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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.

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Neon Generative AUv3 Sequencer.

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Comments

  • Works fine for me...

  • Strange, thnx - I’ll contact the dev I guess

  • @Gavinski said:
    Strange, thnx - I’ll contact the dev I guess

    Had to change Clock in standalone from External to Internal, and that fixed the issue in the AUv3. Bit mysterious as I don’t think I would ever have changed any settings in the Standalone, I only use the AUv3 🤷

  • @Gavinski said:

    Had to change Clock in standalone from External to Internal, and that fixed the issue in the AUv3. Bit mysterious as I don’t think I would ever have changed any settings in the Standalone, I only use the AUv3 🤷

    Thanks - it's a good heads up, as it's a repeatable glitch my end too ;)

  • @Gavinski said:

    Had to change Clock in standalone from External to Internal, and that fixed the issue in the AUv3. Bit mysterious as I don’t think I would ever have changed any settings in the Standalone, I only use the AUv3 🤷

    added a bit about internal/external clock sources to the manual

  • Just bought this a few days ago after watching some of the YouTube videos and only just scratching the surface. Totally loving it! Fantastic work @a_m. I've been having one issue though, which may be user related - working in Cubasis and running two instances on separate tracks, each of which have 3 patterns chained. When I reopen the Cubasis project some of the chained patterns are reset however not all? Has anyone else encountered this? Should I be saving the states as a preset? Any help greatly appreciated!

  • @Cambler said:
    Just bought this a few days ago after watching some of the YouTube videos and only just scratching the surface. Totally loving it! Fantastic work @a_m. I've been having one issue though, which may be user related - working in Cubasis and running two instances on separate tracks, each of which have 3 patterns chained. When I reopen the Cubasis project some of the chained patterns are reset however not all? Has anyone else encountered this? Should I be saving the states as a preset? Any help greatly appreciated!

    The release version currently doesn’t do full state saving, you do need to save it as a preset. The current beta has fixed this, but I have no information about when it’ll be released.

  • @bygjohn said:

    @Cambler said:
    Just bought this a few days ago after watching some of the YouTube videos and only just scratching the surface. Totally loving it! Fantastic work @a_m. I've been having one issue though, which may be user related - working in Cubasis and running two instances on separate tracks, each of which have 3 patterns chained. When I reopen the Cubasis project some of the chained patterns are reset however not all? Has anyone else encountered this? Should I be saving the states as a preset? Any help greatly appreciated!

    The release version currently doesn’t do full state saving, you do need to save it as a preset. The current beta has fixed this, but I have no information about when it’ll be released.

    Hey @bygjohn Thanks so much for this info. Will save the presets for now and get back to the fun!

  • edited July 14

    A violin player will always play a flatted note at a slightly lower plot h than a sharped or raised one . (Purely psychological effect). A minor third above F# cannot be Bb Becaise the note B in the key of F# is the 4th degree of the scale , not the third. This was drilled into my head when I used to practice David Bierge’s Relative Pitch Ear Training course .

  • Neon is amazing, and it’s only going to get better. So check this out yall…. For under 10 bucks, Neon is a no-brainer. The random attributes alone are enough for the -10 dollar cost, but what I came to mention was Octodrone (sp). Again, same price range but some dope randomization options for drum trax. Piano Rolls are gr8, there’s this sugarsube app called Effextor , I load my compositions in its piano roll and then paint in my glitches- check out the free version. Turnado is alright too

  • This sequencer is incredible. I'm relatively new to music production and sometimes find plopping down notes on a step sequencer or a piano roll to be hard when I'm feeling a bit lost creatively. I started looking into generative sequencers originally thinking I'd try using them for drum patterns, but the idea of using them for melodies was interesting, so I picked this up on a whim and was blown away. I particularly love using it for basslines as applying random transpositions and filter/resonance jumps can really help me discover interesting rhythms to build around. I've also been having a blast using the CC modifier with my Microfreak - it's like a rhythmic modulation source, absolutely incredible to jam with.

    One problem I'm having using it with AUM - is there any good way to change multiple Neon sequencers at once? E.g., when I use one for my bassline with a soft synth (TAL U NO LX) and one for the Microfreak, it'd be nice if I could somehow trigger both to change to a sequence. It sounds like maybe I could do this with an app with more advanced controls like Loopy, just trying to figure out if there's any better options than opening a window for each sequencer and hitting B on both (which is a little awkward to do mid jam).

