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
Cool thanks, while thinking of a new name, SynthMaker will probably start to stick and become permanent. I like to think of Synth to mean Synthesize which can be applied to anything not just musical instruments. The new forum at https://www.visualswift.com/forum never took off and I kind of gave up on it but would love to recreate what the old SynthMaker forum used to be. Fancy being mod again? Would be great if there was the need for one.
Great, I will install a new forum at synthmaker.com and make you a mod.
The cheapest M1 should have plenty of power. Because they're so efficient not getting hot I think they age very well too so second hand should be fine if it's a big saving. I have an iPadOS wrapper app where I drop the Custom Instruments created with SynthMaker on MacOS and they become iOS AUv3 plugins. When I create a simple synth with the current most performance expensive components like the table X4 oscillator, the CPU usage on my iPad goes up to 10% and my iPad is from 2018 before the M1 came out. Also the table X4 oscillator has a lot of room from optimising, it is currently doing 8 table lookups for all 16 voices per sample, so 128. Table lookups are performance expensive because you can't use one instruction to do all 16 at the same time as you can with all others.
How about Apparition?
Thanks, I do like your thinking, the domain is not available though. I think I'll go with SynthMaker, not ideal but no name seems to be. If I could get some of the old SynthMaker community to join would be a big plus.
SynthMaker 0.1.38, you can now plot the frequency response of a filter:
Synthmaker is a pretty good name. SynthKit might work also (sort of like “HeathKit”).
I've decided to start a Patreon account for SynthMaker: https://patreon.com/user?u=82738212
Hopefully this will give me the motivation to improve it fast, create some kind of community and listen to the members.
I guess the current short term aim of SynthMaker is to allow users to create custom instruments and modules, share them with others and eventually convert them into a build that can be uploaded to the MacOS and iOS App Stores. I'd also like it to be a teaching/learning tool for Audio/DSP.
@winconway
I didn't yet get a chance to install a new forum at synthmaker.com but I intend to do it as soon as possible.
@NeuM
Thanks, I think SynthMaker is appropriate for now and the easy option considering I own the domain.
Holy shit !!! Man, you are legend, now you have my 100% attention on this project, dreamed about SynthMaker for MacOS for years !!!
Great, thanks. Let me know what you would be interested in making with the app, which components/features are missing etc.
I'm quite pleased with the current audio engine which has many advantages compared to the old Windows SynthMaker. Creating new components is now very quick to do.
will jump on it for sure ..
just out of curiosity (in case you didn't signed some kind of NDA) - what happened with original SynthMaker project ? You sold it to Image Line (i hink they are selling it under name "Flowstone" now) or you also worked for them ?
If i good undersntat this new one is completely new project from the scratch, yes ?
I've licensed it to Image Line a long time ago, but not sold. I've sold my share to DSPRobotics when SynthMaker changed direction to robotics and in the process killing the SynthMaker forum and changing name to FlowStone. As a condition the contract clearly specified that I'd be able to use the name SynthMaker to create a similar product. I have kept away from using it to avoid confusion but the other day Apple started rejecting my submissions because of the name "VisualSwift". The old SynthMaker is now too outdated as after I left they never upgraded it to 64 bits and it's been long enough that I feel it's a good time now to resurrect it. I think most people now never heard of it.
I've converted to Apple a long time ago, Swift is my favourite programming language and I like the ability of using the same code to run on a laptop and mobile devices. I don't think I'd ever go back to developing for Windows.
This MacOS version is new from scratch and not compatible with the old SynthMaker. At some point I intend to update the iPadOS version ( currently called VisualSwift ) with the components and features of the MacOS version so they'll become compatible. This version is meant to also be a AUv3 host and full environment for creating music and visualizations.
Great to hear that ! Looking forward to this project and can't wait for opportunity to actually buy it to support you
Will it be at some point possible to export as xCode project (or directly compile it into native app possible to release in AppStore) ?
