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.
Comments
Did this chain ever work for you properly for multiple days? It just might be that you've hit some edge case bug than manifests after some time and then always happens.
Good point @raz - except - that it fails immediately on startup now - not over any prolonged use. I tested it a fair while before - assuming that I might hit time-related issues esp. with a 256 buffer size - and did not.
@commonstookie - no keyboard controller.
Also - I hit the exact same issues now without the FX. Tried that. One could narrow it down as you suggest to a given input app, and I can do some more quick testing on that.
Further, I normally, personally, have taken to using MasterFX when I want a chain like that. Typically, I'll only use AUFX* when I want one or the other specifically
Appreciate your input thanks! :-)
@PaulB That's an interesting observation about the headphones. Not actually used headphones with this setup - but - you've given me an idea - which is - I should check to see that all the apps are registering the buffer size as I expect them to.
Great input folks. Thanks.
Maybe another audio app is running and taking over the audio session for some reason? Apple's own apps seem to have a higher priority than third party apps and they have a tendency to mess with buffer size settings.
Dr. House says....
That already occurred to me the other day @Sebastian - appreciate the thought. I checked using sysstat - and - no - only regular iOS processes running.
I updated audiobus and now I get occasional loopy crashes with error written across the icon when within audiobus. When I restart it it works ok and the error happened only twice in the last 10hours of play but it I'm definitely not taking it gigging in the current state. Today I reinstalled the previous version of audiobus as well as loopyHD hoping all will start working as intended. Have you had any reports about this @Sebastian?
Edit: I'll report back on how it goes, I'll be playing some tomorrow morning so I'll give it a good test run. Will report back.
I hav no idea...but maybe you need to turn something on vs. off?
It's all Voodoo to me at this point. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes my audio interface shows up, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I can load in the FX slot, sometime I can't. Sometimes I get crackle and pops sometimes I don't...
We need to develop our own hardware platform for Audio. Jon Stuart of Dark Matter Audio came close with the DMA-1. but its gone now... Everyone told him they'd rather just use an iPad...oh, the irony...
Hi all. I'm the user @musicinclusive is referring to. Here's what I wound up doing: I went through my settings and turned everything off. I mean EVERYTHING. If it had green, I turned it gray. I also went to Airplane mode. I restarted and everything worked much better.
The crackling stopped, the crashes stopped. However, the fidelity is not the same as it had been. I run at a buffer of 512 and during my performance on Saturday night, Animoog crashed during a less-than-intense CPU moment.
I also record everything through the output effect, PeakQ. The fidelity of the recording was far less than it had been before all this mess started happening.
It was a release party for an all-iPad recording I put out in September, so I did the best I could with what I had.
Soapbox time: This is totally unacceptable. I've heard and read a ton of stuff and everybody seems to be blaming everybody else. That or people want to bury their heads in the sand to not "sound negative."
I've invested thousands of dollars in this technology, the gear to amplify it and tools to promote it. I have devoted the last two-plus years of my life to making music this way. I am at a point where people want to hire me and people want to hear what I do.
I believe everybody is at fault: Apple and all the developers, including the fine folks at Audiobus.
We, as customers, should not be put through this. These tools should work. And if they don't, it should not take this long to be fixed and we should not be in the dark about what's going on.
People are chasing an elusive fix with every update to every app. I've done some beta testing along the way recently, and I can tell you that we are nowhere near having this resolved.
Now, I am faced with a decision: do I take the gigs that are being offered to me and play with what I consider sub-par fidelity (and sometimes total breakdown), or do I wait until everybody involved in the industry figures out how they broke something that was working extremely well for a long time?
For now, I am going to relax and bask in the afterglow of a fun and successful release party.
As an artist, I am appalled that this has happened. As an industry, all involved should be ashamed.
FIX THE PROBLEM. SOONER RATHER THAN LATER.
Hi @AdamMatza1967 IOS, even though it doesn't seem like it, is a very young platform and it is developing in a massively quick way. I understand your frustration but if you had reflected and researched before plummeting into IOS8 sweet box you would have found of experiences people had with ios7 upgrade. If you'd held back at least a month you'd have found from other people what works and what doesn't.
There's no use in blaming everyone for the state of things, blame yourself for not having done your homework. Rather than wailing and missing out on work try and find an alternative to your set up because the dust won't settle at least for another couple of months. Good luck.
I think he is still on 7.1.2, at least that is what the title states. It seems he and I are on similar rants.
@Adam - I will say that I am surprised that you were ever able to get Animoog working reliably in combination with multiple apps. In my experience, Animoog is the most resource hungry app I have ever tried, and as awesome as it is, it was immediately removed from my "live" apps list for this reason.
@supadom said:
that's the second post from you I've seen that blames Adam for "not doing his homework".
If you'd even bothered to read his posts, you'd know that he only even tried iOS 8 in desperation after he started experiencing trouble with upgraded apps on iOS 7.1.2.
He is now again on 7.1.2, having reverted.
