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
Is there any way to add external clock sync functionality (ie., from a computer DAW or hardware keyboard with arpeggiator) and have MIDIflow relay that to the other apps? None of my iOS apps seem to respond to external MIDI clock.
Yes, instead of using Midiflow's internal clock, you can just route clock data from apps/hardware to other apps.
But if your other apps cannot receive MIDI clock, then this won't help you, because they wouldn't receive clock from Midiflow either. Or did I misunderstand something?
@JohannesD
unrelated question . . . why do some apps appear with an icon, some don't? It would be so awesome if all where displayed with an icon, so I could see at a glance what the setup is!
otherwise, I'm really enjoying the app!
@nick
I'm happy to hear that you like the app. The reason why not all apps show an icon is that iOS does not provide an API to obtain the icon for a MIDI port. For that reason, Midiflow has to guess the app (by the MIDI port name), but this does not work all the time. In the upcoming version, however, the icons are looked up in a real database. This will also allow you to see the app when it is not running, and launch it. Although this database won't be complete at the beginning, it should work a lot better than the current version.
If you'd like to take a look at the new version (and if you are running iOS8), you can send me a mail to [email protected], as I am sending the current beta to test people right now. This goes for everyone here.
@johannesd I've been having trouble getting any of my apps to receive MIDI clock, namely the arpeggiators in Arturia iSynths, Sunrizer, Terasynth. They only seem to allow for manual tempo adjustments. Was hoping that MIDIFlow was a solution for this? Perhaps I am the one missing something!
@JohannesD
that is great news!
yes, would like to take a look and will send you an e-mail later
I'm not sure if I need Midiflow or Imidipatchbay? I'm leaning towards patch bay because while I started looking at such apps specifically because I''m trying to get my iPad rig up and running for a gig where I'm stuck using someone else's controller, I want be ready for multiple hardware and software situations. Johannes, I like your style in dealing with our needs as users. Thanks for the great apps. I'd like to know if I'm right in thinking patch bay makes more sense for my needs. I imagine I'll have made a decision before you'll be able to respond but such is life. Great work. Just a side note. I'm usually a purely function guy, but I did notice the striking difference visually between Bay and Flow and I definitely like the approach you took with Bay better. Thanks again.
I like both interfaces but it would be great if midi flow could have a dark mode. it is really very light when used in a dark environment.
@rtuckr
Midiflow can only sync apps that receive MIDI clock messages. If they don't do this, there is no way to sync them from an external source.
@agmvcc
Currently, Midiflow has some more MIDI features than iMIDIPatchbay. I'll add many of them to iMIDIPatchbay as soon as I can, but if there is something on Midiflow's feature list that iMIDIPatchbay doesn't have, then you should get Midiflow. However, if iMIDIPatchbay looks like what you want, then get that one. I started working on Midiflow because iMIDIPatchbay's workflow is not optimal for all users, and vice-versa. Midiflow is more a raw MIDI router for anything, while iMIDIPatchbay aims to be a live performance tool specifically for keyboardists (it has setlist management and a music sheet viewer).
@nick
I'll think about that!
Hi @JohannesD
Could you let me know if MidiFlow will convert note velocity to midi cc?
I.e will it simply remap velocity values on an incoming midi note into a midiCC value and then send the midiCC onto another app? (Ideally blocking the actual note in the process).
Any help appreciated.
Yes, but you'll need the "Controller Remapping" in-app-purchase.
Sold
...
Thanks. Will try out later for my "Patterning into Gadget clever tricks and cunning plans" project.
Wow Matt, that is an interesting concept to drive a cc value with velocity. You sir, think a lot like the modular gods of yesteryear. (teardrop) Bob would be so proud of you. (sniffle)
I would love to hear ideas of what you are gonna do with it.
Thanks @Martygras
It's very geeky - but if you're interested then see the last page of this thread:
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/9480/patterning-app-out-now-a-new-standard-is-set-pure-awesomeness#latest
Basically mapping some of Patterning's notes and velocity values into MidiCCs and sending to Gadget. So Patterning could drive not only drum hits or notes in Gadget, but also all sorts of effects in an on the fly, rhythmic way... (until it gets proper MidiCC out support).
So having maybe having Patterning play 4 drums/samples in London or Bilbao, but use the other 4 tracks for pitching those drums up and down, messing with sample start time, trigging delay sometimes (or randomly), automating the filter etc. etc... A bit like Patterning can when used internally (or a bit like Effectrix does) - but out to Gadget as midi so it can all be recorded and further tweaked and refined in Gadget (and it's all baked straight into my track).
My project is ever more geeky
I'm interested in algorithmic/generative music. So there's an app called Pythonista which I'm gonna use to create Python scripts for sending OSC messages to Mobmuplat. MMP will convert OSC to MIDI messages and route them to synths/drums (though I kinda like the idea of using Gadget instead of several other apps) via a MidiFlow virtual midi port .
Theoretically, it should work fine but sometimes you don't know until you try. If only I had more free time...
BOFFIN ALERT!
Love Python, but have never used it for audio. Are there any online resources? Thanks.
Anyone able to get this working with Egoist? I want to transpose notes sent from Egoist to Thor but could never do it.
That sounds... Deep.
You should know that sadly you can only drive one of Gadget's gadgets at a time via external midi. Nanostudio might be another option. You can have 16 channels going there!
Thank you. Purchased and it looks like it will be what I need.
I did find one repeatable bug though. In the 'map controllers' sections that I now have access to - if I view as a 'list' and then hit the 'view all button' it crashes the whole app. Every single time.
IPad Air 1 - iOS 8.3
So looks like I can't map individual note values to specific ccs because of this.
Looks like I can map a whole range of values in and out via a linear or curve though.
That's the nicest thing I've been called all year. Much better that geek or nerd.
Looks like I should go for that IAP too. I'm sure I'll end up using it.
What is up with the forum quoting system? blech.
The Muffin Men >>> Austin, Texas, wherever you are.
Ah, ok. Thanks, I didn't know that. What a pity. For my experiments, I'm gonna stick with Cubasis then
Well, it's not really about audio. My scripts are simple UDP net clients that broadcast OSC messages. If you know how TouchOSC and similar apps work and how to use them to control Ableton Live or any other desktop DAW, then you know what I'm talking about. Basically, there has to be an OSC server to receive and parse those OSC messages and convert them to MIDI.
I'm not sure it will work well on iOS but it works quite well when using my mac - my script sends an OSC message(i.e. '/channel1/note/C1/127/on') to my desktop machine and the OSC server app (Osculator) converts it to MIDI. This way I can play virtual instruments or control Ableton Live or Cubase programmatically.
The next step is to use Mobmuplat as a local OSC-to-MIDI server and make it control iOS synths and samplers.
I cannot test this with the App Store version right now (can anyone else confirm this?), since I am on vacation currently. Does it only happen when you have selected "Note Value" as incoming controller? If yes, you can switch to a Control Change for example, adjust the list, and then switch back to "Note Value".
Best,
Johannes
@Matt_Fletcher_2000
@JohannesD
I just tried this:
If that's the right sequence, it's working fine for me. No crash. All notes available. Using a minimal MidiFlow setup, so not sure if there some additional dependencies that make Matt's crash occur.
Hi
For me I think it happens when I hit 'show all' on any list. I had note values and also velocity values as the controllers and the same thing happened.
I tried converting a curve to a list and it also happened that way.
I don' t need this for now anyway, now... i'm just doing simple linear velocity to midi cc... But maybe it's something you want to check on sometime. Unless it works for everyone else
.
@Matt_Fletcher_2000 Have you bought Alechemy for 30, already?