Yes definitely, I already do that. I have a wrapper project where I just drop the SynthMaker schematic and build for uploading to the App Store, both for MacOS and iOS. My intention is to first create a synth with SynthMaker and submit it to the App Store as an example of Made With SynthMaker. Not sure how to monetise that as it would be an extremely niche and valuable feature, I'm open to suggestions.
just make it as IAP purchase .. like function for "export as xCode project" - which essentially saves whole xCode project .. you can give pretty high price for it (like $250 or even more) cause this will be used really just by few people .. and / or add also some form of "donate IAP" (or donate outside of apple stream, on some website) - i believe people who will create plugin and then really sell it in appstore will be glad to support you by some donation from their profits on plugin
I like both those ideas, I think it will be one, the other or a bit of both. I'm not greedy and would really like not to have to spend time trying to monetise and just focus on the app itself.
Latest v0.1.43 is now available with new HStack, VStack and ZStack components for creating custom UI.
Here's how to create a custom Chorus module with UI based on a Reaktor diagram:
Thanks, that's a great point that I will definitely have in mind. I don't want to be responsible for lowering the quality of plugins by lowering the barrier of entry like it happened a bit with the old Windows SynthMaker. I might do as you say and just provide a one-to-one service helping plugin developers, that's if the new SynthMaker becomes good enough for them to want to use. Still quite a lot of work to do.
Good point, I didn't think of the £99.
I've just uploaded the latest SynthMaker v0.1.49. You can now pin component's canvases to a panel on the right and there are new View Modifier components for creating custom User Interfaces and Controls:
@Jorge Thanks for your work on this, and I understand your reasons for refocusing on the Mac version as a development platform, but maybe you could take the iOS version in a slightly different direction, if and when you have the time, or the inclination.
These are just random ideas, so please take them or leave them:
As creating an AUv3 on the device is probably not viable, maybe make it possible to create custom instruments with wrappers/interface within SynthMaker, and maybe load two or three with inputs/outputs via a multi in/out AUv3? Than would be really interesting to work with for those of us who aren’t ever going to be developing full apps, but would like to experiment.
Thanks, I think the direction I'm taking is very similar to what you're describing.
Most of the code I'm writing is 100% compatible with the iPadOS version so at some point I'll transfer it across.
I see many advantages in focusing on the MacOS version first, here's a couple:
1) Developing is a lot quicker as it doesn't involve an external device. It's not just running and debugging the app that's quicker but also taking screenshots, recording videos from the screen, uploading to YouTube, managing files etc.: As Xcode runs on the Mac, it's quicker to do everything in place on the Mac.
2) On the iPad an app that costs over £25 is too expensive while on the Mac £100 is normal. The old windows SynthMaker used to be priced at £195 and no one complained that it was too expensive. Focusing on a Mac version that keeps me going would allow me to also keep going with the iPad version which by itself wouldn't be viable.
Using the iPad for creating AUv3s with SynthMaker should be viable, it will be the same as on the Mac.
I did think about having a generic wrapper, I have a project that allows me to drop a SynthMaker module, build, and it becomes an AUv3 plugin. It's very little work to convert it to have a drop zone for SynthMaker modules similar to the way you can now drag a module ( with extension .vsmod ) to a SynthMaker schematic on the Mac version. The idea would be to provide this AUv3 wrapper bundled with the iPadOS version ( currently still called VisualSwift ).
Eventually what I'd like to do is create a server using the Vapor ( Swift on the server ) framework. Then users would be able to share modules ( Custom Instruments, effect, filters, envelopes, knobs, sliders etc.: ) from within the app itself on the Mac, iPad or iPhone. The iPhone is probably too small for developing schematics but at least it would be useful for running custom instruments, effects and UIs which could be used for controlling synths running on other devices or Mac over the local network. I think a lot of people have old iPhones they're not using, could be good to transform them into control units.
I think maybe 1 in 10 users will actually create modules or might even be 1 in 100. Most users will probably just want access to existing content created by the few creators, providing a friendly way to achieve this is probably very important.
Here's how to generate a PWM waveform from two Sawtooths and Phase Modulation with SynthMaker 0.1.50:
Synthesizer Data Types ( Double, Float, Integer and Boolean ) with SynthMaker 0.1.50 for MacOS:
