing selected groups of channels, and also an "All" tab that shows everything as usual. Either by extending the existing bookmarks system, so that each bookmark becomes a tab that shows all channels from that bookmark up to the next. Or perhaps one should select which tabs each channel should belong to, so one channel can show up in multiple tabs.

    Yep! That grouping/folding option is the way to go. Definitely requires a thoughthful implementation though. Fingers crossed you work something out that is IF you are going to tackle this.
    Anyways - thank you for this new update. Adds some really nice workflow improvements!

    I prefer the tabbed groups myself I think. Especially if one can include a channel in multiple tabs. Useful to have a Master channel always visible, for example.

    One possible solution would be to collapse channels in a group into a compact accordion with skinny channels with a small icon at their top so that you see what is in the compacted group

    Interesting.. A mock-up will be nice..

    Nice..

    Did some mock-ups 😊 . The “folders/groups” idea…

  • @andrevjunqueira said:

    @RajahP said:

    @espiegel123 said:

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @Foleslaw said:

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @lukesleepwalker said:

    @d4d0ug said:
    Awesome update.

    Probably shouldn’t mention my #1 feature request, because it’s been raised lots of times before… but I will anyway 😁…. I’d love to be able to zoom out (see and work with all my channels) and not have to scroll scroll scroll. This has got worse with the advent of multi audio out apps!

    Alternatively a ‘fold’ function would also help.

    This is my first usability complaint for sure. It's a lot of scrolling, for sure.

    Yes it's a common complaint :) I haven't yet figured out a solution that would give a good user experience.

    Zooming out 50% means you can't see/read what it says or use the knobs or buttons etc.

    Grouping and folding a bunch of channel strips would work, but what would the folded group look like? And wouldn't that lead to a lot of tapping to fold/unfold?

    Another idea is tabbed groups, so you can have tabs showing selected groups of channels, and also an "All" tab that shows everything as usual. Either by extending the existing bookmarks system, so that each bookmark becomes a tab that shows all channels from that bookmark up to the next. Or perhaps one should select which tabs each channel should belong to, so one channel can show up in multiple tabs.

    Yep! That grouping/folding option is the way to go. Definitely requires a thoughthful implementation though. Fingers crossed you work something out that is IF you are going to tackle this.
    Anyways - thank you for this new update. Adds some really nice workflow improvements!

    I prefer the tabbed groups myself I think. Especially if one can include a channel in multiple tabs. Useful to have a Master channel always visible, for example.

    One possible solution would be to collapse channels in a group into a compact accordion with skinny channels with a small icon at their top so that you see what is in the compacted group

    Interesting.. A mock-up will be nice..

    Nice..

    Did some mock-ups 😊 . The “folders/groups” idea…

    Brilliant way of showing a group/fold. Very nice indeed

  • As this thread has turned into a (very entertaining) vehicle for feature requests, could I ask for…

    • Being able to copy and paste Nodes across channels. Strikes me this could save a lot of time.
    • Programmatically change the BPM
    • A way of stopping ByPassed nodes from running so that when they are (un)ByPassed they start running from the start (for e.g. sequencers)
      I don’t think of AUM as a great app (which of course it is), but more as just a part of IPadOS which is used for music making and just works and gets better and better so thank you @j_liljedahl
  • For AUM groups as a potential feature. I personally don't think you need to see exactly what's inside a group until you open it, it's up to you how you organise your session. The group is only useful if you can still have a mixer at the top level, you could bus all your audio in the group to that master group channel for example.
    So I think it would be similar to a normal channel view with an indication of how deep the folder group is next to it. This way you can have groups within groups. This is how Ableton does it and works well for organising a large amount of instruments and effects. :)

    @gregsmith said:

    @andrevjunqueira said:

    @RajahP said:

    @espiegel123 said:

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @Foleslaw said:

    Yep! That grouping/folding option is the way to go. Definitely requires a thoughthful implementation though. Fingers crossed you work something out that is IF you are going to tackle this.
    Anyways - thank you for this new update. Adds some really nice workflow improvements!

    I prefer the tabbed groups myself I think. Especially if one can include a channel in multiple tabs. Useful to have a Master channel always visible, for example.

    One possible solution would be to collapse channels in a group into a compact accordion with skinny channels with a small icon at their top so that you see what is in the compacted group

    Interesting.. A mock-up will be nice..

    Nice..

    Did some mock-ups 😊 . The “folders/groups” idea…

  • Tabbed groups make sense. They are only views; a selection of channels for easy and fast navigation between groups of channels.