If you are going to be condescending, at least get your facts straight.
Ok. Fair play. Sorry about this. Still, what I wrote stands. The platform is young and will cause teething problems at one point or another. I'm just sick of people spitting in the face of those who gave us these incredible tools. There's now hundreds of valid apps that can be used as workarounds if one shows creativity. Choose a different route and get programming. If you can't achieve what you used to do before, scrap all and start anew. Or go to osx that has been around for years. Surely the blame game is not the answer, or is it? I'm sure developers and all concerned are already doing their bit to sort this out so, here we are.
all due respect, @supadom, but in my humble opinion, your attitude is part of the problem. we weren't told that updating apps was going to break iOS7, but that's what happened. i jumped to 8 because 7 stopped working. i paid for that mistake by having to purchase a new ipad to get back to 7. that worked briefly and then stopped. i was lucky to find a workaround in time for my show on saturday.
so why do i say your attitude is part of the problem? because you are an apologist for incompetence. no other industry could (or should) be able to get away with a mess like this.
if more people took your attitude (and sadly too many have), then they'll think it's okay and not be working around the clock to fix the problem. beyond paying for the product, i don't owe the developers anything. it's not spitting in anybody's face to point out that their product isn't working and they need to get their shit together and fix it.
i know they are trying, but it isn't good enough. i'm sorry, but almost getting it right or being on the way to getting it right isn't good enough. some of us are relying on these tools for our artistic careers. good that it doesn't matter as much to you (or at least it seems that way), but it does to me and many others.
if audiobus and apple can't work together, that is on them. but having spent money with both, i am owed a working product.
i don't understand why you don't feel that way.
I'm just counting my blessings. I probably would have seen it from a different perspective if this happened to me. Saying that I had some trouble with what I thought was loopyHD, I think it was audiobus after all. I installed the old version from an old back up with ifunbox and it seems to be working ok now. I think we just need to try and be more resourceful. Just like in the old windows days
What shall I say, keep trying or switch the platform. Complaining truly will get you nowhere in your musical quest.
Agreed @Flo26
could you try running the same setup through audioshare?.....instead of through ab.
maybe delete ab first?
I have certainly spent thousands of dollars on Apple products, not on AB however...nor am I an apologist, but I am a realist: Fix what you can control, try and motivate those who you can't control to help fix your problem, but also have a Plan B, and if you don't; figure one out.
There, that's my consultant voice. My personal artist voice is prepared to buy you a beer and commiserate. It sucks.
as @MusicInclusive will tell you, i have been as resourceful as can possibly be expected.
@JohnnyGoodyear, thanks. i had a few on saturday after resourcefully finding the best possible workaround (and playing a short set).
@Flo26, totally agree.
@supadom, if not complaining were a viable option to get things fixed, i would keep my mouth shut. sometimes industry needs to be pushed. this is definitely one of those times. this squeaky wheel needs some friggin grease, baby!
Hopefully when the problems are figured out there will be lessons learned so it's not repeated. That's the social worker side of me.
Seems like there's many causes and many different results. I updated a few apps on 7.1.2 before ios8 came out, but after hearing issues that were happening I now have about 70 apps that are awaiting update and won't update any until the all clear is sounded. Luckily I have a setup that is working as it always did, although I really don't use audiobus much at the moment, so I may find it not to be true.
I do agree that problems need to be solved, but first I think the problem itself needs to be defined and that's still being discovered.
@adammatza1967 and @musicinclusive, the issues you report are certainly mind boggling and I know I had the same critical words about a backup plan for paying work, but strange issues with no diagnosis is always stressful and I'm sorry you're going through it. I also thank you for being part of the eventual solution so we can learn from it.
I do have an issue with apple's need to roll out a shiny iOS update on a calendar schedule- my daughter was clamoring for ios8 and was ecstatic when it finally installed, yet I don't think there's one feature in it that will add to her life in any way. Good marketing by apple for sure. As much as I hate Microsoft, XP hung around for a LONG time. I hate using it, but it was rare that it completely bombed. Now that they've gone through vista, 7, now windows 8, they seem to be running into similar issues.
Anyway, enough rambling, I do hope a fix comes about soon enough for issues people are having.
@commonstookie - to what end? Since I want to use Audiobus - not Audioshare? Is there a particular debugging approach here that you are hinting at?
@mrufino1 - appreciate your comments. @JohnnyGoodyear you raise a good point, but I think the issue is larger for some than others. About having a plan: if a particular aspect of one's business depends on, say, fork lift trucks and the fork lift is broken, then that part of one's business cannot function. Doesn't matter if there is a shiny company VW sitting in the parking lot you use to ship you from A to B, or you drove up from home in a rusty Ford. They cannot fulfill the function of a fork lift. You may indeed use the VW to get to meetings or drive to and from work in the rusty Ford, but, what one needs is the fork lift working.
