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.
Let's discuss templates you'd like to see that emulate favorite loopers
I am exploring the possibility of putting together some Loopy Pro projects that emulate favorite looper hardware. Do you have a favorite to discuss?
Comments
Oh that’s a good question. The 505 is definitely there but I think those ElectronHarmonix pedals (4500, etc) are cool too.
If you could say what aspect of the pedal is important that would be helpful. I’d like to understand what part of the workflow /operation people think is important.
I think a big part of it is just the hands on control but the reverse and loop speed aspects are cool. I’ve only used one a handful of times though. It was an old friends, never owned one so I’m not super experienced with it. I just remember really liking it.
And I think renowned looper Reggie Watts uses or has used one.
If you really want to twist your brain up into knots @espiegel123 - look into the Boomerang pedals - the original and current. I launched into trying to replicate those and gave up after some time. I'm not even close by an order of magnitude to your knowledge of and patience with actions in Loopy Pro though.
There are no particular features of the 'Rang workflow that I find essential. It was just an intellectual exercise for me.
To clarify, I am interested in hearing from people that have looper pedals that they use and love and whose workflow they want to keep.
Well, I us a simple Boss RC-1, that one is a barebone looper. And the Digitech Trio+, that is my looper of choice. You created some functionality already with the RC-500-esque project.
The extra functionality is that the Trio+ generates a drum loop and a bass loop, based on the chord progression you learn the pedal (= the band). The more dynamic the strumming of the chords is, the more notes the bass plays.
In Loopy Pro this could be simulated with integrating Ibassist in the project, instead of learning (playing) the chords, you program the chords. And from Ibassis you generate a beat from a Lumbeat drummer. This will have the same result in the end. I agree this all has not so much to do with looper functionality, the looper of the Trio+ is simplistic.
What could be done in the RC-500-esque project, is an extra rhythm track for bass guitar. Play the loop yourself (with a -1 octave EFX, or with a darker guitar sound), or just import a bass loop, or record the output of Ibassist.
And there is more:
@raabje : thanks for the detailed info. Does the trio figure out the bass part from your audio?
Yes, you teach the pedal a chord sequence (major, minor or dominant chords). And after this step the pedal create a bass guitar loop in the right key, or at least it follows the chord notes.
The more you strum when you teach, the more wild, busy or funky the bass note pattern will be. This is also true for longer chord sequences. To keep it simple, just play chords evenly, and only downwards on the strings, and keep it shorter.
Also there is a drum pattern selected. The pedal guesses the best rhythm pattern that fits the strumming. Style and genre can be changed aftewards. I think the samples change when you change style.
And, when you teach the pedal your song (or part), no audio is recorded. It is only used to extract the chord info and rhythm pattern. When you have a beat and bass you like, you start recording the guitar.
@raabje : how does the loop recording and sequencing work? I think the bass and drum accompaniment is beyond what I’d be able to tackle. I’ve put together a few ways of sequencing loops I could incorporate.
Yes, the bass and drum loop functionality of the Trio+ is too complex to fit in a project. Ibassist and a Lumbeat drummer and a looper would come close.
The looper of the Trio+ is very basic, just record a loop, then layer new loops on top. You can erase one loop. That's it.
Sequencing is a matter of putting part 1 to 5 in a specific order (with repeats possible) and press play. It plays the drum, bass and guitar loop that are stored in a part.
Anyway, as a thought, maybe this could work inside the RC-500 project, or other looper project?
@raabje : what is the mechanism for setting the loop order on the trio?
I think you mean the order of sequenced parts? This is in the manual:
And if you don't play a whole sequence, all you have to do is press a part button to switch, and then the next part plays after a whole cycle. This switching of parts is also possible with a foot pedal.
Maybe I misunderstand your question.
Thanks
one more idea for a looper, if possible?
A slider or knob to change the tempo, in real time. The BPM is set to the first loop you record. And with this knob/slider you can adjust the tempo a bit, or more (as far as the time stretching allows this).
I find it more convenient to use buttons for that. I have nudge + and - buttons for 1 bpm and 10 bpm increments. A knob will work but the stretching isn’t as smooth during the transition.
Okay, thanks, so the functionality is there already. Nudge buttons would work too.
And I have one more, with the Trio+ in mind:
A kind of bare bone sequencing or preset pattern playing would be nice.
Like 3 different parts. You load up a bass line and drum track for each part. For example exported from Lumbeat. Or you record this yourself. A verse, a chorus, a bridge. Or part A/B/C for more instrumental music.
This parts are a group, combined with a guitar loop donut. While you play and record, you can press a button 1/2/3 (4/5?) to swich parts. Or press a button on the floor board.
Combined with maybe an intro and fade out and stop, you have a whole track available in one project.
Just a thought.. I cannot (yet) program this myself.
Please rebuild the Octatrack in Loopy Pro, but better. Thanks. 😊
Please describe the workflow and features you would want to see. Assume I know nothing about an octatrack.
I was mostly just being silly, to be honest, since I’m always holding out for a MK3 that builds off the new stuff in the DT and adds some polyphony. I wouldn’t even begin to know where to start with it. Ignore me
Hi, my favourite hardware looper is the boss rc600 but my favourite software looper is quantiloop pro
Please describe the features/workflow that you wold like a template to have.