    • a channel can be in multiple groups if desired
    • neighbour channels in a group need not be next to each other in the "real" channel layout
    • using + to add a channel within a group automatically assigns it to that group
    • the group tabs can be named ("drums", "drones", etc)

    Here is one extra finesse, if you want Samplr-like performance videos:

    • while touching a knob or fader with one finger in the current group, keep holding down the finger, use a second finger to switch tab group, interact with other faders there. The first finger still controls its original fader, even if that fader is not visible anymore (Samplr-style). Would that be technically possible? Even for AUv3 plugin controls?
  • edited November 2021

    I suspect the bookmarks are currently underused (?). The idea of adding M + S there is a good one! Throw in an activity meter as well. Perhaps let the window be taller, and perhaps even multi-column if the session has lots of channels? Also, would be handy with a "Bookmark all" shortcut at the top (edit: or maybe such a shortcut shouldn't steal screen estate. Manual bookmarking once isn't too bad)

  • edited November 2021

    ... maybe the tabbed groups don't need to be actual UI tabs, but can be at the top of the bookmark list and act as tabs. Dunno, haven't thought it through.

  • @andrevjunqueira said:

    @RajahP said:

    @espiegel123 said:

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @Foleslaw said:

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @lukesleepwalker said:

    @d4d0ug said:
    Awesome update.

    Probably shouldn’t mention my #1 feature request, because it’s been raised lots of times before… but I will anyway 😁…. I’d love to be able to zoom out (see and work with all my channels) and not have to scroll scroll scroll. This has got worse with the advent of multi audio out apps!

    Alternatively a ‘fold’ function would also help.

    This is my first usability complaint for sure. It's a lot of scrolling, for sure.

    Yes it's a common complaint :) I haven't yet figured out a solution that would give a good user experience.

    Zooming out 50% means you can't see/read what it says or use the knobs or buttons etc.

    Grouping and folding a bunch of channel strips would work, but what would the folded group look like? And wouldn't that lead to a lot of tapping to fold/unfold?

    Another idea is tabbed groups, so you can have tabs showing selected groups of channels, and also an "All" tab that shows everything as usual. Either by extending the existing bookmarks system, so that each bookmark becomes a tab that shows all channels from that bookmark up to the next. Or perhaps one should select which tabs each channel should belong to, so one channel can show up in multiple tabs.

    Yep! That grouping/folding option is the way to go. Definitely requires a thoughthful implementation though. Fingers crossed you work something out that is IF you are going to tackle this.
    Anyways - thank you for this new update. Adds some really nice workflow improvements!

    I prefer the tabbed groups myself I think. Especially if one can include a channel in multiple tabs. Useful to have a Master channel always visible, for example.

    One possible solution would be to collapse channels in a group into a compact accordion with skinny channels with a small icon at their top so that you see what is in the compacted group

    Interesting.. A mock-up will be nice..

    Nice..

    Did some mock-ups 😊 . The “folders/groups” idea…

    Nice... So I guess you tap on an instrument/channel and it explodes for the mixer, etc?

  • @bleep said:
    I suspect the bookmarks are currently underused (?).

    wow without this thread I'd never have found out about this little, useful feature

  • @bleep I use bookmarks to move between 'views' in AUM. I have a inputs view and mastering view and and sends view and I switch quickly between them very nicely.

    I use AUM to configure a session and then try to offload the main functions to my Novation LCXL.. i would love however to be able to assign some of the LCXLs buttons to select bookmarks via midi. Thats the only time I touch the iPad after configuring everything, to select bookmarks. Its probably a bit weird to have such a clever touch screen device and then just use it as a screen but AUM works so well to configure a mix of soft and hard synths and combining internal and external midi.

    With the extra midi filtering I can do most midi setup with just AUM with Kai Aras' MidiSpy for troubleshootinging.

    So my feature request is for midi selectable bookmarks.

  • @Richtowns said:
    So my feature request is for midi selectable bookmarks.

    If you map "Show Plugin", it will scroll to that channel as if the channel was midi bookmarked.
    It puts the channel at the rightmost visible channel, so you'll want to map the plugin a few channels in ( so if you mastering channels are like 8-12, if you map channel 12, 8-12 will be visible on the screen).
    Workaround that's been working for me.

  • edited November 2021

    Thanks @AlmostAnonymous Ill give it a go…. Yes, this works, the first 'showplugin' brings up the plugin and the second gets me where I want to be. Horray!

  • @Carnbot said:
    For AUM groups as a potential feature. I personally don't think you need to see exactly what's inside a group until you open it, it's up to you how you organise your session. The group is only useful if you can still have a mixer at the top level, you could bus all your audio in the group to that master group channel for example.
    So I think it would be similar to a normal channel view with an indication of how deep the folder group is next to it. This way you can have groups within groups. This is how Ableton does it and works well for organising a large amount of instruments and effects. :)

    So that means such a group would need all its channels to be routed to the same bus, and the channel receiving on the bus would be the visible representation of the group when folded? So then, if I ever would implement something like this (no promise), perhaps it makes sense that a channel receiving from a bus has a button to "fold all channels outputting to this bus into this channelgroup"?

