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
Only if it's actually better than the iPad, but realistically speaking, Samsung cannot manage that. And Google is completely failing at protecting consumers from dishonest developers trying to steal personal data, so that tablet can't even be used for anything else than music production.
It's more likely that a tablet running Windows and full DAWs or optimized for touch DAWs will compete with the iPad for portable music production.
Or why not, a MacBook Air running Logic Pro.
New user here...I Started the whole mobile music production thing on Android, due to frustration I decided to try out ios. Although Android has certain advantages over ios the inconsistency makes it hard to use for most creative based productive tasks, Android reminds me of Linux.
The iPad Air 2 is the fastest tablet on the market. People make the mistake of thinking hardware = real world performance. My first Mac was a 1GHz Power PC laptop. Tests at the time showed it performed as well as a 2.2 GHz Pentium.
It will be interesting to hear from devs if Android is easier to develop for and distribute though...
Because of vendor fragmentation I think Android will have a hard time becoming a stable and dependable music production platform though. Samsung now has its own 'professional audio' platform but it remains to be seen if it will catch on and become available on other brands?
Not sure about Windows; if it would come down to using desktop music software, that may be more powerful but much more expensive; I for one could not afford it.
No, for the foreseeable future I don't see myself switching.
If it makes a sound, I'll use it.
But like others have said, I'm already too heavily invested in Apple to consider switching. When I consider my investments in hardware and software, it would be more costly and headache inducing to change platforms, and everything just works, which was not the case in the years prior that I used Windows. I'm no fanboy, but it would take some really poor choices from Apple or some too good to be true options elsewhere to get me to change things up.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Love making music on my iPhone, Mac and iPad - after Years of struggling to record music on PCs with naff sound cards and endless latency issues the thought of switching to Windows or Android brings me out in a cold sweat..
@mmp said:
Just read the post from Secret Base Design above...
@Crabman said:
oops, missed that one!
Only confirms what I was thinking, though...
This is the one advantage that Apple has, a closed system on their own hardware platform, and even that is not without its compatibility problems during updates...
@monzo said:
Me too! I started out with Windows and it sucked with the old Sound Blaster cards, etc. I would have to back up my files to CD and reinstall Windows twice a year.
Another member of the "if it works, I'll use it" school here. Google screwed up by taking so long to fix the audio latency problem in Android. Anyway, I have iPad, OP-1, and Nintendo 3DS in my mobile music workstation rotation.
The only thing I would consider at this point is adding a Surface Pro if Apple determines it can't find a way to allow a user to have precision input coexist on a touch screen device.
Android is a complete non-starter.
this sums me up quite well-
@monzo said:
Aware that I didn't give a reason for my 'no' above.
Thinking about it, apart from the obvious logistical and financial cost of 'starting again', I do actually like Apple products and I do actually like Apple generally. Solid hardware. Great to use. Nice connectivity. Etc...
Few bug bears over filing system and battery charging though.
I once read this well-stated observation:
I am thinking on switching to a windows handheld as I type. Being forced to update in order to purchase new apps that are buggy as hell is really getting old fast. I love what I have now but can no longer keep up with Apples demands for new and larger operating systems. I can no longer even buy the new apps coming out because they are for newer versions then what I can run on a 16 gb ipad mini! I have quite a bit of useful stuff on here but now I need to find other options it seems. On the plus side I will be saving a lot of money on apps that get little to no use and the apps I have currently work well on the older ios. I am looking at this as a win win situation.
are there any useable music apps available for win tablets today?
Yes , any software available for winows on windows pro I just found out. A small laptop would also perhaps be a fairly good move and work well with my ipad plus storage problems are solved. They are cheap and I can run any software that is available for windows and the list is Huge !
We're talking here about a full Windows Surface Pro, which can run eg Reaper of FLStudio or even FLStudio touch.
I don't like windows in general but i find the Surface Pro 3 not bad. At least it can run apps and full blown desktop tools. I wish apple had made such a "real" computer tablet.
Nah... Too much money thrown into iOS apps. And that includes my medical apps which are very expensive.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30116319 - "Issues include the update causing Nexus 7 tablets to run slowly and repeatedly crash, with several users complaining they had become "unusable".
