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 Store

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

Video...Harmony Wiz...Demo and Tutorial

Cool way to help with your classical style pieces, lots and lots of options

Comments

  • Thanks as always for the video. My trigger finger got the better of me and I bought the app at 2am (I thought I'd last a couple of days). So this video is perfectly timed. I agree it's like 'YouCompose' but taken to another level.

  • So if I understand correctly this supports MIDI out as well? So I could put together an arrangement and then use MIDI out to something like Thumbjam? And could each individual track be linked to a different instrument in Thumbjam? If the answer to all those questions is yes then would there be any point in purchasing the Thumbjam IAP?

  • @Flo26 said:

    The sentence" you don't need to know anythig about music discomforts me.lol..

    When I saw the video where the music is 'painted' in I was a bit wary. But if you want something tailored to your needs it would help to know some music theory or have a good ear and input the melody via the keyboard. I have a reasonable musical knowledge of scales, modes and chords including those pesky altered dominant jazz voicings and I'm intrigued by this type of app. I find it helpful but I'm not expecting a horn line as good as 'The Tower of Power'. If I knew my theory better I'd probably be using the app 'notion.' So I see it as a very useful springboard.

    @Paulyboy69 said:

    So if I understand correctly this supports MIDI out as well? So I could put together an arrangement and then use MIDI out to something like Thumbjam? And could each individual track be linked to a different instrument in Thumbjam? If the answer to all those questions is yes then would there be any point in purchasing the Thumbjam IAP?

    I was wondering exactly the same thing. I was able to play only the top instrument from Harmonywiz into Thumbjam. But I'm a novice, a guitarist that only started last Christmas. I barely know an LFO from a VCO or much about midi. So someone less newbie than me might know.

  • Cant say for sure about the midi as I didnt demo it or use it, and I'm not the greatest midi expert in the world and unless its plainly obvious I usually stay away from it, dont have the time nor the patience, I'm sure someone here will buy it and sus out the midi stuff :-)

  • It does do multichannel MIDI out. Although one reason someone might pick the IAP over controlling ThumbJam is to be able to run only one app instead of 2.

    But of course MIDI out opens up so many possibilities....

  • @Zymos said:

    It does do multichannel MIDI out. Although one reason someone might pick the IAP over controlling ThumbJam is to be able to run only one app instead of 2.

    But of course MIDI out opens up so many possibilities....

    That sounds pretty awesome. I really like the workflow and layout of this app. I told myself I wasn't going to purchase any more of these more expensive apps because I already have more than enough but this is really hard to resist. So perhaps I will pull the trigger this weekend when I have more time. Thanks for the information!

  • @thesoundtestroom said:

    Cant say for sure about the midi as I didnt demo it or use it, and I'm not the greatest midi expert in the world and unless its plainly obvious I usually stay away from it, dont have the time nor the patience, I'm sure someone here will buy it and sus out the midi stuff :-)

    Even though @Zymos answered my questions your demo and tutorial was extremely useful as usual. Thanks so much Doug and keep them coming! :-)

  • Haha, I agree with @Flo26 's sentiment - I hear that phrase being used more and more to promote iOS music apps (Beatwave being the most recent example to come to mind). As someone who is disappointed in my own lack of understanding of music theory, I get it. But it bothers me because: (a) it isn't true; and (b) it tends to understand the musical usefulness of the product for people who really DO know theory.

    Memorizing musical patterns or adjusting things by ear to make them sound "right" to you IS musical knowledge, just like guitar tab is "music" every bit as much as piano sheet music is. When I start playing power chords to improvise a guitar rhythm, I've been making 3rds and 5ths for years without actually understanding what I'm doing, simply by sliding finger patterns over to adjacent strings. The guitar was designed to allow me to do that. They made the strings 5 chromatic notes apart so that you could create musical patterns on the fretboard in a way that makes sense for how you would comfortably play an instrument.

    Similarly, many iOS apps have some type of automation or "fretboard" rearrangement that make sense for an iOS interface. Jordan's own "Geo Synthesizer" app is a classic example of that, as is any synthesizer app that allows you to pick "F Ionian" as the only notes on your keyboard. This isn't fundamentally any different than picking a few parameters, drawing a line or wave, and having the app translate that to pitch changes within a particular key.

    But to USE that musically, and collaborate with other apps, instruments, and people, it really does help to understand what you are doing with keys, time signatures, and the like. I'm not there yet, but apps like this and many others can be a learning tool for that raw knowledge.

    Doug's video made me more interested in the app than I thought'd I'd be. It seems classically oriented because of the samples available, but it's pretty damned cool.

  • There are some quotes from David Gilmour and Roger Waters that sum this up for me, in that you still have to make the music yourselves. The "machines" aren't doing it for you.

    David Gilmour: "It's all extentions of what's coming out of our heads. I mean, you've got to remember you've got to have it inside your head to be able to get it out at all anyway."

    Roger Waters: "It's like saying, Give a man a Les Paul guitar and he becomes Eric Clapton. It's just not true. Give a man an amplifier and a synthesizer and he doesn't become us either."

  • @StormJH1 said:

    Haha, I agree with @Flo26 's sentiment - I hear that phrase being used more and more to promote iOS music apps (Beatwave being the most recent example to come to mind). As someone who is disappointed in my own lack of understanding of music theory, I get it. But it bothers me because: (a) it isn't true; and (b) it tends to understand the musical usefulness of the product for people who really DO know theory.

    Memorizing musical patterns or adjusting things by ear to make them sound "right" to you IS musical knowledge, just like guitar tab is "music" every bit as much as piano sheet music is. When I start playing power chords to improvise a guitar rhythm, I've been making 3rds and 5ths for years without actually understanding what I'm doing, simply by sliding finger patterns over to adjacent strings. The guitar was designed to allow me to do that. They made the strings 5 chromatic notes apart so that you could create musical patterns on the fretboard in a way that makes sense for how you would comfortably play an instrument.

    Similarly, many iOS apps have some type of automation or "fretboard" rearrangement that make sense for an iOS interface. Jordan's own "Geo Synthesizer" app is a classic example of that, as is any synthesizer app that allows you to pick "F Ionian" as the only notes on your keyboard. This isn't fundamentally any different than picking a few parameters, drawing a line or wave, and having the app translate that to pitch changes within a particular key.

    But to USE that musically, and collaborate with other apps, instruments, and people, it really does help to understand what you are doing with keys, time signatures, and the like.

    I can read and write music. You are so right. Learn the real thing and it will be with you forever. This app could be fun but you have to play real notes to create the textures that YOU want not what some app tells you is cool. Fun app though if you know what you are doing.

  • I was very interested in this app but wanted to see your video first and some more examples - great job as always. Does it have any drums or percussion? Whatever, I think I will get it!

  • On the plus side, there might be some people that are totally intimidated by the process of writing their own music that will find an app like this as a starting point for getting into composing their own work, be drawn in, find out what the various musical terms present in the app mean, and go from there.

  • edited June 2014

    Great video, Doug. Thanks.
    I'm pretty sure Don Draper could sell this.

  • @Paulinko said:

    On the plus side, there might be some people that are totally intimidated by the process of writing their own music that will find an app like this as a starting point for getting into composing their own work, be drawn in, find out what the various musical terms present in the app mean, and go from there.

    Absolutely. I feel that way about myself, even though I'm not a complete novice.

    Anyway, I'll keep an eye on this app - it seems interesting, particularly if the MIDI out stuff works. Their apps are creative and unique but I haven't pulled the trigger on any of them yet.

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