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.
IAA still sucks
I need to add some effects to a vocal track in Auria, so rather than doing it with Audiobus I had a go at using IAA, figuring it should be more convenient. I added the effects to the track by selecting from the list of available IAA apps in the FX slot.
First I tried Voice Synth. It didn't work, for some reason it was routing the audio through the built-in mic rather than from Auria. I checked the routing tab in the app, and it claimed that Auria was both the input and the output. And this is despite Qneo's claims that IAA was less buggy than Audiobus a few months ago...
Then I tried Vio, several times. Crash to desktop each time (no other apps loaded obviously, on an iPad 4, so RAM should not be an issue).
I tried iVoxel, no sound.
Finally with Amplitube I got it to work, but Amplitube can only load one vocal effect at a time (you add some Vocal Live pedals to it, but they only load in the first slot).
So anyway, to cut a long story short, my experience with IAA today was far from satisfactory. In theory it could be great, and more convenient than having to route a track through AB, but in practice it just doesn't work very well. The reality is that Audiobus really just works, and IAA frequently doesn't.
Comments
I've had similar experiences with IAA, but I'm still a big fan of zero latency. I'm willing to stick with it because of that. But to compare Audiobus to IAA really isn't fair. Audiobus is a well thought out comprehensive solution to inter app audio on iOS that has gotten near constant attention through it's life-cycle and it shows. The developers delivered clear documentation and a well thought out API to integrate into their apps. IAA is a bolt on after thought that has received no attention as far as I can tell and was delivered to developers without any documentation. While they offer similar functionality, there is no comparison really. IAA is literally years behind Audiobus. When the new SDK gets rolled out by Seb and Michael, IAA should finally get some much needed polish.
IAA should be "easier" than AudioBus but it rarely is. With Auria, I find that I anything gets disturbed tin the IAA chain while you have those linked up in FX, the whole app and project gets crashed along with it.
I reinstalled Phauwo (sp?), which is a cheap mono synth because I saw that it got IAA. It was playing back with this horrible squealing noise as I was recording, yet the playback version sounded fine.
I don't encounter problems like this in AudioBus. Yes, it has glitches and apps do crash while running it at times, but rarely with the catastrophic consequences of IAA.
I've been trying out more IAA recently - particularly using Tonestack and Stereo Designer from within Cubasis. Bottom line - the dog ate my homework! I could not get things to work the way I needed and lost what I was working with. Therefore IAA isn't practically consistenly usable for me whereas Audiobus seems solid as a rock most of the time.
T-DAMH!
IAA is a nice augment to Audiobus when one needs clock sync.
I get really frustrated trying to use IAA Synths in Auria. Partly because of IAA instabilities, but mostly because Auria only supports IAA in the efx inserts, which are at the end of the chain. OK for efx I guess, but really want synths and other generators to be at the front: as is, get no fader or VU life. Generators should be selectable in a third type in the Input Matrix - Normal, AudioBus, IAA.
Interestingly, Auria's failings with IAA exactly complement Cubasis's recent failings with AudioBus. Auria gives great AB where Cubasis gives understandable IAA.
@dwarman said:
leprosy or black death? ^^
IAA midi is very nice to have
hint, hint
I don't think IAA is bad, just needs a lot of testing ...
Not a huge fan of IAA at this time, I don't understand developers that neglect taking advantage of AB.
Singaling worked like a charm as IAA in Auria for me yesterday. Not the best vocal processor, but supports IAA pretty well.
Thanks for the tip/suggestion.
@dwarman said:
Interesting - I just picked up Auria a few days ago. Love the app overall, but IAA is both one of the cooler and one of the more problematic features of it. SquashIt was released only as an IAA effect app - it literally cannot do anything else, yet it crashes Auria every time I try to load it, and doesn't work in AudioShare either. (I think my 2-star review of that app is fair until they address that).
Obviously, I've used AudioBus a lot more than IAA because it was around first and has generally worked. But I try to force using IAA where I can under the idea that it should run more efficiently. It's quicker to setup and doesn't require a separate program running in the background.
Except it never actually works out that way. The "instrument" versus "generator" versus "effects" distinction is confusing because there is no workflow screen for IAA like there is for AudioBus. Apps like ToneStack (purportedly) work as effects processors, but not as "inputs". Many guitar and synth apps still lack IAA compatibility altogether.
IAA connections occasionally sound good, but I seem to get terrible audio problems almost half the time. And in Auria, using IAA and disturbing pretty much ANYTHING about that connection (closing a linked app, trying to open a new track with IAA connections, etc.) seems to lead to crash of my entire project, followed by 10 more crashes as it tries to load the project from auto-save. Yuck.
I may just use AudioBus with Auria like I had been for MT DAW, and refrain from IAA use (except maybe for Turnado and WOW Filterbox plugins) until this crap is sorted out.
@StormJH1 said:
Well there is some good news - if you bought the standalone versions of Turnado and WOW you can also install the Auria native versions for free.
The native plugins run without any of the restrictions of IAA, you can have several instances loaded at the same time in a project and they are far more stable and reliable than IAA.
I think that is what I was doing. I didn't have to tell it to download anything, but it popped up in a new FX box. I just referred to it as IAA because I though that was how it was working, but I guess it's a plug-in. They worked fine, but I have an iPad2, so it's pretty limited as to how I can use it.
I do like with Auria, at least, that you get the pop-up message instead of a straight buffer-underrun or crappy audio. In fact, I haven't had many audio issues with Auria, though it yells at me pretty quickly if I get too complicated with things. Automation and track freezing are cool!
You can easily tell the IAA plugs in Auria, they are in blue type and they come underneath the built-in plugins in the list.
Does anyone know where to shoot an email to someone at Apple for an IAA feature request? I've been determined to figure out a way to access iPad system audio (a la Audio Hijack Pro or Soundflower), but all roads lead to nowhere and it seems like IAA might be the only way. It might still suck, but I'll take any solution if it's possible.
Singaling might be one of the few apps which fare better on IAA than AB, mainly because it doesn't open as a FX in AB.
@bixnood said:
I might have to reinstall it then!
@Accent said:
It seems like this is a very intentional
limitation to prevent potential copyright issues.
@richardyot said:
I don't think that reinstalling will fix it. Maybe singaling is written that way ,so I might contact the dev...but give it a try!
I meant I had deleted it, so I will reinstall it to see if it's any good as an IAA effect.
@richardyot said:
Ok, now I get it! By the way it's nice app
@StormJH1 said:
Hi! I'm the developer that created SquashIt. Now there is an update available that won't crash the app in IAA-mode on non-retina devices (iPad 2). We missed out testing the app properly on those devices before releasing 1.0. Sorry about that.