I agree with many here that it's hard to change because of all the apps we still bought. But i looked at all my apps and i dont't use 95% of them anymore because of bugs, they are useless or abandonded etc. I already switched a while ago but i don't spend much on mobile apps these days in general because it's a very unstable thing and i have not much trust there at the moment. This might change again. I really hope so. But exact THIS catched in a cage (ecosystem) feeling is against my nature
Yes I am still going to use the apps I have that work for me and I use. I can no longer keep up with the non stop changing operating systems and bugs from updates however. Having both will be nice,(not android) windows surface pro is what I am looking towards. No hurry as I have a decent hardware recorder and PC options already available. If android ever got its act together who knows but not yet. I know nothing about jailbreaking for using the ipad, would that be any decent option or open up possibilities?
never
What Apple should do is make a new touchscreen Air with a detachable keyboard with some kind of dual OSX/iOS operating system. The Air already has flash based storage instead of a hard drive.
@mkell424 said:
Personally I'd prefer an air with touchscreen that also run iOS apps. For me that would be perfect. I am really hoping all the Airs, MacBooks, and MacBookPros get a touchscreen. I am tired of tapping on my lap top screens and nothing happens. I spend too much time on my iPad. All the detachables I've played with are just too clunky for me, I'd rather have an iPad and an Air. But I'll also admit I'm very weird in my computer tastes so it may be just me.
Now an iPad that runs OS X apps and has real support for a mouse (cursor please Apple) and Keyboard would be great. I am 100% sure that the reason Apple (Steve Jobs) intentionally left out the cursor was to prevent devs from creating desktop type apps in iOS and forcing every dev to a pure touch environment.
You can't really use non-touchscreen designed apps (i.e. OS X and Windows apps) in an effective way on a pure touchscreen tablet, the apps just are not designed for it. Having a combo keyboard/touchscreen is OK for those apps, but with no mouse/keyboard, its just too cumbersome. If these are the apps you want to run, you'll always need to keyboard.
I agree with you on OSX apps not working with a touch screen. I think it would be great if the detachable keyboard was more than a flimsy piece of plastic like the Surface Pro. You can get the same thing for the iPad right now.
The detachable keyboard should be made of metal and have USB 3.0 and thunderbolt ports. But most important give it a touch pad. Then you wouldn't have to plug in a mouse to use OSX apps. I'd bet Apple's engineers have have made prototypes of this. I've read one the things holding Apple back is that they don't want to canabalize MacBook sales. But just like the big iPhone, they may come around to it eventually.
The Apple bluetooth keyboard, my favorite keyboard, has worked with the iPad for a while. The iPad was designed without a cursor, intentionally by Steve Jobs IMHO. I think he believed this was the future. If this goes as deep as I believe in the OS, it will not be easy to fix. I'm pretty much past using either KB or touch pad with an iOS device. I forced myself to use an iPad for all kinds of things that first year of the iPad 1, creating documents in airports and on flights, presentations, simple spread sheets, etc. its not really good for some of the things i tried
. I have kept my iPad beside my MacBook Pro for 6 years now and use it for all kinds of stuff I just prefer to do in "touch". Music would be at the top of that list, something about the iPad leaves my Logic Pro X sitting unused will my iPad is busy. I also use it as my document repository, code snippets, etc. I'll still be upgrading my MacBook Pro in a couple of months and can't see me living without one, I just don't look at the iPad and lap tops as living in the same space.
I do not want to make my iPad a laptop, I just want to be able to do iPad touch apps on my lap top as well. I just want my iPad to be the best touch device it can possibly be.
Like I said in another thread, I do know I have weird preferences, particularly in the high-tech space where I have been really spoiled with the stuff I had available to play with. Its been my life for over 35 years now has certainly distorted my view of tech.
To your point, if I was in charge of Apple I am sure that the iPad 1 would have had a cursor, mouse support, and keyboard support at launch (iPad keyboard came a couple of years later IIRC), but then I am no Steve Jobs. At this point I think I am starting to get the vision.
I'd probably disagree on the cannibalization of MacBook sales thing, its not the Apple culture unless they are changing that much under Tim Cook (and this is a possibly). There is a short discussion on Job's philosophy on Cannibalization at Yastrow and Company. The "don't cannibalize your own stuff" is why IBM is becoming a glorified iPad salesmen for Apple.
Thanks for the article on Jobs. I guess instead of canabalizing the Air it would make sense my idea would replace the Air completely. The MacBook Pro would still be aimed at power users who use Logic and Final Cut, etc. I used to be into Logic and Final Cut but now I use the iPad as my primary computer. I'm more of a hobbyist than a professional now.
Many of the awesome synth apps I have would never get ported to Android. Some, like Animoog and Thor go for long periods without updates so probably not enough staff for both platforms.