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.
What apps do 24 bit audio and when might more apps follow?
I know Multitrack and Vokey do. any others I'm missing.
I love audiobus and how far iPhone recording has come but for truly serious recordings, I still find it challenging to do it purely on an iPhone/ipad since I ultimately have to transfer to laptop for any destructive editing so need as many bits as possible. plus for recording live instruments and vocals.
Thanks in advance
Comments
If you own an iPad you might want to check out Meteor, cubasis and Auria for finalizing your songs without pc/mac. Not sure about the 24 bit audio though, i'll leave links and you can look.
Meteor:
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/meteor-multitrack-recorder/id417726727?mt=8
Auria:
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/auria/id524122834?mt=8
Cubasis:
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/cubasis/id583976519?mt=8
I only own Meteor cause I think it's the only one that has volume automation. Not sure. Check it out. :-)
Auria has volume automation. Auria also allows you to automate over 50 other parameters including panning, aux sends, most EQ settings, expander settings and compressor settings.
Auria has a ton of Automation parameters and the effects are not just a step above everyone else but a staircase
Cubasis is 44.1/16 bit. For quality multi tracking on iOS Auria has everyone licked.
Hey thanks guys! Wow, Auria can do 24/96?? Pretty impressive. Shoot, it's only available on ipad though but it also has Drumagog too?? Coool! (for drum samples) I only have iPhone and want to avoid plopping down cash for an Ipad (maybe mini) since I figured if I had to plop down a $1000, I might as well get a decent laptop and Ableton.
But once again, even though it can do 24/96, the fact that AB can only do 16/44.1, I believe you'll be limited by that so for my proposed workflow, I'd be looking at capturing the ideas from all my million iphone apps via 16//44.1 thru AB into say Auria or Multitrack, then when recording guitar/vocals or anything else, avoiding AB altogether, going straight into Auria/Harmonic Dog to get higher resolution, which would mean (if it's even possible) to upsample the AB tracks from 16/44.1 to say 24/88.2 in Auria/Harmonic Dog.
Also, going back to another post, if say an app like Vokey which processes internal audio at 32 bit, it'll still get be transferred through AB at 16/44.1 into Auria/Harmonic Dog.
For those of you not familiar, you always want to try and record at higher bit resolution since that captures more details of sound source. I know many will argue "ohh, there's no difference, I can't hear the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96. I agree that ultimately, the playing, musicianship, sound of room, harmonics, etc can all influence end recording but with all things being equal, capturing a great performance in a great room with great gear at higher resolution IMO will trump a lower resolution setup.
Thanks again guys
@gjcyrus Right you are. People who say "oh there's no difference" often don't have the equipment for it to make a real difference. Cause really if you are listening to everything through tiny computer speakers it's not going to make a difference ;-) You kind of have to have a decent sound system for playback to really be able to pick up on such things :-)
Also regarding a laptop over an iPad. You really don't have to spend $1000. Check out kijiji or ebay or craigslist or whatever and you will be able to find something for far less. Then as a major bonus everything you have purchased on your iphone will transfer over to the iPad. Only thing is that after that using the iPhone seems pretty pointless. :-)
Debates about sampling rates abound. I found this informative
That's part 2 of a video. Part 1 is about audio and video. The audio part, first half, does offer a little more introduction to the subject and can be easily found from the par 2 link above.
This is an article from the same people, Xiph.org.
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
@gjcyrus,
Preaching to the choir over here...
I choose to use 44.1/16 bit on iOS because its easy, less space, and the music I am making right now doesn't really require the low level detail that 24 bit offers....
I find it humorous that we are debating 24 bit audio on an iPhone, but whatever.
If you want to talk digital audio, lets talk dither. What are these apps doing to the audio as they shuffle back and forth thru audiobus? Are they (most likely) simply truncating the word length after making gain changes etc?
If an app like cubasis records at 44.1/16 bit, and mixes to 44.1/16, that to me is a serious problem. In fact even though I own Auria, I still export everything out of Beatmaker 2 to my desktop protools setup for edit and mix. Not even Auria has addressed dithering.
I recommend experimenting for yourself if higher bitrates and sampling rates sound better to you, and the other poster was right. You most likely wont hear a difference unless you have good monitoring.
Hey guys, once again many thanks for the feedback.