  • wimwim
    edited August 7

    @thomasb said:
    This sequencer is incredible. I'm relatively new to music production and sometimes find plopping down notes on a step sequencer or a piano roll to be hard when I'm feeling a bit lost creatively. I started looking into generative sequencers originally thinking I'd try using them for drum patterns, but the idea of using them for melodies was interesting, so I picked this up on a whim and was blown away. I particularly love using it for basslines as applying random transpositions and filter/resonance jumps can really help me discover interesting rhythms to build around. I've also been having a blast using the CC modifier with my Microfreak - it's like a rhythmic modulation source, absolutely incredible to jam with.

    One problem I'm having using it with AUM - is there any good way to change multiple Neon sequencers at once? E.g., when I use one for my bassline with a soft synth (TAL U NO LX) and one for the Microfreak, it'd be nice if I could somehow trigger both to change to a sequence. It sounds like maybe I could do this with an app with more advanced controls like Loopy, just trying to figure out if there's any better options than opening a window for each sequencer and hitting B on both (which is a little awkward to do mid jam).

    My immediate response was you should be able to do it by sending a midi note or other control simultaneously to each instance's AU parameter for State. But ... everything else but State is exposed as a parameter.

    [edit] I found it in the manual. A program change message can be used to change states.

  • wimwim
    edited August 7

    So, @thomasb, you need a way to send program change 1-8 to all the neon instances. There are lots of ways this can be done. What would your ideal way of triggering these changes be?

    • Playing notes on something like AUM's keyboard? (not a good option if you're using the keyboard for other things)
    • Playing notes on an external keyboard (maybe notes out of the range of what you're using for playing)
    • A custom control surface?
    • Other?

    Do you happen to have Mozaic?

  • wimwim
    edited August 7

    @thomasb, to make program change work, you have to open the standalone version and change the clock to internal in the settings. And you need to set AUM to send clock to the plugin. 🤷🏼‍♂️This will make the AUv3 work even though you change the setting in the standalone app. Warning once you do this, you'll always need to set AUM to send midi clock to the plugin, or it won't run.

    That's a big-time kludge and made me think it just didn't work @a_m . Particularly bothersome is if you don't set clock to external and send midi clock to the plugin (which is weird), program change won't work. If you set clock to external AUM's transport won't start Neon(!).

  • How does Neon stack up next to other sequencers like Poly 2, Thesys, Cykle, etc or hardware like Torso T1?

  • @wim said:
    That's a big-time kludge and made me think it just didn't work @a_m . Particularly bothersome is if you don't set clock to external and send midi clock to the plugin (which is weird), program change won't work. If you set clock to external AUM's transport won't start Neon(!).

    yea i don't love it, but it was the only way i could get the timing to be correct when a program change gets sent at the top of a measure. when you get "clock" from a host like AUM, it's not actually sending MIDI clock messages... its just a high frequency update that contains a beat position variable argument and as a developer, you get to decide how to handle that.

    but when you actually receive a proper MIDI clock from something, that is, the 24ppqn tick messages, typically the program change message arrives just before the tick for the next measure to begin, giving just enough time to handle loading whatever the program change calls for so that it's ready milliseconds later when the new measure begins.

    i couldn't get it to work consistently without receiving a proper MIDI clock so this is the solution I arrived at. it was tested using a couple external hardware midi sequencers: Teenage Engineering OP-Z and Squarp Hapax.

  • wimwim
    edited August 7

    @a_m said:

    @wim said:
    That's a big-time kludge and made me think it just didn't work @a_m . Particularly bothersome is if you don't set clock to external and send midi clock to the plugin (which is weird), program change won't work. If you set clock to external AUM's transport won't start Neon(!).

    yea i don't love it, but it was the only way i could get the timing to be correct when a program change gets sent at the top of a measure. when you get "clock" from a host like AUM, it's not actually sending MIDI clock messages... its just a high frequency update that contains a beat position variable argument and as a developer, you get to decide how to handle that.

    but when you actually receive a proper MIDI clock from something, that is, the 24ppqn tick messages, typically the program change message arrives just before the tick for the next measure to begin, giving just enough time to handle loading whatever the program change calls for so that it's ready milliseconds later when the new measure begins.

    i couldn't get it to work consistently without receiving a proper MIDI clock so this is the solution I arrived at. it was tested using a couple external hardware midi sequencers: Teenage Engineering OP-Z and Squarp Hapax.

    It’s horribly confusing though. If you enable external clock in the standalone, the plugin will stop following host sync. Unless you happen to stumble over the option to send clock to the plugin (something you virtually never do) it appears that neon is inoperable. No one expects a setting like that made in standalone to affect a plugin.

