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.
A bs-16i inquiry
Some threads in the past have covered some territory re: bs-16i, but I believe I'm still in the dark about some of its qualifications. All I can really use it for at this point is to import MIDI files, export individual tracks via AudioCopy to paste into GB and use them do re-sequence there using GB instruments (when feasible). But beyond that I am unaware of what more I can do with it - you can't edit MIDI tracks with it; sometimes the BPM clock of the MIDI file doesn't match the GB BPM clock (why not?!? It's MATH, the computers' best friend!); I hear that utilizing soundfonts is a strength in bs-16i... but I lack a certain level of comprehension: for example, what am I doing with soundfonts in an app that has no sequencer? To play them slaved from another app? I don't currently need that feature (since I don't gig); I can only fiddle with volume settings and such only AFTER I've started a MIDI file playback, but that's pretty much useless (to me).
I find most operating manuals for software too cryptic, or not expressed in a user-friendly manner - it's like they expect that the user knows more about it all than I think they have any right to assume (especially to noobs, which I don't necessarily think of myself as now), and in bs-16i I am constantly scratching my head about how and why menus and sub-menus are laid out, or even what they're for beyond my well-traveled routs through the UI. I suppose I wish I had an expert to sit with me and hand-hold my way through it, but lacking that I still feel like I can't grasp as much if it as I think I should. Any help or advice?
Comments
Sequence BS-16i with something else like, Cubasis, Genome, Auxy, Fiddlewax Pro. Record the output via AudioBus or IAA into Auria, Cubasis, AudioShare.
What TedBPhx said. I especially like using bs-16i, and Soundfont Pro with Fiddlewax Pro.
I think of BS-16i like any other synth. This one just handles soundfonts instead of generating it's own audio. The midi file import and playback is an ok feature but not really useful for much.... only works about half the time for me.
I'm guessing that midi files have to have PC messages embedded for BS-16i to accept them.
Not required but you will get all channels playing their default sound, unlikely to be what was intended in a distributed file.
I hardly ever play MDI fileson it. It serves as a nicely ight-weight multi-timbral synth.
Yeah...that's about all I use it for too. I assume the MIDI file player is primarily to be used as a backing track.
Well, I suppose I'll have to settle with what I CAN do with it, which isn't a bad thing. My needs do not require multi-timbrality, sequencing from other apps (where some of those mentioned aren't even available for the iPhone) or even a high level of sound quality from the onboard instruments... I was hoping to glean some insight as to what more I could get from it as regards my workflow, but perhaps I'll have need for such at a future time and work it out then!
Well, BeatMaker2 runs on the iPhone. A thought.
I tried using it exclusively for playing soundfonts but at some point it lost all the soundfonts I had imported. Wasn't sure if it was an update to the app that caused it but I was too annoyed about it to use it again after that.
I am Using Bs-16i With BeatMaker2 on iPhone 6 Plus , and It Works GREAT in Recording Midi Or Audio From My SoundFonts .
Bs-16i seems to have developed a buzz like a giant mosquito when a put it in the input slot of Audiobus but the buzzing stops after I have open it from Audiobus. Not had that issue until recently.