As for a debate, dubbaus, thats not what my intention was, rather to have a discussion on how to best achieve the best sound quality given these very cool tools we now have via audiobus and the iphone. coming from the days of having a tascam tape recorder, otari 1/2 inch machine, roland vs 880, it is just freaking cool that i can be on the subway and bust out a song and capture those moments of creativity. However your post was the first (for me at least) that touched on the possible effects of dithering. I am not a developer so i have no idea if there is a loss in fidelty when we use audiocopy/paste, when we use audiobus, etc. and i think we need to know that because im guessing for many of us here, this is not just a hobby, but a passion, and we would like for our recordings to be heard by many ppl, not just ourselves and not just on youtube, but on the radio, a club, car stereo and many various systems.
could any of you imagine a magical recording of hendrix, pink floyd, dr.dre, nine inch nails, my bloody valentine on the iphone? if the answer is no, then why not strive for that? i think we're almost there but not quite yet. why not give the tools to some broke ass 16 yr old kid we all used to be (or still are) to make the same level quality recordings that only professional studios offer? yeah, i know the gorillaz and bjork did albums on an ipad but as a fan of both bjork and damon albarn, those albums didnt have the "magic" that their past albums did.
to tedbphx, i used to spend hours reseraching those types of articles but nowdays i only trust my ear and the producers i like (flood, alan moulder) I can tell the difference.
Multitrack DAW can do 24 bit.
Gjcyrus,
Exactly. Lets take everything we already know about digital audio, and move it on up with iOS. There are certain rules that need to be followed, but it's not insurmountable as ios devices become more powerful. We're not reinventing the wheel here.
Glad to hear you've been around since tape, too! I've still got an old tascam 38 I use occasionally... The funny thing is all of the gear I have collected (MMT-8, outboard compressors etc) has become assimilated into my iOS rig in some way, so it sounds strange when people want to purposefully limit themselves to using just an iPad or whatever. It can be so much more!
Peace
@ryan - thanks, ill check out those sites for deals. was considering ipad mini since its only $300 but dont think ill ever get tired of iphone. i dont know why but i tend to get creative sparks when on trains, subway or bus. even though ipad mini is small, i dont want to publicize to ppl around me im working on music.
@tedbphx - just checked out the first vid. truthfully i almost got sleepy watching it. i should correct myself in that i dont know if i could tell diff between 44.1 and 96 BUT i can tell difference between something i recorded at 24 bits and 16 bits. im sure you could tell yourself. its just a feeling plus to me, a big part of the art of recording is ensuring that ur mix translates well to other systems. i dont know how many times ive busted out a beat on beatmaker and was digging it on my earbuds but when i plugged it into car stereo, it sounded off and didnt have that magic.
a producer i think very highly of once told me that there is a joke in the music industry that engineers and producers will sometimes say, why not let the technician do the mixing. its a joke to them because even though the tech might know all the specs, they might not have the ear to capture the vibe that is inherent in all songs that move you. thats kinda what that youtube dude reminded me of.
Id highly recommend listening to this guy instead of that dude on youtube
http://repforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,34538.30.html
Alan Moulder has worked with Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, Jesus and Mary Chain,My Bloody Valentine, Dave Grohl, Raveonettes. also has a hot wife whos the singer of Curve, a cool ass 90s UK band that the US band Garbage totally ripped off.
" i dont know how many times ive busted out a beat on beatmaker and was digging it on my earbuds but when i plugged it into car stereo, it sounded off and didnt have that magic."
The earbuds are the problem there, as well as BM2's mix engine. That's why I take stems from the app and mix in protools. I could do the same thing in Auria with possibly better results, but I still love editing and mixing in protools.
The iPad mini may be just the thing for you!
@dubhaus - cool man! please share your setup and how it evolves. im very interested in how others are using iphone within context of an overall studio.
I had some financial challenges the last few years so havent been able to have as many toys as id like to so the Iphone was a godsend to me ala Beatmaker, Audiobus, and all the other cool apps. Theres no way I could afford an MPC, Marshall half stack, keyboard, violin, koto, banjo and turntables for under $50 haha! But I know end recording has to be incorporated with some analog gear somewhere in chain and I cant seem to find any info online on how sound fidelity is affected via audiocopy/paste or audiobus and now, dithering.
happy recording!
@gjrcrus "that dude on YouTube" is the inventor of the Ogg Vorbis format.
Respect to him. Id trust him to build software, not to mix my album though.
For the record, I love Ubuntu and am grateful to all developers for their contributions.
Good luck chasing the unicorn.
Anyone who is recording/mixing themselves should have a basic understanding of digital audio. It's legitimate to ask these questions.