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
They are improved. Much improved. Especially the selection of distorted electric guitars. Huge improvement.
Overall it’s a wonderful improvement, even with the few nitpicks I have pointed out.
Well this was a pleasant surprise! Thank you @Jessie (Yonac)!!
Was definitely not expecting this app so soon. 👍
And @Jessie, will you be adding the two-finger mute users have been familiar with in the original Steel Guitar? Personally, I never use the “Enhanced Slide Control”, I only turned on the “String Damping” feature.
I’m not seeing a way to strum, pick, slide and intentionally and selectively mute using both hands on the UI right now because there is no “String Damping” option in the preferences.
Overall, delighted with the sound quality and finally being able to record actions in MIDI. Great job!
I would really like to see buttons for the pedals in the UI. Is MIDI Learn really the only way to engage them, or am I missing something?
Woah this is awesome! I’ve had the OG for a long while and love it. This one sounds even better and more realistic somehow. Like someone else said, you couldn’t tell in a mix.
I couldn’t get the instrument 1 to work too well with it, which is strange because it has a slide and steel guitar mode. But I just got the instrument 1 and am still learning how to set it up and to play it. I will also have to look at the yonac manual to see if I’m missing something.
But, with the onscreen app controls it sounds very cool!
I LOVE Steel Guitar and have used it on a number of tracks. I just skimmed the thread, but didn't see the answers to a couple niggles I have:
1) Is there any way to make the fretboard longer? I liked that the fretboard was 18 frets in the original Steel Guitar app, but this is only 13. I would love to be able to extend that a bit to get those beautiful higher registers.
2) Is there any way to import presets from Steel Guitar into Steel Guitar Pro? I have a number of ones I've put together, and while I can recreate them if necessary it would be far simpler to import them.
I miss the tapedeck when using as AUv3 plugin
You increase the fretboard range by reducing the distance between frets. Unlock the padlock symbol in the upper right and then adjust the Fret Width control that appears onscreen. Then lock the padlock again.
@NeuM THERE IT IS! I knew there had to be a way to adjust that, just couldn't find anything in the settings. Fantastic - you're the man.
Now, about them presets....
It's really odd to me that the slide can't be controlled by a MIDI CC. I get that pitch-bend gives finer grained control, but I'd like to use a CC to set the position, then use bend for finer articulations.
You can also scroll the fretboard when unlocked. At first I thought you could only squish up the frets.
Hey @NeuM - it seems the single string mute gesture is now three-finger tap. Why three? I have no idea. I also can barely fit three fingers in the pick guard no matter how big I make it.
[edit .. or at least so the manual says. Doesn't seem to work. I also don't see any setting for this gesture as the manual says there is. ]
Does the app send midi out? Being able to control other synths with the sliding guitar would be absolutely fantastic.
It sends out MIDI but be advised it uses a custom MIDI protocol… the intent is for DAW’s to be able to record performances.
It’s possible some could convert the MIDI stream to use it as a general purpose controller using Mozaic or Streambyter. Using MIDI spy as a monitor I can see that the
NOTE On/Off events rotate between a few MIDI channels. It looks like they need to allow for notes to be coded to strings. But converging on a single midi channel for note events might make it a reasonable controller but probably hard to master and frankly “Why?” Needs to be determined.
Rozeta LFO doesn’t seem to send Pitch Bends but mLFO does using CC=0. Hmm. Does Rozeta use this trick?
I see a Mozaic script to hack some extra features in the future after study of the MIDI stream out. Mozaic can send Pitch Bends so it might do chord changes like the slide bar.
UPDATE: It sends out Notes 0-9 for a 10 string pedal steel and 0-5 for a guitar.
Transposing the note up into the middle of a keyboard makes it send a chromatic scale. Easy to convert to optional scales in a script. You just need a dial to select optional tunings like the app does. I’m sure someone will jump on it. Actual note changes for melodies are expressed via the Pitch Bend output that tracks with the slider. +/- 2 octaves is the way to go for a guitar neck or maybe +/- 6 semitones with
The script making all notes fit relative to the “nut” or open strings on the display.
