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 Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Drum Loop Question

mkell424mkell424
edited September 2014 in General App Discussion

Hello all. It's me the noob with another question.

My question for all you iPad musicians who use drum loops in a DAW. As a general rule, you tend to use a MIDI track to drive external apps to create drum loop sounds, or do you just record the audio output of the external drum machine directly into an audio track, and then copy and paste drum loops to create a song? When using Audiobus, if BPM of the DAW matches the BPM of the drum machine do audio drum loops clips tend sync up with correctly with other instruments in a song?

Comments

  • xenxen
    edited September 2014

    A mix of both approaches. MIDI sequences to start with while developing the structure of the track. Eg get the kick and bass working before going back and adding snares and hats. Add lead. Go back and adjust or add to drum track. Once I'm happy that a section is where it needs to be, bounce to audio and move on to the next section.

    Typically things sync pretty well just by matching tempo. My preferred drum machine is now iMPC pro. When it is driven off a MIDI track it syncs really tight. A simple test is a kick on the beats and a bass line on the off beats. You'll know straight away if it isn't bang on by the feel.

  • mkell424mkell424

    Thanks. I picked up the iMPC pro.

  • mkell424mkell424

    @xen MPC Pro has awesome sound. I can connect to Cubasis inter app and its' sequencer syncs with the transport controls on Cubasis.

    I can't figure out for the life of me how to send MIDI to a Cubasis MIDI track for recording. I tried virtual MIDI, All inputs, and network session. I can't find any MIDI settings on the MPC Pro. Am I missing something? Thanks.

  • xenxen
    edited September 2014

    I meant to give you some tips yesterday when I saw you had bought it, but didn't get chance. It took me a while to sort it out.

    Below is a link to a MIDI map and some general points.

    http://blog.retronyms.com/2014/07/impc-pro-midi-input-details.html

    1. Set up iMPC Pro on a Cubasis audio track via IAA and then create a MIDI track with no instrument selected.
    2. Set input and output routing of the MIDI track to Virtual MIDI Channel 10. I can't get any joy if I try and select iMPC Pro as the routing option. Make sure MIDI Thru is off.
    3. Set up a bank of pads on a track in iMPC and select an empty sequence. This ensures that when you play from Cubasis you only play the notes you want to trigger, not patterns you may have in iMPC. Save this as your template for Cubasis work.
    4. Now, you have the map above, but I found it was quicker to program a pattern in iMPC that plays each of the 16 pads in order. Play that back while recording on the MIDI track and you will have a nice map of each Cubasis key to refer to. The kick is on C#1 in Cubasis, rather than C#3 as it says on the linked map, but the intervals are the same.
    5. At this point I'd set the input to the MIDI track to No Input, just to keep things clean.

    Now you should be able to program your drums using the Cubasis key editor.

    One other thing to note, iMPC Pro doesn't have any MIDI settings in the app, it sends its MIDI notes out on Ch 10 all the time. If you have any apps that can only receive on omni, you may have problems and so they may be incompatible with this workflow. Also, you can sometimes find apps connected as IAA instruments to Cubasis may be triggered. If you play around with MIDI channels you should find a way round, often just changing up a channel and back down sorts it.

  • xenxen
    edited September 2014

    Forgot to add, if you are wanting to record patterns you have programmed in iMPC Pro, follow the step above for creating the map of the pads, but use your pattern and then switch to your blank template for playback. Using them together this way is good for creating a MIDI part that can be copied, moved and edited in Cubasis for arranging tracks. Otherwise you have to create your song structure twice, once in each app, which is a pain if you decide part way through that you want to rearrange things. It's probably more efficient than programming all your loops in Cubasis MIDI editor as the timeline editor in iMPC pro is quite nice.

  • ColoobarColoobar

    @mkell424 said:

    When using Audiobus, if BPM of the DAW matches the BPM of the drum machine do audio drum loops clips tend sync up with correctly with other instruments in a song?

    IAA protocol provides means for syncing in a far more reliable way than using MIDI Clock to sync the apps. Use IAA if both apps support syncing that way.

  • xenxen

    @Coloobar said:
    >

    IAA protocol provides means for syncing in a far more reliable way than using MIDI Clock to sync the apps. Use IAA if both apps support syncing that way.

    >

    This is true, especially if you are syncing pattern sequencers in different apps. I was struggling with finding a way of programming drum patterns in Cubasis to trigger the sounds in drum apps without getting terrible latency. In that instance, I'm not looking to use MIDI clock, just a reliable MIDI routing. Once I got iMPC Pro sorted it worked a treat. Before that I was trying with DM1, but whenever I switched back to DM1 and went to the mixer or fx tabs the audio was breaking up.

  • mkell424mkell424
    edited September 2014

    Thanks again xen! I really appreciate the detailed instructions. And thanks coolobar for the IAA advice. I'm really learning a lot from everybody on this forum.

  • JohnnyGoodyearJohnnyGoodyear
    edited September 2014

    Good stuff @xen. The OP is by no means the only person who appreciates your post(s) here.

  • xenxen

    No problem. One correction. When I said the kick is on C#1, I mean Pad 1 rather than kick. I just always put the kick there, hence the error.

  • Michael_R_GrantMichael_R_Grant

    What other drum apps will respond to a Cubasis MIDI track, folks?

  • mkell424mkell424
    edited September 2014

    @Michael Grant: FunkBox works perfectly.

    Here's a thread with some more info: http://forum.audiob.us/discussion/5700/recording-midi-from-an-app#Item_23

  • ColoobarColoobar

    Drum Studio responds well with midi input, stays in time with external clock. Though I haven't used it with cubasis.

Sign In or Register to comment.