    I think you could improve things by at least having a clock settings panel in the plugin with options for “host sync” and “midi clock sync (required for program change)” or something. Standalone and plugin settings should be independent too.

    Other plugins are able to understand when bars and beats occur without midi clock. 🤷🏻‍♂️

    Anyway thanks for the clarification. At least we know now what to tell people with an inadvertently stalled plugin, and what to do if they need Program Change to work. 👍

  • Thanks @wim and @a_m for the help. I think the one missing piece here is just how best to trigger a PC in AUM.

    I don't have any good hardware way of doing it, so I think my options would be either (a) trigger it from the AUM keyboard or (b) add some sort of additional MIDI app in there that has a way to trigger a PC message (I assume some sequencers do, but then I don't know if they'd actually have the option to manually trigger a change).

    I couldn't quite puzzle out if you can do this with the AUM keyboard - it seems like maybe I could map notes to PCs in the AUM configuration for the Neon CC inputs, but I couldn't get this to work. I'm not using the AUM keyboard for anything else, so this probably would be the easiest way to do it.

    I also suspect I could somehow use Drambo for this, given Drambo can do lots of weird things. Don't have Mozaic or Loopy Pro or anything else that's good for these sorts of controls, unfortunately.

  • @thomasb said:
    Thanks @wim and @a_m for the help. I think the one missing piece here is just how best to trigger a PC in AUM.

    I don't have any good hardware way of doing it, so I think my options would be either (a) trigger it from the AUM keyboard or (b) add some sort of additional MIDI app in there that has a way to trigger a PC message (I assume some sequencers do, but then I don't know if they'd actually have the option to manually trigger a change).

    I couldn't quite puzzle out if you can do this with the AUM keyboard - it seems like maybe I could map notes to PCs in the AUM configuration for the Neon CC inputs, but I couldn't get this to work. I'm not using the AUM keyboard for anything else, so this probably would be the easiest way to do it.

    I also suspect I could somehow use Drambo for this, given Drambo can do lots of weird things. Don't have Mozaic or Loopy Pro or anything else that's good for these sorts of controls, unfortunately.

    You can't do it with the AUM keyboard, but you can use mfxConvert to change notes into PC messages.
    I have a Mozaic script that will do it directly from the Mozaic interface if you have Mozaic or decide to get it.
    There are other ways using other 3rd party apps. Surface Builder, Loopy Pro, and Xequence AU Pads + mfxConvert come to mind.

  • edited August 8

    @wim I went ahead and grabbed Mozaic (seems like it'd be fun for lots of jamming options) and tried out your script. I set up things such that:

    • In the Neon app, I set the clock source to "External"
    • In AUM, I ensured both instances of Neon were receiving MIDI Clock In
    • I routed Mozaic's MIDI to Neon

    When I use your script and I do a program change, it instantly changes the Neon state instead of waiting for the next measure. This was a little surprising to me, but given what @a_m said, it sounds like this is because the intent is to use the Program Change to integrate with other sequencers, which would send the PC when it's programmed in the sequence.

    This puts me in sort of a weird spot as someone who's manually triggering these PCs instead of sequencing them: I think I could hack something together in Mozaic by using the @OnNewBar event to trigger the change at the start of the next beat (though I haven't gotten this to work yet). It'd be convenient for me if Neon had some kind of way of saying "change this program at next measure," but I get that it's a weird edge case to add support for.

    I think Loopy Pro wouldn't have this problem because it looks like it gives you the option of quantizing an action when it's triggered by a button, which I assume you could use to quantize something to start at the next bar (don't want to drop $30 just to find out, but this is what I've gleaned from the manual). I wonder if there's any cheaper tools that would have this kind of quantization.

  • @thomasb said:
    @wim I went ahead and grabbed Mozaic (seems like it'd be fun for lots of jamming options) and tried out your script. I set up things such that:

    • In the Neon app, I set the clock source to "External"
    • In AUM, I ensured both instances of Neon were receiving MIDI Clock In
    • I routed Mozaic's MIDI to Neon

    When I use your script and I do a program change, it instantly changes the Neon state instead of waiting for the next measure. This was a little surprising to me, but given what @a_m said, it sounds like this is because the intent is to use the Program Change to integrate with other sequencers, which would send the PC when it's programmed in the sequence.

