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
To the contrary, I'm very close to a point of acceptible cross-compatibility. Most of the sounds and effects are the same or one can be swapped out for something else I have, so I'm pretty happy with how it has all worked out.
I shudder at the thought of trying to be cross platform compatible! It’s so much more liberating to keep things independent and just swap audio and MIDI (sometimes) around.
But whatever works best for you is best. Obviously :-)
Another example: I love my Novation Circuit. Almost all of the time I just use it to fart around with. I love spending time coming up with things with no ulterior motive. Not having to be ‘productive’ with it is what makes it so much fun. When and if something interesting happens I can easily dump the audio and midi into Logic to expand it into a song. But I never feel bad about just spending time bashing buttons and making noises with it. I use it as if it was a guitar. Sometimes it’s just fun to strum.
I have approached iOS in the same way and it works for me. The key is finding something you’re happy with. And not worrying about what everybody else does :-)
I like knowing about how other people work. I find it interesting. Sometimes I will take things on board and other times I’ll be mystified at how they can make it work at all.
In my current circumstances and time of life im frankly amazed if and when I can ever make any music at all.
So yeah. Not judging. Just happy I’ve found a way that works for me. For now. :-)
You feel market size and the business model are the least important part of comparing potential revenue from apps? Fascinating.
This was the statement I responded to: “Most importantly, if iOS was lucrative we would see more apps from Arturia.”
And I said such a thing was unknowable. Maybe someone could ask Arturia instead of arguing about it.
Do you think they would have abandoned lucrative apps?
Define “lucrative”. Earning more than their hardware? Using fewer company resources than other elements of their company? There are a lot of reasons why they make decisions within a company.
But compare with Moog. Both companies have significant investments in hardware, but Moog has committed itself to aggressively pushing forward into the iOS and desktop software markets. Why would they do that? Maybe these investments are paying off today, maybe they’ll pay off in 5 or 10 years.
I was informed by a Moog distributor at a show that one of the core motivations behind their iOS strategy is brand awareness. The apps are a gateway drug to their hardware. And Moog hardware has compelling offerings sub $1k these days.
I'm not certain it's as simple as that as their iOS apps are amongst the biggest sellers within the music category so I'm sure they've become a decent profit centre for the business too. But I'd suggest their brand is better known amongst mainstream audiences in part due to their iOS strategy.
Moog is very generous as well, being one the first companies to make their apps free during quarantine!
This was the statement I responded to:
“Yes, let's focus on only the parts of the comparison which are the least important part of the comparison...”
Which you said in response to @Lil_Stu07 pointing out that your equating the market for video games to the iOS music app market was ridiculous.
It is. Except for when it isn’t!
It can be very frustrating if you use the wrong auv3s which can make if fail badly.
There is no fair and unfair in pricing. Nobody is obligated to buy something that they think is too expensive.
Would love to see more Arturia iOS/iPad though.
iSEM is one of my favourite synths on iPad.
I think it would take a lot of work to port the UIs to iOS. They’ve become huge on desktop and don’t all fit well on a 14” laptop screen very well as it is.
Making the UI less static would be required for them to work nicely on iOS and iPad.
my guess is that Arturia don’t think the effort is worthwhile but to be honest any work on in that direction would benefit desktop too.
Too little thought goes into the average plugin UI with regards to being adaptable to many screen sizes. I’d love the UI to adapt intelligently as you shrink it so that you could keep it open with just the macro controls visible for example.
Good point, this is one reason why Bleass UIs do so well: less focused on textured assets and is very lightweight. Vectors are way more flexible than images.
Heads up, Arturia is currently emailing those $99 upgrade offers for V-Collection 8 to customers with older versions.
I have V4, and am surprised.
If you log into your Arturia account the upgrade offer may show up there as well.
Thanks. I'm currently checking out what's included in V8.
I can upgrade my old AAS collection for $69 too...between those two, that's a lifetime of instruments. (Just got a new laptop so been shopping around.)
V-Collecton 8:
Fantastic!
Would You buy it for 249€ ?
(…I was just about to get the new Korg synths…)
249 for 28 instruments? That’s cheaper than iOS prices these days...
🤗 yes…but it’s almost overwhelming…I’ll demo it.
I guess the new Korg Opsix will be of more use.
Arturia V Collection on Desktop is 600 EUR (it became more expensive, it cost 500 EUR earlier). On sale the price drops by 50% to 300 EUR, and if you have any other Arturia software on your user account (even free tool) then the price drops by another 50 or 100 EUR to the level of 200-250 EUR and this is the real Desktop price.
In my opinion the default price for V Collection for iOS could be up to 100 EUR. The point where I would allow myself to buy is during the sale (eg. black friday) let say one year after release in price up to 50-60 EUR. Anyway it would be great if the V Collection appear on iOS in any price. Of course the price could be even 150-200 EUR, but who will buy it then??? I keep my fingers crossed for V Collection on iOS.
For comparison:
IK Multimedia Syntronik CS is in some kind similar to V Collection, and its "Deluxe" IAP (which is everything -> 22 virtual instruments) is 100 EUR by default and 50 EUR on SALE. (iOS prices)
Fabfilter Pro Bundle (7 plugins) on the Desktop is 619 EUR, the same Pro bundle on iOS is 120 EUR by default (25% OFF -> 90 EUR and 43% OFF -> 68 EUR on the sale). It is more or less 1/6 of the price, following this path V Collection could also cost 1/6 which is 100 EUR by default and 75 EUR (25% OFF) or 57 EUR (43% OFF) on the sale.
I just want the buchla on my iPad 😁
If Arturia dives back into iOS, I bet they test the waters with Analog Lab first, which is most similar to IK's Syntronik that @dakti mentioned.
Redesigning the tiny GUIs of the individual synths (and making them work on a touchscreen) would be one helluva undertaking.
I wonder if there would be more licensing costs for them too.
Plus all the extra features from a powerhouse like Synclavier V may not even be do-able on iOS. The official Synclavier iPad app is missing a lot, notably resynthesis.
Top tier iOS plugins seem to be slowly inching closer to parity with desktop prices . If IK can justify charging over $100 for the Hammond B-3 emulator, I’m sure $50 each for the Arturia synths wouldn’t be unreasonable - maybe half off during sales.
I wouldn’t bat an eyelash before dropping $100+ on U/HE synths, or maybe even iOS Pigments. It’s worth the premium to me, but maybe I’m an outlier.
Fortunately that’s not how markets work
They’re definitely good, quality synths and I especially like some of the more eclectic additions (Easel, Synthi V, Matrix) … I only use less than half the collection though, so I can’t help but feel like my money could have better been spent elsewhere.
Togu Audio Line and Cherry Audio both have some of the same recreations that are at least on par, but at a far more attractive price point.
Thanks so much for the heads up, I bought V Collection ver 7 like a couple weeks before ver 8 came out, I would have waited had I known, this is the cheapest update path to path 8 so far, I was waiting and hoping for this price to update and its definitely worth it , I was only missing maybe 4 synths from ver 8 but they were worth the $99 dollars imo.