    @bleep said:
    Tabbed groups make sense. They are only views; a selection of channels for easy and fast navigation between groups of channels.

    • a channel can be in multiple groups if desired
    • neighbour channels in a group need not be next to each other in the "real" channel layout
    • using + to add a channel within a group automatically assigns it to that group
    • the group tabs can be named ("drums", "drones", etc)

    Yes. Exactly this is what I have in mind for tabs.

    @bleep said:
    I suspect the bookmarks are currently underused (?). The idea of adding M + S there is a good one! Throw in an activity meter as well. Perhaps let the window be taller, and perhaps even multi-column if the session has lots of channels? Also, would be handy with a "Bookmark all" shortcut at the top (edit: or maybe such a shortcut shouldn't steal screen estate. Manual bookmarking once isn't too bad)

    Actually I think the current Bookmarks is what should have been Tabs as described above. It was meant for easier/faster navigation between mixer sections. Tabbed groups would do the same but much better, so I would rather replace bookmarks with tabs.

    Bookmarking all channels would be useless for its purpose, sounds like what you rather want is an "overview" with only fader, mute and solo in a super compact view.

    @AlmostAnonymous said:

    @Richtowns said:
    So my feature request is for midi selectable bookmarks.

    If you map "Show Plugin", it will scroll to that channel as if the channel was midi bookmarked.
    It puts the channel at the rightmost visible channel, so you'll want to map the plugin a few channels in ( so if you mastering channels are like 8-12, if you map channel 12, 8-12 will be visible on the screen).
    Workaround that's been working for me.

    Tabs will certainly be MIDI controllable, and switched via keyboard shortcuts as well.

  • @j_liljedahl said:
    Bookmarking all channels would be useless for its purpose, sounds like what you rather want is an "overview" with only fader, mute and solo in a super compact view.

    Such a compact view could be kept quite small by having tiny representative faders that zoom up when touched.

  • edited November 2021

    @wim said:

    @j_liljedahl said:
    Bookmarking all channels would be useless for its purpose, sounds like what you rather want is an "overview" with only fader, mute and solo in a super compact view.

    Such a compact view could be kept quite small by having tiny representative faders that zoom up when touched.

    Or maybe make the icons into volume knobs>

  • @dobbs said:

    @wim said:

    @j_liljedahl said:
    Bookmarking all channels would be useless for its purpose, sounds like what you rather want is an "overview" with only fader, mute and solo in a super compact view.

    Such a compact view could be kept quite small by having tiny representative faders that zoom up when touched.

    Or maybe make the icons into volume knobs>

    Which icon should be shown? Source, inserts, destination?

  • wimwim
    edited November 2021

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @dobbs said:

    @wim said:

    @j_liljedahl said:
    Bookmarking all channels would be useless for its purpose, sounds like what you rather want is an "overview" with only fader, mute and solo in a super compact view.

    Such a compact view could be kept quite small by having tiny representative faders that zoom up when touched.

    Or maybe make the icons into volume knobs>

    Which icon should be shown? Source, inserts, destination?

    Source. And at least part of the channel name if possible.
    (My opinions are directed toward an "icon overview" view rather than the channel folding idea.)

  • I use a 12.9” with Apple Pencil and would just like the option to zoom out. Folders would be nice and all, but it’s just more taps and would be basically the same as scrolling to me 🤷‍♂️

  • @j_liljedahl said:

    @Carnbot said:
    For AUM groups as a potential feature. I personally don't think you need to see exactly what's inside a group until you open it, it's up to you how you organise your session. The group is only useful if you can still have a mixer at the top level, you could bus all your audio in the group to that master group channel for example.
    So I think it would be similar to a normal channel view with an indication of how deep the folder group is next to it. This way you can have groups within groups. This is how Ableton does it and works well for organising a large amount of instruments and effects. :)

    So that means such a group would need all its channels to be routed to the same bus, and the channel receiving on the bus would be the visible representation of the group when folded? So then, if I ever would implement something like this (no promise), perhaps it makes sense that a channel receiving from a bus has a button to "fold all channels outputting to this bus into this channelgroup"?

    Yeah that sounds like a good method Jonatan :)
    If you ever thought about doing something like this, another couple of thoughts:

    The top level of the group channel, which is visible always, could have assignable macros for parameters in the group channels, like the ones you already have for the single AU param on the channel.
    Also perhaps what could work is that you could slide open the group (like a curtain) revealing each channel one by one, so you could choose to reveal part of the group, so you could arrange the most important channels on the left (if the group opens the channels left to right).