    This puts me in sort of a weird spot as someone who's manually triggering these PCs instead of sequencing them: I think I could hack something together in Mozaic by using the @OnNewBar event to trigger the change at the start of the next beat (though I haven't gotten this to work yet). It'd be convenient for me if Neon had some kind of way of saying "change this program at next measure," but I get that it's a weird edge case to add support for.

    I think Loopy Pro wouldn't have this problem because it looks like it gives you the option of quantizing an action when it's triggered by a button, which I assume you could use to quantize something to start at the next bar (don't want to drop $30 just to find out, but this is what I've gleaned from the manual). I wonder if there's any cheaper tools that would have this kind of quantization.

    Regarding Loopy Pro, you don’t have to drop $30 just to find out if it works, there is a 7 day free trial when you download the app. My guess is you will happily drop the $30 once you see how customization Loopy Pro is. You can build it to fit your exact workflow needs. It really is impressive.

  • edited August 8

    Grabbed Loopy Pro's trial and tried to set up a really simple control surface with program changes and have somewhat mixed feelings.

    The good news: using Loopy Pro from AUM as a MIDI control surface with quantization and triggering Neon program changes 100% works. I just route MIDI clock to Neon and have Loopy Pro use host sync, and it happily quantizes the program changes right at the start of the next bar when I configure the action that way. I could see leveraging Loopy Pro this way, as a pure control surface (I assume if you use it as a MIDI processor, the clips are completely nonfunctional). I suppose I could also use it as an audio generator and try to leverage some of the audio stuff, since AUM routing would still allow me to route the control surface to Neon and all that.

    The maybe-bad news: I'm not sure you can actually do a program control for Neon from within Loopy Pro as a host, because of Neon's requirement to have external clock sync. I can't find a way in Loopy Pro to route clock sync to AU plugins. It looks like it supports it for external hardware just fine, but unless I'm missing something (entirely possible since this part of the Loopy Pro manual just says "to be written"), I don't see an option to clock sync to the Neon instances I've added to the Loopy Pro mixer.

    Now, this isn't necessarily bad news for people who already have AUM like me, since it seems like using Loopy Pro from within AUM is a pretty common workflow. Could be an issue for those who just use Loopy Pro as their host, though.

    I'm also still wary of spending $30 for a control surface, but I will concede that Loopy Pro has some really neat stuff, and being able to integrate timing seems to put it ahead of a lot of other similar apps (I'm not sure if e.g. Surface Builder can do this). I've never done any kind of audio live looping, but I'll watch some more videos for how people use Loopy and see if I can integrate it into my workflow.

  • wimwim
    edited August 8

    @thomasb said:
    ... I could see leveraging Loopy Pro this way, as a pure control surface (I assume if you use it as a MIDI processor, the clips are completely nonfunctional). I suppose I could also use it as an audio generator and try to leverage some of the audio stuff, since AUM routing would still allow me to route the control surface to Neon and all that.

    You don't have to use it only as a midi processor. You can also use it as a input or an FX and still route midi to and from it.

    The maybe-bad news: I'm not sure you can actually do a program control for Neon from within Loopy Pro, because of Neon's requirement to have external clock sync. I can't find a way in Loopy Pro to route clock sync to AU plugins. It looks like it supports it for external hardware just fine, but unless I'm missing something (entirely possible since this part of the Loopy Pro manual just says "to be written"), I don't see an option to clock sync to the Neon instances I've added to the Loopy Pro mixer.

    Now, this isn't necessarily bad news for people who already have AUM like me, since it seems like using Loopy Pro from within AUM is a pretty common workflow. Could be an issue for those who just use Loopy Pro as their host, though.

    That'll be addressed at some point, but for now there's a relatively painless workaround. You can run the free Streambyter app standalone to "bounce" midi clock off of. Just start up Streambyter with an empty script loaded. Set Loopy clock destination to Streambyter, add Streambyter as a midi input, and add Neon as the destination.

    I'm also still wary of spending $30 for a control surface, but I will concede that Loopy Pro has some really neat stuff, and being able to integrate timing seems to put it ahead of a lot of other similar apps (I'm not sure if e.g. Surface Builder can do this). I've never done any kind of audio live looping, but I'll watch some more videos for how people use Loopy and see if I can integrate it into my workflow.

    I don't think Surface Builder can queue up midi events to happen on bars.

    Here's a Mozaic script that can do the synchronized program changes for you. I just did it for fun, so don't feel any obligation to use it.

    https://patchstorage.com/neon-sequencer-synced-state-switch/

  • wimwim
    edited August 8

    Hi @a_m - I have a suggestion regarding this State change thing in the AU.