Now, sure, there may be other parts of the business - packing, shipping and one can hire extra personnel to hoist things onto shelves if they're not heavy, but the particular part of one's business that relies on fork lifts is now on hold while the fork lift is fixed. Maybe one could hire another fork lift temporarily, but if the particular fork lift one uses is somehow integrated or specialized, that's the one that has to work, and not another type.
Using that fork lift may, for some businesses, be critical to the whole supply chain. It's not like it can be replaced by something else. For other businesses, sure, it may mean increasing shipments from stock or something until the forklift is fixed, but at some point that fork lift is going to become critical.
I make music in a variety of other ways than iOS. I have shifted some of my focus during the current situation - (remember it's a situation that didn't exist 4 weeks ago and was unexpected) - out of necessity and not out of desire. Using iOS has however become more central over the past year to what I do. During that time music making has to a large extent been reliable on iOS 7.
Making music however is only one part of what I do in being involved with music production. Part of that other involvement is completely tied to iOS for part of my revenue generation. I am not a hardware manufacturer, but, imagine I was. Imagine I tested my equipment using iOS and demonstrated that functionality using a variety of music apps on iOS and esp. with Audiobus and certain combinations of apps (this is not far from what I have some involvement with). If iOS and AB on iOS now behaves incongruously, I cannot now build those same demonstrations with new equipment to test (especially if regression testing with a previously known working situation to guarantee specifications) without having to put significant effort into finding workardounds or substitutes. It's not as if I can't just pick up a guitar and knock out a tune into a DAW on MacOS. I simply cannot function in the arena that requires iOS (+AB) working reliably.
These are the larger kinds of issues that this impacts. There is a bigger "industry" out there than simply a problem running Animoog into AUFX* or whatever. Yes, it's been a shortlived industry - and some of us learned the hard way that the dotcom boom became the dotcom bust very quickly. I hope the Audiobus boom doesn't become the Audiobus crash even more quickly. :-)
You may have jumped to early bro. Delay in suppliers is a fact of life. Good luck.
I jumped back to what was meant to be a reliable supplier @WMWM, i.e. in this case pre-SDK2.1 apps - as advised by Audiobus support. Not working now as it was a few days ago. In the analogy - I had a spare older model fork lift in the shop - just in case. I pull that in to replace the faulty fork lift, and it works for several days then just starts acting weird. :-) All analogies fail at some level - but that fits this at least. ;-)
I wonder if people actually read threads before commenting.
I'm guessing this problem won't seem real to many of you until it starts to fail on you. Some of us push the envelope as a matter or course. Because of that, we are feeling the problems first. But rest assured, if Audiobus, Apple and the app developers don't figure this out soon, you will eventually feel the dysfunction.
It's inevitable.
All good things come to those who wait, if it hasnt come yet, you havnt waited long enough. If you feel youve waited long enough, pick up swift. Again, good luck and thanks for pushing the envelope.
Airmail
MI
This thread is giving me flashbacks to the birth of Core Audio back on October 24, 2003. Rinse and repeat...Rinse and repeat...
Cool track MI
Like the track @WMWM. A little operatic (in its way) for me, but the ending is very well handled. Quite lovely.
Opera Singers shampooing, tough crowd,..love it!
I am really curious as to what's going on there. I have not not encountered any of the said bad problems, but somehow this doesn't give me a secure feeling, it's much more not knowing what's the cause of all thenweirdness, thus insecurity concerning my own workflow... Remember: this is the first time an ios update seems to break Apps even when the update itself isn't installed. Last year I still could update whatever App, even before installing ios7, and all went smooth, the hickups with ios7 disappeared fast, so I did install. This years it went pretty fast with people complaining about lost functions/operation with updated Apps under ios7 still.
Thanks to this Forum I learned quickly, not to update ANY music-related Apps, until somehow "sure" they would also work with ios7 (which all of my devices stay on, until I feel it "reasonable" to jump to 8).
I am especially sorry for you guys, who have it all going wrong now, frustrating experience. Thing with ios is, though, the amounts of money invested went to many different developers, a lot of whom are small (if not one person-) groups in a newly expanding market. Thus, the solution to the situation might be a very differentiated one, and not easily solved by just one or two developers (maybe not even Apple alone..), which, at the same time mostly don't have that much revenue coming in, anyways..., so it seems like a baaaaad situation for almost everyone involved.
Luckily for me, I am in the comfortable position, to sit back and wait for possible solutions to pop up (in my experience the very best way to deal with things not in my responsibility), but I really also understand the frustration and anger, which result out of an unwanted, and not to be expected behaviour.
Thanks to every poster here, for exchange of opinions, and hopefully some time some more of a clue to..............."App-behaviour 7/8, the stranger in your house",
Cheers and friendly greetings, twobeers
This is totally unacceptable and on every level. This is not now productive to either someone producing music or playing music in live situations. Reliability in your gear is everything, that is a given. This is bullshit!!!
My involvement in this ends here with me being out of pocket many hundreds of dollars.
My association with apple sadly done.