I'm just getting into Loopy Pro, but I would love to have it emulate as much of the TC Helicon VoiceLive3 as possible, with BeatBuddy functionality thrown in for good measure.
The VL3 is an amazing multi-effects unit that has just about any vocal or guitar effect you could want along with a 3-channel (really kinda 2 1/2) looper that I think was probably considered pretty advanced for its time. One of the complaints about the VL3 though is that the guitar modeling is outdated (although part of that is just because it's so open ended it's complicated for someone that isn't a sound engineer. And there are so many options it can be overwhelming.) So swapping that out for something better is cool. I like the modern stuff where you have a visual representation of a pedal chain and amps.
Not sure if there are any similar smart vocal harmonizers that can match the TCH algorithms. But it would definitely be cool to not have to have an outboard pedal to handle my harmonies. It "listens" to the guitar chord and does the vocal harmony based on that. And you can have different presets for different harmonies - 3rd up, 3rd and 5th up, octave down, 5th and octave up. Male/female. Panned left or right. etc. Plus reverbs, choruses, delays, doubling etc.
Another cool vocal/guitar effect that's in there is the talkbox - which is technically a vocoder. I've never actually owned or played a real talkbox, but if I understand it correctly you have the guitar sound going through a tube into your mouth and you shape it and it goes out to a mic. With the VL3 you actually have to vocalize what you want out loud into the mic- not just mouth shape. So it's not ideal for quiet situations. But cool in a full band or loop situation where there's enough background music coming out of the PA to cover your vocalizations.
And I like how the looping works on VL3. You have loop A where you would typically record a short 1- or 2-bar rhythm track. Then loop B can be any multiple of that - so 2, 4, 8, 16 bars etc. You record your verse chords there. Then you can switch to loop C to record the chorus chords. You can swap between loop B & C for the different song sections, but loop A continues underneath either track. So you can always only have loops A & B or A & C. Can't do B & C. I like that framework, but would like a loop D for a bridge or other section as well. And I like the color layout on Loopy that would also allow you to have multiple pieces of A, B, C (& D) that you could take in and out for dynamics, rather than just a simple undo. (I also have to say, I love how Carl Wockner builds his loops a little bit at a time as he progresses through the song and usually has a little bit of something rhythmic on each track so if he drops down to just that one track it's still got a beat going. But with Loopy having multiple tracks of the same color you could do that on a color basis, but also be able to take out specific parts of any color grouping.) One of the things I liked about the HeadRush LooperBoard was that I could set it up like the VL3 but I didn't have to record the A part first. I could record the Verse chords as 8 bars, but then record the rhythm AFTER that, but still have it just be 1 or 2 bars. Can't do that with the VL3. Gotta do the short one first and everything else is based off of that length. So that would be nice too.
And then it would be awesome to have the functionality of the BeatBuddy drum machine pedal built in as well. You have preprogrammed song sections - verse, chorus, bridge - with pre-programmed fills attached to each part. So you hit the start button and an Intro part plays and then dumps you into the verse part. The verse will loop continuously until you hit the fill button to play one of the preprogrammed fills for that part or you hold the button down to proceed to the next section - usually the chorus. I like the open-endedness of it. It's not like a pre-recorded track where you're stuck doing the song as recorded from top to bottom, and if you get distracted or lost in the track you can trainwreck really quickly. You have to quickly find your place again or just abort the song. With the BeatBuddy if you want to take a 16-bar solo instead of an 8, you just let the track keep going on that loop. And from what I understand the MIDI tracks are played by a real drummer so they have realistic timing and dynamics and the drum sounds are professionally sampled real drums too. So you can get a pretty realistic feel rather than a mechanical drum machine feel.
Anyhow, that's my dream rig. I'm just getting started with this whole Loopy thing, but man, it is so impressive how open-ended and well designed it is. And the developer and community are just awesome.
@MattBrodeurMusic : thanks for the post. Here are some tips for setting up something that loops like you describe for the VL3...(not the effects and beatbuddy like operation...those operations would be done with AUv3 loaded into loopy...or for the drums, probably using LUMBeats apps as there aren't any AUv3 yet that behave that way).
Let's call call the loops Groove, Verse, Chorus. This example will treat them as single loops. Once you have it working, you could expand to having more loops
Set up Verse and Chorus as groups that are mutually exclusive with each other.
Set record count-in and out to master and turn off auto count-out.
Set the Groove loop to have a 1 bar count-in and count-out.
For the verse loop, add an "end initial recording" follow action that sets the master length to the verse loop's length. This ensures that chorus will be a multiple of verse's length.
You will be able to record the groove loop whenever you want.
If you have any trouble getting that set up, let me know.
The echoplex digital pro by Oberheim and Gibson has the scheme where a function ie. record, multiply, insert, mute etc. can be initiated with a press and ended with a second. pressing a different switch alters the function. eg. Mute followed by Mute (Mute and UnMute the audio) or Mute - Multiply (every time Multiply is pressed the loop starts from the beginning).
Allowing many alternatives with a limited number of switches.
@MattBrodeurMusic : i've posted a template with the basic functions of the VSL3 you mentioned: https://patchstorage.com/evsl3/