    Maybe you could forget the midi clock stuff in the AU altogether and just add a State parameter in the AUv3 that simply simply does what touching a state button in the UI does? That would eliminate all this clock ambiguity. You wouldn't have to add any setting in the AU. Just ignore the setting in the standalone and always leave the plugin on internal clock.

  • wimwim
    edited August 8

    @a_m - I'm also noticing that the Neon plugin regularly stops responding to midi clock. When this happens I have to exit AUM and return to it to get things going again. I notice it the most when Neon has been idle for awhile.

    AUM's routing matrix shows clock activity going to the plugin even when its stalled, so I don't really think it's an AUM issue.

    [edit] ahh. It seems the stall can be cured by hitting the transport rewind in AUM. It doesn't like "pause".

  • Just to close the loop (no pun intended): since I've been meaning to experiment more with using Drambo as a MIDI sequencer to make it possible to capture the stuff I'm playing live (without going all the way to audio like Loopy), I realized I could just use its scenes ("patterns") to coordinate switching Neon states.

    In AUM, I set up a Drambo MIDI instance and a couple Neon instances. I set up a track in Drambo to control Neon, then added the MIDI PC Generator to it. On each pattern, I added a note on the first beat that is p-locked to a specific PC (you can add a slider to make this easier, or if you want to be really slick you can convert MIDI notes to the PC number to avoid having to p-lock it). Drambo's PC generator only sends PCs if the value actually changes, so you don't have to worry about ensuring your Neon states and Drambo patterns have the same length - you won't have your Neon loop cut off by the Drambo loop resetting and playing the PC note again.

    Saves me $30 for now (though I can certainly see using Loopy Pro down the road, especially if I ever find myself with some instruments that don't speak MIDI).

  • Will also note that, much like how I couldn't figure out how to get Loopy Pro to send clock sync to Neon, I don't think I can do it in Drambo as a host either (I have an older project using Drambo as a host rather than AUM). Really seems like AUM might be the only AU host that supports this at all.

    I tried using StreamByter as an "echo" for MIDI clock as @wim suggested, but I don't think this works in Drambo because I don't see any way to route an incoming clock from StreamByter back into an AU. Loopy Pro might allow this, not sure (my trial extension expired, or I'd test it out).

    For now I can work on moving the AU configuration in this Drambo project out to AUM so I can use AUM's clock sync with Neon, but I really think this is going to a problem for the vast majority of AU hosts. I know this could be looked at a limitation of Drambo, but I really think this requirement to have external clock to use PCs should be removed if it can be, @a_m.

    (also occurs to me that another hacky way to work around this for now would be to have multiple Neon instances that get enabled/disabled rather than use Neon's states, dunno how well that would scale though)

  • wimwim
    edited August 13

    @thomasb said:
    Will also note that, much like how I couldn't figure out how to get Loopy Pro to send clock sync to Neon, I don't think I can do it in Drambo as a host either (I have an older project using Drambo as a host rather than AUM). Really seems like AUM might be the only AU host that supports this at all.

    It works in Loopy Pro with a workaround as I described earlier.

    I tried using StreamByter as an "echo" for MIDI clock as @wim suggested, but I don't think this works in Drambo because I don't see any way to route an incoming clock from StreamByter back into an AU. Loopy Pro might allow this, not sure (my trial extension expired, or I'd test it out).

    I'll see if I can get something working in Drambo.

    For now I can work on moving the AU configuration in this Drambo project out to AUM so I can use AUM's clock sync with Neon, but I really think this is going to a problem for the vast majority of AU hosts. I know this could be looked at a limitation of Drambo, but I really think this requirement to have external clock to use PCs should be removed if it can be, @a_m.

    Definitely. Look at the hoops we're jumping through. I think just exposing an AU parameter that does the exact same thing as touching the state buttons would do it, but I have no way of knowing if that's technically feasible and/or worth it to the developer.

    (also occurs to me that another hacky way to work around this for now would be to have multiple Neon instances that get enabled/disabled rather than use Neon's states, dunno how well that would scale though)

    My biggest suggestion is to bypass the problem entirely with the Mozaic script I posted: https://patchstorage.com/neon-sequencer-synced-state-switch/. This removes the need for clock hackarounds altogether, and makes the whole thing far easier.

    [edit] Sorry, I wasn't thinking too clearly. There's still the issue of needing to get the darn midi clock signal out to Neon. The script doesn't solve that issue.

  • edited September 30

    An ARP mode would be nice…. Here..

    Edit… this is really nice..

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