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.
Why Koala?
I get why Koala is popular as a user-friendly, MPC-style sampler that encourages a fun, quick and spontaneous workflow. I have it and I like it a lot.
However, for some, it seems to have become a mission critical app. Their one app they cant do without.
So I wonder if people are using it in ways that aren’t obvious to me.
I was hoping to start a thread where people can share their uses and workflow and maybe explain why or how it became so important to them.
Comments
It’s just really fun and intuitive. Here’s a video I made showing how I use it… I’m by no means a koala expert, but it’s my favorite looper.
I use it simply as a auv3 hosted sampler - primarily for its awesome time-stretching ability - and I trigger the samples (and automate its „perform“ effects) from midiclips in a host sequencer.
Think triggering an AkaiS950 from an AtariST running Cubase back in the day. Basically like that. Very simple, very clean, very easy.
I have no interest in its internal sequencer as I have no need for it. I also do not use it stand-alone. I‘d love for a simplified - lean - version of it sans sequencer to be honest.
Hmmm, I will first answer your question with a question - what genre(s) of music do you produce?
That’s, as Doug would say, a “laahvley” video.
Thanks for sharing your process. I oonly got about half way through but I look forward to a more careful watch when I get back home.
I’m interested in how you get the midi to behave. I have found it really counterintuitive midi-wise.
I record myself poking the pads and something else entirely plays back. Like, in Cubasis, when I play/record everything from Bank A and play it back, one pad from bank A and the rest pads from bank B end up getting triggered.
I also noted down all the midi note numbers of the pads (first by seeing which ones the pads triggered in the Cubasis piano roll and when that didnt work I jotted them down from the ‘use MIDI Mapping’ section in the Koala settings) - so I could make custom map in Polybeat and it should work, but gibberish comes back.
In the first case, if I midi-learn the pads to the pads on my controller it then behaves as expected.
In the second case, I have to go in on each drum lane in Polybeat and keep it triggering while I cycle through the midi note numbers until I find the one I’m trying to trigger.
I admit this experience kind of turned me off a little. Now that I’ve figured it out for both use-cases it shouldnt be a problem anymore but I would think playing the pads in the app would record the midi notes that trigger those pads.
Im sure the problem is me.
Well if you use samples in your music, nothing is easier than chopping in Koala, everything else feels like a chore afterwards. Being able to drag the samples around and on top of each other, mixing and adding to them is a rare treat as well. And it’s this feature that makes it killer for layering sounds. The quick bounce function as well. Sure other apps technically provide the same feature set but Koala makes it a pleasure. It’s probably spoiling people in this regard. Try chopping in BM3, which is a great app, but it’s night and day when it comes to fluidity. Some apps just nail that in a simple package and you can’t stay away.
Personally I do full beats in Koala standalone, or I use it to prepare samples for another sequencer. Koala stand-alone certainly keeps you focused though. Maybe that’s the real reason. There’s literally nothing else to do but sample, sequence said samples, and perform the beat. It’s right there at the top of the screen: sample sequence perform. Which reminds me, the patterns with their global sync, perfect for jumping back and forth and all around, you realize you can make a track with only a few patterns of music. And if that was t enough, you can drag and mix and match the sequences to. It all just works perfectly
I agree, koala with an audio timeline would be killer
Slightly eclectic. “Experiemental” EDM maybe - lots of polyrhythms and generative stuff mixed with nice chords and shit. But dub, Orbish-type stuff and 90’s “Trip Hop” creep in. And ambient/drones - usually mixed with the above but sometimes on their own.
Samples are important of course but not necessarily the center of my workflow in all or most cases. So there are perhaps nuances that are like the holy grail to some which go past me initially.
In any case, by the way I keep seeing people talk about it, I get the feeling they are sort of using it for various hacks. One guy recently said he uses it a bridge between his iPad and his desktop. Another guy, I think today said it was the one app he cant do without. But in general I keep reading people mentioning Koala in unexpected contexts. Like it has hidden uses.
Thats pretty much what I initially figured but began to wonder. This morning someone was talking about using LK and TKFX for purposes other than their main, intended use and then somone compared it to “IKEA Hacks” which made me think of Koala.
Yes the standalone workflow is really comfy. I didnt realize you could simply layer samples dragging from one pad to another. Thanks for mentioning that.
A person after my own heart.
I've never produced a beat in Koala, but I've live produced Ambient and drones in Koala a handful of times. (I usually take the resulting performance and run it in AUM through Alteza and Reelbus, lol.) I love Koala's fx section a lot! Koala doesn't do polyrhythms naturally (and neither does Gadget, but I've created faux polyrhythms in Gadget before when I was in my Minimal Techno phase summer of last year, lol, so I can imagine the same can be done in Koala tbqh).
