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.
Gadget plays well with Cubasis
Been dinking around with different set ups, and am partial to using fewest apps possible. Found this one to work quite well: Gadget + Cubasis.
What do you get?
Well for starters you can add on the effects that Cubasis has to your sounds coming from Gadget. Obviously this would mean routing audio from Gadget to Cubasis. For variations use the freeze function in Cubasis to capture a phrase you like, and then you can move that phrase to another audio track within your song.
On top of that you can use Cubasis as a midi controller for Gadget, which is somewhat useful. Do this by adding a blank midi track to Cubasis and simply routing the midi to Gadget.
You can also get everything in sync rather easily by turning on clock send in Cubasis, then setting the midi sync in Gadget to auto (which allows you to still control Gadget's transport from Gadget). To record your stuff into Cubasis and get a nice clean phrase simply use the punch in/out function in Cubasis.
Last but not least you can copy phrases from Cubasis into Abu Dhabi, then route it back into Cubasis. If you're really dedicated you can even set up a kit in Bilbao using this method.
For final songs Cubasis works well as a destination, as you can have one track as a controller (as mentioned above) and one track for the audio from Gadget, moving the captured audio to other tracks (also as mentioned above) until you compile your song.
Maybe not the most revolutionary methods here, but still some ways to combine the power and features of both apps.
Comments
Do you use AB or IAA?Which iPad and iOS version?I remember having trouble in the past with Gadget plus Cubasis.Gadget always crashed,no matter if AB or IAA but maybe i should give it another try.
In keeping with the fewest apps possible theme, I use IAA. This is on iPad Air with the iOS 8.3.
@1P18 I have just bought Cubasis in the recent sale and am loving having audio tracks again but missing Gadget's workflow and ease of editing sequences .This may be the trick to getting closer to an ideal working process, especially with the ability to copy and paste from Cubasis to Bilbao. Thanks!
Super helpful post 1P18. I'm with you on minimal set ups. When you throw nanologue in the mix with Gadgets synths and drum boxes, you have a pretty comprehensive palette to work with. Personally, I throw Thumbjam in the mix for accoustic stuff because I'm not keen on the accoustic sounds in Cubasis. But between these three apps, I feel like I have just about all I need.
Also, when your running dry on ideas you can import via Audioshare Yamaha .STY files. These are basically free midi rhythm tracks hundreds available online for free. All you have to do is change the extension of the file from .sty to.mid. Inside Audioshare and load them up to cubasis..then cubasis splits all the midi tracks automatically. You'll never run out of ideas.
Search Midiband in this forum there's a few links there for free .sty files.
By the way, 1P18, do you have a Cubasis template to share?
Liking Cubasis. What I cant figure out is where is autoscroll when working in midi? (I will check Steinberg forums. )
Gadget's sequencer had a problem syncing with Cubasis clock. Has that been resolved? Also can you send a MIDI track to Gadget's instruments from Cubasis and route it back into an audio track in Cubasis in real time? If so does it sync properly?
No, there is sync mechanism from Gadget! No way to routing it back to Gadget properly!
@ecamburn Yeah not keen on the Cubasis sounds either, but with their new IAP effects you can squeeze some stuff out of them.
@Musikman4Christ I don't have an actual file to share, but the set up I had was one audio track for Gadget routed with IAA, then one blank midi track routed to Gadget for the option to control it, and then I set up audio tracks for each of the gadgets. The process was then: get audio from Gadget into Cubasis, move audio to specific track once recorded, if effects from Cubasis were applied freeze the track before moving to preserve effects. Come to think of it I'm not even sure if that last step is necessary, but I think it is. Like I say it's a pretty good way to get variations going with the effects from Cubasis.
@mkell424 Not entirely sure about syncing properly, but for the purpose of getting single phrases into Cubasis it should work okay. When you set the midi sync in Gadget to auto you can control the transport from within Gadget, and so you can reset it by pressing stop if it gets out of sync (this being opposed to setting it to external, which forces Gadget to rely on an external transport to control it).
turn on the auto scroll button, it's the one that has an arrow and a cursor that divides it ( next to the mute all / solo all buttons )
Just did a little experiment.
*2 tracks in Cubasis, 1 audio (IAA in from Gadget), 1 MIDI (out to Gadget)
*A track in Gadget with Brussels loaded on to it. Brussels contains a time-based trance gate type effect
*Used piano keys on MIDI track in Cubasis to trigger Gadget.
*Brussels played in time with Cubasis tempo
The clock didn't feel super tight but it was workable.
For this, freezing is necessary if you want to preserve the effects from Cubasis before moving the audio to another track. Wasn't sure if upon recording it also applied the effects from Cubasis, but just tested it and it doesn't.
Another small little thing, both apps can connect to Dropbox, good for exporting audio from Cubasis into Gadget and still retaining the file name. If you use audio copy and paste, the file gets renamed to "General Pasteboard" in Gadget.
@1P18 @Kaikoo Thanks. At least you can get a single phrase into Cubasis. It would great however if Korg added the ability for Gadget to act as a proper MIDI slave. The ultimate would be MIDI control plus multiple audio outs like Thumbjam. But I think Korg's strategy is making Gadget like Reason is for the desktop. They want you to play in their world and have limited access outside their sandbox.
I tried it and I worked nicely!
Gadget followed tempo changes and start stop commands. Was nice to see this on an iPad.
@1P18 : Thank you for opening up this topic, had multiple questions using Cubasis + Gadget :-)
Cubasis MIDI Clock had a problem when used in loop mode, I experienced this when trying to use Cubasis MIDI clock to sync with Beatstep, the timing would drift with each iteration of the loop in Cubasis, I spent quite some time with the dev's getting this recognised as an issue, I have since stopped trying to use loop mode in Cubasis so do not know if it was ever fixed.
You could check it quite easily by having a 4/4 click or sidestick running in Cubasis and one in Gadget, set the loop, press play and listen.
I love both synths included with Cubasis. Everything needed is right there in one app. A person could get really great work done and never leave Cubasis but of course we do not have to ! Why? Because we are spoiled with a never ending array of cool tools to use with Cubasis created by countless developers who spend countless hours on our addiction. Happy Thanksgiving !
There's only one synth in Cubase. But I wouldn't mind if they added another with more oscillators.
Gadget and Cubasis is really the only combination I've found that works, primarily because saving a session in Gadget results in perfect recall the next time you load a project. With AUM/AB, so many things can change (depending on any settings you've changed in synths in standalone operation) that it becomes a bit of a nightmare to get back to a working project. I guess AU solves that but, not everything supports it yet. So yeah, big thumbs up for Gadget + Cubasis from me!
Synth and rompler thingy then but you know what I mean.
LOL I had to double-check when I first read your post. It's been a while since I used any of Cubasis' instruments. I've slept on them for a while. But they're actually pretty good. They definitely add value to the app itself. So for anyone on the fence while it's on sale, I'd say go for it.
I import midi files from Gadget into Cubasis to use them with the synth and other AU...Or also sample some sounds from Gadget in minisampler. Cubasis and Gadget is amazing.