Going above the 12th fret could be allowed with +/- 8 or so.
I drop there fingers and it “damps” all strings. It’s just a 3 finger gesture and you don’t have to align with the slider bar on screen. 2 fingers tilts the bar to make some microtonal weirdness and create vertigo in the listener… that lovely seasick sound.
I may have a setting turned on to make this possible. I will restart the app and check.
UPDATE: Yes… I have “Enhanced Slide Controls” turned on.
Thanks Yonac for all the good apps!
I also bought kauldron and kaspar thanks to their super sale!
It seems like I'm only bringing up negative things about the app. I don't mean to - I think it's fabulous.
But ... I really can't understand why the slide isn't midi CC and AUv3 parameter controllable. That just seems like a crazy omission to me. 🤨🤷🏼♂️
I've tried through their web site before and never got a response. That's why I'm hoping they'll see and respond, or just address the issue after seeing it here.
They designed made a protocol with:
String = Note (0 to number of strings-1)
Fret = Pitch Bend (not sure if there’s a build in offset… I can check)
Then any app you target will respect the pitch bend but we need a script to convert string number to some tuning.
I think you’ll like making scripts using this scheme. Your script could accept CC inputs and map it to PB’s other other settings that are exposed in the doc’s like Presets, etc.
I pointed the MIDI out at Animoog and Pure Piano and added a 4 octave transpose and it played a chromatic scale
Without pitch bends. For an app that support +/- 12 semitone pitch bends you’re pretty good to go with an AUM transpose and even better when we get a script to implement a table of tunings for the guitar types (6 string options and up to 10 string options). Sending in the preset would insure the tuning table matches the output.
This is what the previous version of Steel Guitar looks like in the preferences. Note the circled area. Being able to mute strings when a second (or third) finger is placed outside of the slider area is critical for being able to reproduce the actions of a real guitar.
(https://forum.audiob.us/uploads/editor/et/ysr6ri3e7hmk.jpeg "")
I tried recording the midi out into Bitwig but it doesn't play back correctly when sent back to SGP. It records the slide position as pitch bend, and the plucked string as C-2 C#-2 etc but they all play back as the same string if I feed that back into the app from Bitwig.
If l look at the midi on the iPad using Midi Wrench, there is pitch bend data on CH 6,7,8,9,10. Not sure if I can work out how to get Bitwig to record all this correctly.
Is there a way to control how quickly the slide reverts back to the open tuning when you let go? Or is that destined be be like the real thing?
This. Would love to have a great steel guitar sound I can control with my Linnstrument. SGP nails the sound part...
Yonac just put up a YouTube demo with some real pedal pushing steel licks. Sounds fantastic.
Open Preferences and check your settings.
It could be that Bitwig isn't recording everything exactly as-is. I read up-thread that if you record into Midi Tape Recorder (which is highly accurate) then play that back to SGP, it sounds as it should. I haven't tried that myself, but only read it.
This was a common theme when Animoog Z came out. Nothing was able to record the MPE accurately enough for an identical playback until Midi Tape Recorder came along.
Have you checked to be sure that quantization is off in Bitwig?
Oh... that looks like a good option. I'm having trouble understanding when bar slanting is
a good idea. Warping chords out of tune by degrees seems like it's only useful to disturb the listener... I'm sure there's a lot of people that do like to create sonic confusion.
It would be nice if they made bar slanting an isolated control and then applied finger damping as "one more finger" than is currently configured.
Can someone explain how they use bar slanting? I wiggle it one way and the other and it just doesn't seem like something a pedal steel player might do on purpose. A novice maybe.
For slide guitar that involves subtle blues bending maybe?
Do you know which one. I've changed all the labelled as something that was a possibility and nothing changed that setting.