    But yeah, no expectations you'll ever get to this as it's a big thing to implement and infinite ways of doing it. Plus there's a lot of more important things on your list too I know.

  • @j_liljedahl Super thank you for adding this to AUM!

    No lets hope all other apps that can record audio follow the leader :sunglasses:

  • @Carnbot said:

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @Carnbot said:
    For AUM groups as a potential feature. I personally don't think you need to see exactly what's inside a group until you open it, it's up to you how you organise your session. The group is only useful if you can still have a mixer at the top level, you could bus all your audio in the group to that master group channel for example.
    So I think it would be similar to a normal channel view with an indication of how deep the folder group is next to it. This way you can have groups within groups. This is how Ableton does it and works well for organising a large amount of instruments and effects. :)

    So that means such a group would need all its channels to be routed to the same bus, and the channel receiving on the bus would be the visible representation of the group when folded? So then, if I ever would implement something like this (no promise), perhaps it makes sense that a channel receiving from a bus has a button to "fold all channels outputting to this bus into this channelgroup"?

    Yeah that sounds like a good method Jonatan :)
    If you ever thought about doing something like this, another couple of thoughts:

    The top level of the group channel, which is visible always, could have assignable macros for parameters in the group channels, like the ones you already have for the single AU param on the channel.
    Also perhaps what could work is that you could slide open the group (like a curtain) revealing each channel one by one, so you could choose to reveal part of the group, so you could arrange the most important channels on the left (if the group opens the channels left to right).

    But yeah, no expectations you'll ever get to this as it's a big thing to implement and infinite ways of doing it. Plus there's a lot of more important things on your list too I know.

    One could also use the suggested Tab groups, and simply put all channels sending to a specific bus in one tab, and all channels receiving on any bus on another tab. It could even be automatic, using "smart tabs" that automatically updates.

  • @j_liljedahl said:

    @Carnbot said:

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @Carnbot said:
    For AUM groups as a potential feature. I personally don't think you need to see exactly what's inside a group until you open it, it's up to you how you organise your session. The group is only useful if you can still have a mixer at the top level, you could bus all your audio in the group to that master group channel for example.
    So I think it would be similar to a normal channel view with an indication of how deep the folder group is next to it. This way you can have groups within groups. This is how Ableton does it and works well for organising a large amount of instruments and effects. :)

    So that means such a group would need all its channels to be routed to the same bus, and the channel receiving on the bus would be the visible representation of the group when folded? So then, if I ever would implement something like this (no promise), perhaps it makes sense that a channel receiving from a bus has a button to "fold all channels outputting to this bus into this channelgroup"?

    Yeah that sounds like a good method Jonatan :)
    If you ever thought about doing something like this, another couple of thoughts:

    The top level of the group channel, which is visible always, could have assignable macros for parameters in the group channels, like the ones you already have for the single AU param on the channel.
    Also perhaps what could work is that you could slide open the group (like a curtain) revealing each channel one by one, so you could choose to reveal part of the group, so you could arrange the most important channels on the left (if the group opens the channels left to right).

    But yeah, no expectations you'll ever get to this as it's a big thing to implement and infinite ways of doing it. Plus there's a lot of more important things on your list too I know.

    One could also use the suggested Tab groups, and simply put all channels sending to a specific bus in one tab, and all channels receiving on any bus on another tab. It could even be automatic, using "smart tabs" that automatically updates.

    Yeah smart tabs are a good idea :)

  • @Samu said:
    @j_liljedahl Super thank you for adding this to AUM!

    No lets hope all other apps that can record audio follow the leader :sunglasses:

    does that mean we can now use the built-in microphone(s) at the same time as an audio interface? i guess it's still not possible to use more than one interface at the same time, right? (I'd love to use my iRigs to expand my normal interface for the moments every now and then where I'd like to connect more instruments...)

    (also, wow, an ihpone has 5 microphones?

  • @dobbs said:

    (also, wow, an ihpone has 5 microphones?

    iPhone 8 has 3 Mic's different with 'modes', same with the iPad...
    Unfortunately when a USB interface is connected it's not possible to select the iPhone/iPad Mic :(

  • Well this is some BS, my lousy iPad only has 1 mic 😂

  • @ambrosiajam said:
    Well this is some BS, my lousy iPad only has 1 mic 😂

    Did you check under the settings?

    Most iPad's have multiple microphones but when you create an Audio Track you can only select one Mic.
    (It's the Mic set in in the settings that will be used).

  • @Samu said:

    @ambrosiajam said:
    Well this is some BS, my lousy iPad only has 1 mic 😂

    Did you check under the settings?

    Most iPad's have multiple microphones but when you create an Audio Track you can only select one Mic.
    (It's the Mic set in in the settings that will be used).

    Oh shoot you’re right

    Thanks!

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