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.
A sequencer for iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS.
I am still clarifying my choices on a sequencer for iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS.
I want to have cross-platform compatibility, it's important for me. So at the very least, iPadOS and MacOS, but all three is the sweet spot for me.
I also love sample based creation processes. So I keep looking at Cong Burn's Strokes Sampler and Sequencer, and his cross platform bundle, for £40, which seems a great deal. But I can't try it, as it will be bought with a product code from Cong.
Can anyone here shed any light on the pros and cons of choosing Strokes for my ambient project, as both sequencer and sampler, and if necessary, recommend any alternatives too?
Also, I'm looking for a looper, so far, Loopmix looks my best pick, but I wonder what else there might be, that again, would be cross platform for me, preferably including iOS as well as iPadOS and MacOS.
Comments
I forgot to add, that I will have an OP-Z from Thursday, and intend to use that for sequencing my devices too, but still, my question remains, as there will be times I only have my phone or iPad with me, and not the OP-Z. Maybe… I might become very attached to it.
My question regarding a cross-platform looper also remains.
Ableton Note if you have Ableton live on your Mac
Ooh, now there's an interesting thought.
Yes I have Ableton Live on my Mac.
Does Note do polyrhythms?
My questions regarding polyrhythms and looper relate to the wish to create some layered asynchronous loops. I'm new to this, but inspired by some pieces I've been listening to, that resonate with my creator heart, so hence this part of my question.
I have a creative heart and ears, but not such a great brain! I'm so grateful for this forum!
Drambo works great as a sequencer across platforms.
If you have a nice new Apple Silicon based Mac.
Loopy Pro is the absolute best choice for looper IMO. It will be cross-platform for the newer Macs soon if it isn't already.
Starting at $599... which is less than an iPad Pro.
https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/
ZenBeats and MultiTrackStudio are iPadOS + Mac/Windows cross platform with ZenBeats also having an iPhone variant. Although not exactly loopers they are powerful sequencers with different approaches.
A more exotic approach is also FLSM and Fl studio desktop which can open the flsm session within it as a plugin
Which I don't. I have a 2020 MacBook Pro. i5.
Yeah, but Drambo or anything else will work fine for sequencing over Bluetooth to an older Mac.
absolutely it has midi clips for sequencing... well its technically polymetric i suppose.
I hear you.
Funny, Drambo hadn't occurred to me as a possibility, but I do love that it's on both phone and iPad.
I need to Google polymetric now. As I said, my ears and heart are in the music, but my brain is catching up…
I'm interested that no one has commented on Cong Burn's Strokes yet.
@Gavinski? Anything you can throw into the mix here?
Excellent point.
I like strokes, but I haven’t had as much chance as I’d like to go deep on it, I keep getting distracted by its new features. It’s maybe not the greatest for ambient, but maybe it just needs a really slow clock speed… I tend to use it to play with odd rhythms and find interesting constantly varying modulations… the dev is really nice too, lives in the town next to mine, so that was a real plus factor in my decision to buy…
I’ll say this about Strokes. It has a steep learning curve. More so than any sequencer I’ve tried so far, and I’m still in the process of learning it. But it can do A LOT. Tons of features. And the addition of the sampler engine takes it even further. I haven’t tried it for Ambient yet though.
Also great for ambient is Physicals and it’s free. iOS only though.
Thanks. He certainly comes across well online. So I get why you would want to support his work.
Strokes is good but limited I feel. Though I need to try the latest beta.
n-track studio is on all 3 and has been for a while if looking for a straight up line at DAW approach.
Ah, I have that tucked away in a dusty corner of my phone and iPad. A dust off may be in order, but I suspect something else is also called for, to complete the setup for me. I used to use it quite a lot, in my early iOS music days.
I would vote for Drambo. OP-Z workflow will translate nicely with it. And you can use it to sequence your Mac over USB Cable.
Well that sounds like a nice combo. Thanks @echoopera. Perhaps the time has come to learn Drambo.
Three questions, to be sure I understand:
You can sequence the Mac with Drambo on iPadOS or iOS over USB cable?
Or with the OP-Z over USB cable?
Or both?
If I had an M1 or M2 Mac, I would happily learn and run Drambo on all three. But given that I have a barely 3 year old Intel MacBook Pro, that I don't have budget or need to upgrade yet, that's not an option.
Ah gotcha. I don’t have a desktop so I’m all iPad and occasional hardware. So these obscure apps still get lots of use from me lol. His other app Sequencism is great too. Sort of a free DAW with AU support.
You can use Drambo on your iPad or iPhone to sequence Ableton on you Mac over USB cable using macOS feature called IDAM. You enable your iPad as a midi/audio source in the app called Audio Midi setup which ships with macOS.
As far as OP-Z you can sequence your Mac with it via Bluetooth or USB.
Agreed
The journey of learning Drambo is a fulfilling one and Drambo is perfect for Ambient or any type of music genre you want to create.
FlexiSampler in Drambo alone is worth the price of admission and can serve as a great foundation to capture loops and sequences from your OP-Z being fed into your iOS device. Nothing better than perfect loops being captured i always say 🤪
There’s also tons of tutorials on YouTube to get you started—plus the Drambo Legion are always here to help 😉
I’m just speaking from experience because I’ve tried almost every permutation of Sequencer and DAW on iOS and Drambo has always inspired me and taken me in new directions with my music. So I’d vote to cut to the chase and go all in especially if you already have Drambo.
It’s great that we have so many options available to us on iOS. But this can be overwhelming at times so I’m just offering up my perspective having travelled the Music Creation road on iOS since 2015—thank you Korg Gadget for getting this wonderful journey started 🙏🏼
The Drambo legion! Yes, you're a keen bunch, always looking out to support a new recruit!
You make a very convincing case here for this process too. Thank you!
Is FlexiSampler built in, or something I have to add on, or buy, or download on PatchStorage?