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
What makes Auria better is its filing system and the ability to make snapshots of your project at different stages so you can go back and forth and return to a previous snapshot when the app crashes ... which happens from time to time. The only issue I have is it's a pain deleting unwanted files — I usually have a 'new project' set up just so I can switch to it to delete files in the project I'm working on ... and then switch back. In some ways only having integration with Audioshare like in MTS without internal backup makes it easier to manage files. Auria projects can get awful bulky if you do a lot of takes like I do.
I defiantly should spend more time with Auria. Last time i fiddled with it, I've tried to apply a fadeout on multiple tracks, where I had the impression, that it was somewhat fiddly. Depending on the zoom-level, not all handles were visible and in the end I've applied the fadeout separately. But I'm sure it was my lacking experience with Auria.
Personally, I think on touchscreen-devices with also limited screen-size, it isn't a good idea, to place handles on the event itself. I much prefer discrete handles like they are implemented in the midi- and song-editors of Nanostudio, or Beatmaker 2. Not as intuitive on first sight, but much more precise and fluid in the long run, imo.
Yes, the handles can be fiddly. You have to enlarge your view to do it properly. But that's another thing which Auria can do which MTS can't — selecting multiple tracks and altering them all at once. As far as I know, you have to edit every track separately in MTS. On the other hand MTS allows you to Undo/Redo separately for every track.
What currently really stands out for me about MTS is its scrubbing-implementation. It feels great, almost physical. Never encountered such a good implementation in any other app.
MTS has the song mode for editing all tracks simultaneously. It's broad things like insert bars, repeat, and (I think) delete time, but it perfectly complements the track-by-track workflow.
In case you didn't know, iPad 2 runs iOS 8.4 perfectly well. Update and get this awesome MTS release!
What I don't get about MTS is it's song editor. You can copy and paste parts of your timeline as a whole, ok. But it seems not to be possible to exclude curtain tracks from copying. Is there more about this? I can't imagine that this is the way, most people would edit their songs.
Probably I'm thinking to much the way I'm used to do from Cubasis. Kicking parts around is obviously not the workflow, MTS is designed for. I think the most forward way, is to work track by track and seeing each track as a whole.
The workflow seems to center more on the song, as on the loop, but I could be wrong.
That has of course not to be a bad thing but I have the impression, that the song-editor is a little bit more restricted, as it needs to be.
I've edited a little more midi and the workflow is absolutely great! It feels as productive and immediate as Gadget, but with much more possibilities. Part-repeat is so great! And the zooming just works. Song editing is easy on whole tracks, cause everything is snappy and precise. Right now it feels like the first ours with gadget, simply amazing!
Yes, the snap function works very well. When chopping up audio parts I haven't had a problem with clicks at the cut off point which usually requires adding a fade in other DAWs.
"Select Right" and "Unselect Right" is also very clever. I wish, Cubasis had something like this. The effects seem to work very well. They might not be on Auria-level, but each mastering-effect, I've applied had a positive impact on my test-track. Might by the track but I like them so far. Don't know, why MTS reminds me on Gadget - must be the outstanding workflow.
I have the impression, this DAW is an outstanding learning-platform, where someone like me can acquire techniques which he can later use in more complex DAW's like Auria. I think, this is especially true for the effects, which are offering most parameters, which are important, without overstraining one. The midi-editor is a class of it's own. The most capable one, I've seen on iOS and a joy to work with.
I can confirm, that I have not encountered clicking audio's so far. Don't know, if it was by chance, or if there is some algorithm, which detects bad cuts.
What impressed me about Gadget, this well tuned sandbox, with a great workflow where one can simply produce a track, without getting lost in details, applies also on MTS.
Glad you're enjoying MTS Earsinn. I wouldn't necessarily call Auria more complex ... maybe when Auria Pro comes out, but until then MTS covers a similar set of bases ... and more with midi.
Yeah, no clicking is a major bonus for me as I often had to do detailed edits even on Logic to clear up those issues.
I really wish more software-companys would care more for usability and workflow. Sometimes it seems to me, the common attitude is "if we can't put it on our feature-list, we won't care for it".
This fact makes some Apps just more amazing, which concentrate on a good workflow-experience and explains somewhat my enjoyment of MTS. It's simply such a refreshing contrast.
p.s.: For example: I think I'm not the only one who is deeply dissatisfied with the midi-editor in Cubasis. This has been discussed since the first release. I don't know if there is a directive for the developers, to make Cubasis work and look as much as possible like Cubase for desktop. It would be somehow understandable, but it's simply a bad approach, on a touch-device imo. It destroys an otherwise great sequencer completely for many people, I think - including me.
I've just made a little track with it:
Wow. You are fast! Good work!
Many thanks! I know - it is a little bit boring, I have not worked out it completely and mixing has been done with ipad-speakers. But MTS is really great, makes a lot of fun.
It's a good start. The track I'm working on now is fully MTS, but won't be finished for a while I think ...
