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.
Is there a Midi sequencer with a good timeline AND clip-launching that are connected?
I'm new to making music on iOS. Xequence 2 is what I'm using now and it is excellent.
However I miss something more in the vein of modstep, where I could launch midi clips + mute tracks at the same time. These actions I would like to record to a timeline where I can henceforth edit my actions.
Is there an ios app that can do both? Best would be if it can also be controlled with external controllers.
I prefer midi only as I'm mostly controlling hardware from the iPad. Included audio-instruments and mixing options just tend to clog the whole UI with stuff I don't need.
I know zenbeats has some of functionalities. But from trying it out it felt rather clunky and overwhelming. Plus I don't know how capable it is for connecting to external hardware.
Comments
There's this app called Logic that just came out.
It has most of these things but unfortunately no midi mapping from external controllers.
My iPad pro seems to be just too old for logic, although it still supports the newest ios version. Also from checking some vid's I haven't seen anything like clip-launching in it. But please tell me if I'm missing out on something.
Zenbeats has what you're looking for.
Logic Pro would also, if it was compatible with your iPad.
There are clips, but they are called pattern cells.
I didn’t find Logic clip very convenient. There’s no way to chain scene. Zenbeats has clip with a really implementation and it can chain scene.
The best by far for clips is Loopy pro and combined with Drambo or LK it can also have midi clips.
Agreed this is easier in Drambo but I don't dislike Logic's implementation tho it can be improved.
Hey all. Thanks for all your ideas and comments. I gave zenbeats another go and purchased it being on sale. It's a great app in itself and also very capable if you wanna host other apps in it.
Unfortunately it can not send program changes, which is rather crucial to me working with external midi-controlled gear. Anyone knows a clever workaround for that?
Would a Mozaic script sending a PC upon note work?
Welcome @e_mertz
LK - would be a good option. Free but need to unlock the Matrix.
One workaround is to send midi notes out to the free Streambyter app, then convert those to program change messages before they're sent to hardware. The script below changes Note 0 to PC 0, note 60 to PC 60, etc.
You just start up Streambyter standalone, enter the code above, and hit Install Rules. Then set it as the midi output for a Zenbeats instrument channel. That takes care of the conversion, but then you still need a way to route the streambyter output to your hardware. AUM or Audiobus can be used for this, but you might not want the additional overhead. MidiFire can be used for this, and also includes Streambyter so that MidiFire could handle both tasks and would add almost no overhead.
If you need bank select in addition to program change, it gets a little more complex, but still should be doable.
To save some time for others who think Streambyter could be used directly in Zenbeats as a MIDI FX: I tried it, but it seems as though even though Streambyter does the conversion, Zenbeats bypasses it when outputting the MIDI. I could only get notes coming out of Zenbeats.
Here's an example of how MidiFire / Streambyter could be set up. In Zenbeats the routing would be to MidiFire rather than to Streambyter, and where I have "SINCO" would be your hardware output.
Thanks a lot @wim . Ok wow, so doesn't seem like there is a simple solution. Gonna try to check this out once I have more time.
Thanks! I tried LK. Good app, but has no timeline so not what I'm looking for. Might use it to replace modstep one day.
Could you record your actions into a sequencer like Atom 2/Helium/Xequence 2 and record+route that in real time to either LK or Atom 2 in AUM for the clip launching part? You should, in theory, be able to edit and play back the recorded sequence to reproduce your performance. Atom 2 exposes all sorts of controllable parameters, including mute.
Loopy Pro lets you quickly design touch surfaces; you can assign buttons to send PC messages, for example, or trigger pre-defined Atom 2 clips. You could host your sequencers inside Loopy and have everything run from there rather than AUM, or host Loopy inside AUM if you just wanted to use its control surfaces.
You can't get any MIDI output except notes out of Zenbeats. You also can't output anything but notes, even internally, from MIDI plugins at this time.
does it even support the controllers that the desktop supports out of the box (not things that you need to use custom scripts/translators)? like say a launchpad?
(something tells me i know the answer to this already and it comes with a huge eye roll)
It’s called live loops
Thanks for thinking along. Indeed it has been on my mind to use a clip-launching app like Modstep/LK and record it's output into Xequence. This is still my backup plan.
However that workflow comes with some serious drawbacks.
1) Using two GUI's instead of one. Both with similar function but slight differences here and there that get you confused/
2) Problems with routing information correctly from one to another.
3) If I make a setup where within App A multiple tracks are set up but for the same midi channel (e.g. for seperating your different drum sounds) that information will be completely merged again within App B.
4) Having to create CC-mappings or Midimaps for Drumcomputers in two apps...
5) If there is a direct link between the clip-launching part and the timeline, then within the timeline it will also recognize loops made within the other. If I' d record info from Modstep into Xequence it will appear as just one big block of midi information.
Yeah starting to realize that. Great app but it's interfacing with the outside world is rather minimal.
Would SAND cover what you are looking for?
Link:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sand-music-sequencer/id1642467684
Anyone know if Sand has implemented “audio clips” yet?
It was on the early roadmap, but is no longer mentioned there, and I don’t see any mention of audio clips on the AppStore description. Thx
Sand is nice, but more closer to LK/Modstep with no timeline so far. Could of course request it and have future hopes as the developer seems very open to ideas.
LK, has Matrix and other iap on sale, maybe helps?
doubled
@e_mertz
Beatmaker 3 can do this. midi clip, midi timeline, all with midi out...and you can run clips on some channels and time line on others at the same time
the only trick is, you have to load some kind of kit/or least a sample on each channel (just mute the local sound on the mixer)