The beauty of Koala is that it can also be used as an AUv3 within AUM and other hosts and triggered by Polybud (which is a MIDI AUv3) in AUM.
Oh there are many things to love about Koala. It's simple on the surface but can go deeeeeep. You can import audio, record audio, resample audio. You can timestretch. You can even import a full audio track and split off the stems (it has spleeter built in!). And as I said, it can be used as an AUv3.
Koala unfortunately isn't the holy grail. No app truly is. Koala is a tool.
It most definitely does. On the surface level, Koala seems like a simple beatmaking app. Flip is a simple beatmaking app (although I've managed to make an Ambient piece in Flip too
). Rather, as I said, Koala is simple on the surface, but can go deep.
In fact, just ask me "can it do (insert function here)?", and I can let you know if it does or not.
Thanks bro.
Im not sure I have such specific feature questions - mostly interested in its “unintended uses” for the purposes of this thread. The stuff I don’t know that I don’t know. Although by the sounds of it there are fairly front-facing functions like the layering @db909 mentioned that I didnt know about so obviously I havent really spent enough time. To be honest I have sooo many apps to learn right now. Im trying to prioritize.
I guess I am wondering if the MIDI, er, challenges I described in my post to @attakk is normal behaviour (or if Im just slow) and how people work efficiently with external midi sequencers. I have only tried Cubasis and Polybeat with it. Haven’t learned to use Atom really. And poking the virtual pads in the app didnt even record into NS2 when I tried.
@BirbHope : the native midi-mapping is straightforward if one is using Koala in portrait orientation where you have a 4*4 orientation> @BirbHope said:
The native midi mapping is straightforward if the app is in portrait mode so that you have a 4 x 4 grid. The pads are arranged in rows. Pad 1 is the upper left. That row is 1,2,3,4. The next row is 5,6,7,8. Etc
The MIDI note offset setting is the note mapped to pad 1. Consecutive notes are mapped in order.
In landscape, things seem screwy because of the layout change.
For me, the ability to screen record songs from streaming services, strip the audio directly within Koala, and chop it three different ways is invaluable. I can make lofi with nothing but my phone. I throw in drum samples that I created in Ruismaker Noir or drum loops from Beatly Pro. Multi-out let’s me mix it all in AUM. It’s easy to backup projects or move them between devices. Now with track splitting, good lord.
Thanks @espiegel123
That explains a lot because Cubasis forces landscape mode. I think I had it in portrait when mapping midi note numbers to Polybeat in AUM but I may have initially gathered the numbers in landscape.
You gave this Birb some hope
Ok. I’m starting to sense that its feature set just really nails it from a feature/workflow standpoint.
I know exactly what you mean! Koala really didn't appeal to me when I first bought it. But when I sought a live performance app for Ambient, Koala was what I first turned to. And it did NOT disappoint.
Trust me, I have had similar MIDI issues, but as @espiegel123 pointed out, it really is the orientation of the screen. (Then again, I wish @elf_audio would allow the option to have the 4x4 grid in landscape mode for larger iPad screens. Then the MIDI would make sense again.)
Not gonna lie, I'm still learning Atom too. Wicked amazing MIDI AUv3 though. In many ways though, I wish Xequence 2 would become AUv3.
That's actually an NS2 problem, which sucks actually. NS2 is a great app, and I've produced a lot of tracks in it. BUT, it lacks in a handful of ways. The thing that draws me to NS2 however is Obsidian. Amazing versatile semi-modular synth!
Don’t forget the effects! They’re so great to use on a multi-touch screen, and you can sequence them in Drambo, and even in the Ableton beta.
It takes Koala near Octatrack levels.
It’s my number 1 app. So easy to use and so much fun.
Koala is great. The only problem I have is that it has a pattern sequencer but you can not play patterns of different lengths after one another.
you can if you just merge them and select add to end. but yes, i agree we should have the option to start each pattern no matter how long at the beginning when selected while playing live.. other than the weird "sequence" it seems to follow now
I wonder if the dev ever clearly stated whether he intends to port it or not.
Both Cubasis and NS2 seem to add what each other lack and lack what each other have in many respects. I have a hard time investing energy into NS2 because the Dev has basically abandoned it from what I can tell. So there is no hope for the needed improvements and it feels like it could just disappear if he decides he doesn't want to pay his dev/hosting fee or something.
It is extremely ergonomic and is one of the few apps that really work on a small screen. This means it can come with you everywhere; it is super easy to sample the environment you are in, and you can use it on a bus, on a plane, in a waiting room etc. Yet you can create complete tracks in it, or very easily export stems to finish a project otherwhere. So for me it is the mobility. Not that it isn't great on an ipad, but on a phone it is the greatest.
for me, it is a valuable scratch book....i put an instance after my synth and record sound design variations into it. then I can easily export the whole bunch as a ZIP and have fodder for a track