Since this is about tip and tricks about Multitrackstudio I would like to mention two, I've found somewhat useful:
When opening a track editor while no other tracks are opened, the editor will open with a pretty large standard-size. If another track is opened already other tracks would start with a view same as this other track. So it is possible to create a temporary helper-track, which stays open, if you want the tracks to be opened with a smaller size.
It has been already stated in the manual, but I've stumbled quite often over this yesterday, so I think it makes sense to point it out. If you work on a more zoomed out midi-editor, the notes are sometimes quite small and it is difficult to manipulate them efficiently. Pressing the "Edit"-box in the editor reveals a note-property window, if a note is selected, where one can define note-position and length exactly.
Nice!
Three tips (took me some time to find out):
If you're working with imported audio tracks such as loops, first create a (blank) MIDI track and set its tempo to match that of the audio tracks you're about to import into MTS. This will allow you to do time stretch correctly on the audio, when editing the tempo afterwards.
If you copy an audio track onto a MIDI track, MTS will do its best to convert audio into MIDI! I haven't found anything useful to do with this yet, but it is nice. Maybe this can help convert e.g. an audio drum loop into MIDI.
When using MTS with another virtual MIDI controller app, MTS creates a 'MTS Virtual MIDI Recording' destination. For some reason, this won't work with some apps, such as Lemur or Yamaha MMS. In those cases, you'll need to create a virtual MIDI port that is recognized by MTS's Devices -> MIDI Input Device global setting (like an external keyboard would). I use Midiflow for that, and it works. (I've already sent an email to the developer of MTS for this virtual port to be created directly in MTS, without the need for a third-party app).
Also nice! It's good to have a thread to gather helpful information about MTS.
I've thought again about my suggestion with the temporary helper-thread. In most or even any cases it should be more convenient to simply keep the the last regular track open and not to create an additional nonsense one.
Yep, I just keep at least one track open at all times so I don't have to constantly readjust. It works almost as well as Auria in terms of visibility. I just wish there were more colors to distinguish tracks.
Yes, more colors would be nice. On the first place of my wish-list is an alternative form of note-handles, like I've mentioned it earlier in this thread. On the second is a "Don't follow playhead" option.
One of my favorite features of MTS is "Copy to Audio Track" (long press on the title box for the track). It's not really unique to MTS, as Auria, Gadget and others have similar options for "freezing" tracks. But on slower devices, it works brilliantly to capture a bassline, drum loop, arpeggiated sequence, or whatever. It renders it separate from the remainder of the track so that if you have a CPU-hungry instrument/effect app chained to different effects in MTS, you can capture that idea as raw audio and then move it around in your track as needed.
As useful and necessary as AudioBus is to capture and record different apps, MultiTrackStudio is the one app that actually makes me want to use IAA. It treats IAA connections similar to how Reaper or other desktop DAW's would us a VST plugin. You can program basic MIDI data using a generic piano or whatever, and then send that to a synthesizer app with the IAA slot. And of course, MTS now has a SoundFont Player and Matrix Sampler within the app, so the options are almost endless as to how you can generate sounds. As good of a DAW as MTS is, it's every bit as a strong of a composition tool for creating MIDI data within the app and then tweaking that to the sound of your choice before capturing the finished product as audio.
Yes, there are other DAW's that allow this (Cubasis and even GarageBand to an extent), but the fact that MTS does all of that (and more) with a base install size of 26.6 MB is insane. It's just a beautifully efficient tool.
Audio to midi can be quite useful for simple melody lines. Just used it now to convert a guitar line to a synth line.
I bought MTS with pro extention based upon all of this thread comments. Indeed it is good! but not perfect. I have tried to record IAA midi and virtual midi. No problem! The piano roll editor is not straight forward like Gadget, but it is still manageable! Undo/redo is a good feature.
However, when I played back the recording notes, if I continue pressing start and stop on the upper right conner play button, the sound (same note) continue through to the ear without me to give command to start and stop. It is one very basic and faulty problem of MTS. I have used 4 or 5 synths with. No matter it is a IAA midi instrument or Virtual Midi instrument track, this can occured also In front panel view, although the playhead act more finely and fewer stuck note chance but still happened from time to time.
I hope it can stop the sound stuck there if I stop the play button with both MIdi and IAA instument on recorded midi notes!
So it is not perfect as you all metioned here with so much promotions!
device: Air 1, ios 8.4
Luckily, The money total spend on MTS is 1/3 or 1/5 of Auria with few Fabfilters. I will not tout this as best iPad Daw.
Yes, the stuck notes are a problem. The only remedy I have is to move the playhead forward over the stuck note to stop it. Someone should probably mention it to the developer...
Kaikoo, I would also strongly encourage you to email the MIDI file and the steps required to reproduce the problem to the developer. I've been using MTS since its launch and the one thing that keeps it at the top for me is not that it is already perfect, because it is not! But each and every email I've sent to the dev has been responded quickly, and fixes or features introduced very quickly.
Good luck!
Ya, email already sent to developer!