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.
Can I rely on iPad for recording?
Hello everyone. First post here...
I see the audiobus community is huge and a lot of ios music discussion is going on here. So I hope I get some knowledge from you guys.
I usually record my music in my macbook pro. I always had a garageband in my ipad just to play around but never really looked into it as a serious recording tool. Now, to my surprise, I have recently found that ios recording really really took off lately. And everyday I'm finding new apps and stuff that are just perfect, like audiobus ofcourse.
So here is my situation;
I almost never use apps like synths and midi. All i ever do is record vocals, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, bass and then add some drums l (maybe a little keyboards here and there). I usually use apogee one and amp/effect modeling. In that case I'm working with audio, rather than app created sounds.
And my question is; does an ipad really handle this kind of load. I mean cpu and like... I have to be sure because I am about to invest more in ios recording. Like upgrading from ipad4 to ipad air. And some apps like auria, cubasis... Does anyone here record music like the way i do? And how does an ipad handle it?
Many many thanks.
Comments
Short answer: yes. You will love ios music making..
Yes...I've had three audio tracks plus a midi track recording simultaneously into Cubasis on a mini retina with no problems.
For what you are doing, a definite yes.
What @funjunkie27 said...with caveats. You will want to make sure you are running lean - meaning no other unrelated apps running in the background and disabling other settings that consume system resources. There are threads here and elsewhere that speak to configuring your iPad for recording. Also, loading up on effects can cause problems.
I would wait for the next gen iPad before deciding on the upgrade. Assuming the next gen will have it, more memory and storage will be better in the long run.
If you are just multi-tracking several audio tracks, the iPad can reliably record a surprising number of tracks even on your iPad 4.
From what I understand, the CPU limitations will start to come into play if you want to live monitor multiple tracks that also have effects processing.
For pure audio, I prefer Auria for live jamming with multiple instruments, and recording the jam is easy too.
Dwarman, in your experience in Auria how many tracks/effects can you record simultaneously? what iDevice and buffer settings?
The iPad works great for recording vocals and guitars etc... In combination with Auria it's a really excellent combination.
Apogee One can record two tracks simultaneously into Auria, should be no problem.
Like someone else said, I would hold off upgrading the iPad just yet. iPad 4 is good enough for now and everyone is waiting to see if the next gen device will have more RAM. The iPad air has twice the CPU power of the iPad 4 but less available RAM because of the 64 bit architecture (which means the OS has a larger memory footprint).
Many thanks for the replies... The ability to record with the iPad makes me so excited. I will act upon your advices, wait for the ipad upgrade and get to download some apps. BTW is there any drum machine apps sounding like acoustic kits? Haven't seen any so far... Or is this a new discussion?
There are existing discussions if you want to check them out. DrumJam and DrumPerfect are probably the 2 most recommended for acoustic drums.
DrumJam: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id530162824?mt=8
DrumPerfect: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id797220679?mt=8
This is a track I recorded in Auria, using Drumperfect for drums. Guitars were played through Flying Haggis and Bias:
There are other examples of much better stuff on the Auria forums if you want to hear samples of what can be done with Auria and an iPad.
Really dig that track @richardyot. Right up my drippy washy shoegazey alley (which, as it happens, I use to refer to as... syrupcore)
One old sound engineer once told me you can get a great recording of a full orchestra with 2 carefully positioned condenser mics. After all we only have 2 ears to listen. An ipad will do you just fine.
@syrupcore said:
I was wondering about that association.....I LIKE it
One big thing is storage capacity, if you are primarily an audio tracks kind of person. Since the storage is non-removable you'll want to get the largest capacity device you can, so that you don't have to on and offload sessions as often.
Not tried the full orchestra, but I have had good results using a single Sony stereo mic recording a 7 piece percussion and bells group into DAT. An iPad would record better I posted a short demo clip resampled from the DAT analog output (my S/PDIF I/O won't do 30K:( at:
Thanks again everyone. Lately I've been drowning in a pool of apps. But I guess it will take time to build the essentail apps setup for my purpose. I would go broke if I get every app that looks great. Luckily there are tone of reviews on youtube. Special thanks to thesoundtestroom i have to say.
I got Auria which works perfect for now and still looking for a drum machine to lay drums on my tracks. Thanks for the advice @telecharge and btw can I use drumjam just lay down simple drum patterns on my tracks. I mean it sounds great and looks easy to play around, but all I see from the reviews is a progessive solo thing going on.
And nice track @richardyot.
Good sounds @dwarman