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
Yep this kind of voice allocation is pretty ubiquitous amongst most analog polysynths designs AFAIK.
Essentially emulating that functionality through MIDI channel filtering is pretty effective for combining a bunch of monosynths into a custom mutant poly which is really fun and can be surprisingly musical.
It’s also great for other uses such as when you can throw a MIDI sequence to a single destination and have it trigger several sources to create some timbral variation.
You could also emulate some other polysynth tricks like splitting a keyboard into several keyboard zones with different voices allocated to each.
Anyway, I look forward to see what you have planned. Let me know how it’s going “-“
@iamspoon Yeah Ive noticed cool effects of playing where voices go to different (but slightly similar) synth patches - you can then adapt your playing to send notes to these different synths in a predictable way.
If you stack up the same synth patch then you have instant poly.
Ive built in voice stealing & individual mutes on voices(eg voice 3 connected to model D in AUM could be switched in/out of the allocation). Up to 8 voices are available including a midi thru(untouched midi)
Also like your idea of single midi note to ALL outputs for huge textures... will add an option for this if it works out useful
All you actually need is StreamByter and it’s AU. Then it’s whatever you want to use it with. StreamByter is only $7USD and is pretty handy. I actually don’t have StreamByter because I have MIDIFire by the same company and it has a Stream Byter built in.
As far as the simplicity, you download the script, copy it into StreamByter, and then all you have to do is change the number of channels you need, unless you need to further customize it.
Not sure if it yet exist but all i want for iOS is something like Polymer:
Features:
„Control up to 32 MIDI channels simultaneously, for 32-voice polyphony
NEW IN VERSION 1.1 Even combine polyphonic synths — supports multiple voices per MIDI channel
MIDI Merge between unlimited MIDI input channels
Velocity, Pitch Bend, and Mod Wheel data are transmitted automatically
Two Algorithms for voice allocation — Static starts at the same voice each time, while Cycle alternates in round-robin fashion
Forward, Backward, and Random Direction options for choosing the next voice
Supports Voice Stealing, allowing for continuous play regardless of available voices.“
And make it easy as in Polymer.
Oh fair enough, I thought I would need AUM too.
Either way I think I'd prefer a single more focussed AU for ease of use.
But I will check out StreamByter again though, cheers.
This all sounds spot on. : )
This I'm slightly confused about : )
I think we have some crossed wires perhaps...
If it was this idea you were referring to (?) I actually meant that you can send a recorded MIDI sequence through the plugin to distribute the notes rather than stacking them..
dunno if that makes sense, sorry bit tired . Best of luck
Fuuuuuuuuck. I had no idea. We'd been talking about going out for beers up in his neck of the woods but my last northerly visit got co-opted by partner duties. They felt stupid at the time but feel absolutely ridiculous now. What an amazingly kind fellow and what a missed opportunity on my part.
@iamspoon ok, sending a sequence of discrete notes (no overlap) you want to just send to the next voice regardless. That sounds better and in fact is how Quantum does its step record. I will add that ‘round robin’ as an option instead.
The default way is next free voice (forward in Polymer terms)
@cib Polymer sounds interesting. My app is an AUv3 so sits in an AUM channel say.
@dman trouble with scripts is they have no UI to allow you to automate or set controls.
@midiSequencer
Sounds great. Let me know if I can help or if you need a tester
It seems the only one i‘m aware of which let you simple assign how much voices go to a midi channel.
So you can send 3 voices to channel 2 and 4 to channel 3 etc.
But maybe it‘s already possible. But Polymer has a very nice and easy GUI. It sadly seems abandoned but still works on latest macOS at least.
sounds interesting - let me see what I can do!
We will see.....wasn´t there a mention of Quantum for mac some time ago...never trust a developer
@cib too right!
Yes Quantum is not too difficult to put on mac, just need to code keys & mouse instead of touch. I was waiting to redo the UI but thats done now....
more input.. possibly of use
I haven't used Polymer so I can't comment on that although I've heard a lot of praise for it. Anyway, I was thinking of the way I'd possibly like to see some functionality implemented.
It would ideal to me if you could set up the played MIDI input notes to output on specific MIDI output channels.
for example :
or whatever ^_^
As @Cib mentioned above this would ideally also allow you to select polyphony per channel so you could output several MIDI voices to the same destination.
I think it would also be really handy to be able to set the range of each voice/MIDI channel to allow some layering a or stacking across the main MIDI input keyboard etc...
A bonus which would be the cherry on top would be a knob to adjust/scale the MIDI note velocity to each of the MIDI output channels.
(Maybe a bipolar knob with velocity as played (thru) in the centre with +/- 100% adjustment either side)
hopefully something there worth considering : )
So can do this if we have the ui controls for:
1) channel (I call them voices but they are outputs - also AUM channels) mapped to note order 1,2..etc
2) velocity scaling per voice - so this voice plays softer/louder etc
3) accepted note range lo/hi per voice - so this voice only plays notes in that range - not played otherwise so you need to map it elsewhere
I approve
and yes I think you’re right “voices” is the correct terminology here!
Hopefully you can see the potential uses for those functions and it’s not too complex.
A voice mode switch or UI element for this functionality too.?
@iamspoon done, I coded this today and it sounds great.
I had Quantum sequence driving the app with 4 voices in round robin mode. This has the effect of playing 4 sequences to 4 different synths at the same time, so I loaded up Zeeon’s & Model D.
Whats great is you get a complete ensemble from just a simple sequence. Vary the seq slightly and you get the parts swapping(played on different synths).
Varying Quantum sequence volume also had an interesting effect as some patches didnt have velocity (model d) but zeeons did.
I need to create some more seq versions and will record some video of this.
This is without voice velocity or note ranges, which relates more to keyboard playing I think
Sounds cool. I'll watch that vid for sure!
I only heard the sad news myself a few weeks ago on the iPad Musicians Facebook group .
I agree. I would much prefer a dedicated app with a easy quick way to turn things on/off, change the way it cycles, etc. I already had MIDIFire, so downloading the script was a no brainer.
He had the ultimate "mobile" studio setup for while he was waiting for and sitting on the ferry from the mainland to the island he lived on. This was from 2013.
I once played a monotron in a car but I think that setup beats it...
@midiSequencer
