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
I’m pretty sure Drambo can do this - i have a vague recollection of seeing a Ben Richards youtube video about it.
Might work when using the wave-table oscillators as FM operators as the regular oscillators do not yet provide full control over oscillator start-phase
It’s not about being a DX7 emulator, we already have one of those in KQ Dixie, but with a six operator design you can at least start from a DX framework.
What I’d love to see on iOS is something closer to Sytrus (FL Studio). This is a great example of how you take a six operator FM template and give it teeth.
https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio-learning/fl-studio-online-manual/html/plugins/Sytrus.htm
Sytrus is FL Studio’s unsung hero. To get the real skinny on what Sytrus brings to the party beyond classic DX FM this PDF makes for essential reading.
https://www.malmgren.nl/Sytrus.pdf
I’m not an FL Studio user although I own it as I’m one of those who was fortunate enough to have picked it up in the past when it was tuppence hay-penny and benefit from it’s lifetime upgrade policy. You can load FL Studio into other DAWs as a VST, but I pony’d up extra to get Sytrus as a VST as that offers superior automation capabilities.
There’s nothing special about Sytrus that couldn’t be done on iOS and it’s UX/UI is a great example of taming complexity through thoughtful design. Any iOS developer could take plenty of inspiration from Sytrus to improve their FM offerings.
@bleassapp Is it really intentional that the on-screen keyboard in ALPHA, SampleWiz 2 & OMEGA lacks Y-Axis velocity?
This makes the built-in on-screen keyboard less than optimal when creating and playing sounds that are sensitive to velocity...
Can’t believe I was not aware of the KQ Dixie until you mentioned it. Just bought it, downloaded thousands of free patches and love this synth! So glad you brought it up.
KQ Dixie is king of FM/DX on iOS, but this will be fun. Phasemaker is great too but this is simpler.
Speaking of KQ Dixie, I can’t access all the many free presets when I open KQD in AUM. They’re all readily accessible when I use it standalone though. Anyone know what I’m doing wrong?
P.s am enjoying Omega lots…
You have to 'copy' them to the 'Audio Unit Extension'.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ms54ypa6teug3y3/dixie.mp4?dl=0
(Short video).
Search for Yamaha DX7 presets online, KQD can import MIDI sysex files.
I recently had this issue, and while I'm not 100% sure this is THEE solution, try putting the presets in a folder/folders and then putting those in the KQ Dixie folder on your iCloud drive.
This may be of interest, you can import them directly in to KQ Dixie: https://www.thisdx7cartdoesnotexist.com
Cool, thanks @Samu
http://hsjp.eu/downloads/Dexed/Dexed_cart_1.0.zip
That's from the Dexed homepage, KQ Dixie can use the *.zip file directly no need to extract...
...and well Google is really for friend, honestly...
The AUv3 cannot access files in the visible storage due to sandboxing. When you open the CART in stand-alone, one of the sections is headed Audio Unit Extension. Stuff you put in there is visible to the AU, and to stand-alone as well. So that's the place to use. The part visible in Files is just the top level of iTunes File Sharing. That's not where you want to be.
If you have a big zip file of presets, you can Share it direct to Dixie, and select the location to store it. You may need to tap More if it doesn't show in the Share list.
Holy SHIT! This is very very cool.
Thanks @NoiseFloored!
There's a dropbox link to a short video about the copy operation but I won't paste it again, just scroll up a bit
There were several Yamaha DX synths with 4 ops though. You can reference those patches for inspiration with sound design on a 4 op fm synth.
By the way, which DX-7 emulations are recommended (free or paid) for macOS M1 computers? I'd like to be able to import the same treasure trove of thousands of presets to use on desktop (as an AUv3) to complement the iOS side.
Dexed is the standard open-source DX7 clone. It runs fine on my Macbook Air M1.
https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/
So… should I buy it?
Does this do anything special making it unique compared to the other fm synths for iOS?
Fantastic! Thanks for the link.
UPDATE - I see from the Bleass site that the computer version is a separate download and purchase, so maybe the iOS version shouldn't present itself to the Mac App Store?
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Superb synth! Craps out on an M1 Mac, however.
Similar for standalone.
By the way, I've been getting similar crashes for both IK Multimedia's MixBox and both SynthMaster synth apps on macOS (while using as AU).
The point I was making wasn't even necessarily with regard to 4 vs 6 operators. It was that Bleass Omega offers few unique features of note over my existing FM options on iOS.
As mentioned earlier, FL Studio introduced Sytrus back at v6 (which was released in 2006). The enhancements it offers over the classic DX template aren't anything that are complex to program. We already have synths on iOS which are programmatically far more complex. But Sytrus's added features are well designed and make a huge difference in terms of its creative potential. And even though it has vastly expanded features over the DX7, it imports DX SysEx, and those patches can be used as-is, or as starting points for expansive exploration.
I totally buy Omega as an entry-level FM synth and in fairness to Bleass, they don't position Omega as anything other than an entry-level option in it's App Store entry. It's just not offering anything of substance for my needs.
There are already multiple FM synths on iOS with very similar features. I'm hoping that the next time a developer introduces an FM synth to iOS it takes inspiration from the likes of Sytrus rather than introducing yet another entry-level option.
It would have been nice for this to have aimed at the TX81Z level with multiple waveforms (gen 2 4-op?) as opposed to DX100 sine only (gen 1 4-op).
I’ve collected too many FM synth apps for this one to bring anything to the party in terms of sound. I’m interested to try a Bleass app from a UI perspective, but none seem compelling on the side of sound engine.
how many are too many?
can you please show us your collection?
(just auv3 please and with patch randomizing feature)
thanks.
By forum standards I’m sure my list is surely pathetically minimal 😂. ID700, KQ Dixie, OPL, Phosphor3. Given I “don’t like FM” this is enough…
KQ Dixie is an outstanding app and with decades of programming and sound experimentation from the community of users who continue to work with DX-7 sound design, it is insane how many patches there are out there for free.
Can the BLEASS FM Synth app import and use these DX-7 sysex files? If not, it might be a nice upgrade to the synth to broaden its base of users. Please think about adding a file conversion feature/importing option, BLEASS people.
Nope because the 'architecture' is different when it comes to envelopes, scaling etc.
Even with the TX81z being a 4OP FM synth with more waveforms a preset conversion would be pointless as OMEGA uses ADSR envelopes, TX81z uses level & rate envelopes with more points so a simple 'conversion' can not be made.
I don't think the intention with BLEASS Omega was to create a 'Yamaha 4OP Clone' but rather make something new and different.
I for one salute the @bleassapp team for creating a new and somewhat fresh approach to FM.
We have 2 nice DX7 'clones' (KQ Dixie and Dexed) and I feel those cover the DX7 territory more than well...
Cheers!