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
Yer I saw that hopefully won't have to wait all year.
Zenbeats has this too, where you can expand a midi or audio fragment and it creates a loop sequence. This is not trivial. Not only it’s faster, straightforward and streamlined, but it’s also different “conceptually”.
I find copying/pasting the same sequence 15 times extremely annoying, useless and completely backwards. This is obviously personal, what might not bother someone will be a stopper for others.
I think one of the things that irks me the most, and this is absolutely not only Steinberg doing it, it seems to be "a thing" for iOS app development, is that very few developers are transparent with roadmaps and planned features. For some reason they all sit on their "secret" roadmap, even for released apps (I can understand the secrecy/details for non-released software), guarding it like the crown jewels.
What they could do, like many other software developers in other fields do, is to publish a "these are, currently, the features we're planning to add" and also, somewhat more dangerous ground but can be done for sure, a "you have suggestions? Send them in here and maybe, just maybe, we might see if we agree and possibly add it to our roadmap!". That would ease the speculation for sure, it would create some expectation management for users, and it would also give an opportunity to explain priorities, and to communicate better/more, which rarely is a bad thing from the end-users perspective.
If they really intend to add it, why not commit to it, or at least commit to a yay/nay/maybe? I'm not saying it should go first in the priority list, but to constantly leave out replies (read "ignore" as that is what it feels like) on direct questions for it, and given it now has been 9 years, I am thinking there is a lot of room for communication improvements. Even a "yeah, good idea, but we'll not be able to fit it in for this year at least, and we can't see further than that for now" would be so much more understandable than "let's reply to those 2 questions, but not that third one".
But yes, you are also right in that it is far from a trivial thing to add. There are all kinds of complexities with sample-rates, timings, sync and "what happens with audio? Midi?" etc that needs to be handled correctly. As noted previously though, it does exist in other apps (including their own desktop apps), so it can't be impossible. If someone could do it I would have thought the most premium DAW in the world would be able to solve it, even on iOS.
I soooo badly wish for a stable, regularly updated iOS DAW that has this (standard-on-desktop) functionality. Cubasis ticks so many other boxes, and it should be "it", but alas, this thing isn't there and as we've said previously, this is a to-buy-or-not divider for me. But hey, perhaps Cubasis 4 eh?
I will give the Cubasis team and Lars huge credit for communicating with the community and trying to help when the flies get stuck in the ointment. I wish Wave Machine Labs was just half as communicative as Steinberg is.
Growing up and learning recording on mostly analog equipment got me used to work arounds. I will use work arounds today too but confess it gets to be such a load.
For example, if I want to have arrangement markers I devote track one to the task so it's on top of the editing screen; then I work out which measures the different parts of the song begin and finally I record a single click on the one of that bar. I then rename the region whatever part of the song that measure is (VERSE, MIDDLE 8, etc) and rinse and repeat for each song section.
A simple arrangement track would make this a breeze of course. Similarly tempo mapping or a tempo track would great too. I know everyone has their own laundry list & I know Lars and the dev team aren't miracle workers, but I think features that go to the heart of song creation, the purpose of the software, are key. Presets, pitch correction, AU & MIDI automation, etc are all very cool. But to me, the basic functionality and features to aid in song creation take precedence.
FINAL GRIPE (I promise Lars I won't bitch any more in 2022!):
I can't count how many times I've tried to do some editing and all of the sudden the loop markers snap to the size of the region I was trying to edit, open, move, etc. Getting rid of that 'hold to set loop markers' thing has been on every wish list I can remember, and I started using Cubasis in 2015. The movement of the loop markers should only be done by manually taking and sliding each side to where you want to loop. I can't even think of a practical application of the way it is now.
Cubase comes with Groove Agent, which is sort of a drummer. Haven't found any plugins for iPad that are quick and simple to lay down a basic drum track. The Lumbeat apps are ok, but I struggle with the UI and the fact they are IAA. Garageband's drummer is great but a pain to get into other apps.
With regards to Steinberg’s new desktop licensing methodology. It’s already rolled out in Dorico, their notation package. Cubase will follow most probably after a first round of sense checking the system within the Dorico community.
One possible advantage of the new 'back to base' license methodology is that it opens up the possibility of a single license running across both desktop and mobile, but this would obviously need greater feature parity across desktop and mobile products.
Tempo track pleeeaaaseee! 👋🏻
This is something I use a lot, horses for courses I guess. If you press and hold your 'sections' in your track 1 as markers workaround, you can easily set the markers to loop those sections
Cubasis is my preferred DAW having had mixed experiences with NS2 (audio units don't always behave/open) and I've never got on with GB. It's great to have a choice and as with any DAW there are pros and cons with all of them.
I think by the time I released my 3rd album I'd used Cubasis 2, Cubasis 3 and NS2 roughly equally. I've now transferred all the CB2 projects to CB3. Plus rebuilt a number of the NS2 tracks there when they stop working in NS2, but that's for another day.
For my workflow, Cubasis generally works really well. But I do have one major headache:
The one aspect in Cubasis that leads me to most frustration is actually the midi roll editor. I play most parts in via my keyboard but I find when I need to edit them in the midi roll that it is clumsy at best. Making selections and trying to adjust notes whilst holding down the tiny buttons on the left of the screen is very hit and miss and really make the user experience sub par. And it requires the use of both hands to do this. Compare the experience to the midi roll in NS2 where it's done far more efficiently (and can be done with one hand on the screen).
Could these functions (move/resize notes) be turned into toggle buttons rather than having to hold them down @LFS? Or at least have it as an option!
Very much hoping to get some features listed in our Top 5 most requested features video here
Indeed, we'll have to wait and see...
...guess those who are on the beta have their lips sealed tightly to avoid spanking or something?!
But they have committed to it, haven't they. They've said it's happening, just not given an idea of the timeline (pun intended).
I think the problem with them giving more details is that it will just set up expectations, and then when setbacks happen (as is normal) it just becomes a mess of consumer disappointment that would need further time and resources to deal with.
And yes, some independent app developers manage to pull it off, perhaps making it seem easier for a larger company to do. But I'm not sure it works like that.
Would be so awesome if you would make a simple vid of this process? Thanks in advance!👍🏼🙏🎸
We feel your pain.
This has been stated many times on this forum and probably to the Steinberg team.
It is especially annoying for the left-handers among us (which is higher than the average population given that a higher percentage of musicians/creatives are left-handed).
It's not possible to automate the on/off switch of insert effects - or am I missing something? Some effects don't have dry/wet sliders.
I don’t think you’re missing something.
I tried this very thing a couple of weeks ago.
I’m currently trying to figure out a workaround
unless someone has an answer already.
Zenbeats has its own Wet/Dry setting on the plugin window, so you can wet/dry any plugin regardless. I love that and don’t why it’s not more widely implemented in other daws.
Hi @swfarrington > @TimRussell said:
Hi @TimRussell,
Shared with the team...
Best,
Lars
Great. Thanks @LFS !