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 Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Nanostudio 2

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Comments

  • edited February 2020

    @tja said:

    @rms13 said:

    @anickt said:

    @gregsmith said:

    @wim said:

    @Turok said:
    Any news about audiotracks?

    None that I've seen, and I don't think I've missed anything. It's still top priority, but no estimate has been given nor is likely to be given. It'll be ready when it's ready.

    It’s coming just after Cubasis 4

    When audio tracks for NS2 come out they will be bulletproof just like the rest of the app. I’ll bet they will be here within the next couple months. Just a guess on my part so...

    Is it bulletproof? When I was using it a few months ago I could't render tracks that included several AUv3 that I own. It may be bulletproof if you are only using the native instruments and effects but I definitely didn't experience a bulletproof experience when trying to use third party stuff with it. The only way I could get tracks out was to load NS2 into AUM and record my output that way. I gave up on it and just have been working in AUM because of that

    There are lots of bad AU out, more so than IAA, i even feel.
    But it is getting slowly better.

    Anyway, many hosts have problems with this or that AU, see for example the many problems of Cubasis with the lenght of rendered audio.

    So maybe try to find the problematic plugins.

    But yes, NS2 seems to do less to work around the problems of AU units.
    But is that REALLY bad?

    No offence but I have the opposite experience. I find AU apps way more stable and usable than IAA. Also, I feel like the majority of people here, on Facebook, and on Discord have moved to AU because of the stability and ease of use and they expect it now. Just like VST. You read the posts asking for AU every day. I still love the old IAA apps I own but they will need to be updated or just stay frozen on an old device at some point.

  • IAA was and is terrible, AUv3 is vastly superior.

  • Firstly, I love NS2 - it's my preferred DAW, and I've created more music with it that any other DAW I own. It is however, not perfect, especially with AU plugins. This is no reflection on NS2 (or any other DAW for that matter) but rather highlights the vast differences in the range of AU plugins we have access to. There are differences in memory/cpu usage, i/o handling, error trapping and numerous other details that cause combinations of AU plugins to interact badly with their hosts.

    It is, and always will be a "Your mileage may vary" situation.

  • @spacejack said:

    @rs2000 said:

    I was also missing audio demos for my favorite instruments in these packs so I went ahead and built my own. Give them a try, they're free, as are all the other nice instruments over there!
    https://patchstorage.com/platform/nanostudio/

    Holy smokes, those are amazing! Thank you, I think I'll have a lot of fun with these. I tried your Rhodes & Wurlitzers, they sound great! How did you make them?

    Thanks also for introducing me to patchstorage.

    Glad you like them!
    Make sure you also check (and maybe contribute?) the sections for Groove Rider, Mozaic and miRack.

    How I build them: I do all the sample preparation on MacOS.
    Sample editing: Ocenaudio
    Sample batch processing: sox (command line app)
    Building the instrument by choosing the samples that combine well inside a velocity layer and choosing samples for two or three velocity layers that combine well at different key velocities: Native Instroments Kontakt 3.5 (This old version saves to a format that can be read by other apps).
    Sample renaming to make them easier to import in Obsidian: A few command line scripts.

    That's about it. But it's the "high-end" way of doing it, you can also just drop your samples into a sample folder in NS2 and map and edit them there.

  • @tja said:

    @rms13 said:

    @anickt said:

    @gregsmith said:

    @wim said:

    @Turok said:
    Any news about audiotracks?

    None that I've seen, and I don't think I've missed anything. It's still top priority, but no estimate has been given nor is likely to be given. It'll be ready when it's ready.

    It’s coming just after Cubasis 4

    When audio tracks for NS2 come out they will be bulletproof just like the rest of the app. I’ll bet they will be here within the next couple months. Just a guess on my part so...

    Is it bulletproof? When I was using it a few months ago I could't render tracks that included several AUv3 that I own. It may be bulletproof if you are only using the native instruments and effects but I definitely didn't experience a bulletproof experience when trying to use third party stuff with it. The only way I could get tracks out was to load NS2 into AUM and record my output that way. I gave up on it and just have been working in AUM because of that

    There are lots of bad AU out, more so than IAA, i even feel.
    But it is getting slowly better.

    Anyway, many hosts have problems with this or that AU, see for example the many problems of Cubasis with the lenght of rendered audio.

    So maybe try to find the problematic plugins.

    But yes, NS2 seems to do less to work around the problems of AU units.
    But is that REALLY bad?

    I know which plug ins are the bad ones in NS2 and they work fine in both BM3 and AUM. There are clearly a lot of moving pieces as to why one plug in works fine in one host but not another. But every host has it's own problems and limitations. BM3 is almost unuseable for me even on my current generation iPad. If I have say 2 instances of Ruismaker, 2 Synthmaster One and one reverb, one delay on seperate AUX channels and a compressor on master in BM3 the entire interface locks up on me. Then I have to go record tracks to audio and delete the channels with the plug ins. That's easy enough but then if I decide to add another part from one of those instruments I have to load it back up and record that to audio. Then I run into the same performance issues on BM3 even when everything if rendered to audio if I have too many audio tracks in my project. AUM handles 10x the amount of plug ins but it lacks automation and some other basic features that would make it a DAW replacement. An iOS DAW that had an eloquent to freeze tracks like you can in desktop DAWs would be nice and of course if all hosts could handle all plug ins using the AUv3 that would be nice. As a consumer, the idea of having a standard like AUv3 means it works in every host that supports the AUv3 standard. But this is life trying to make music in iOS. It forces you to constantly rethink your workflow. In one sense that's very annoying and kills creative flow when you are trying to create something and then you have to find work arounds or switch apps/hosts/plug ins for different tasks. In other ways working within limitations forces you to be more creative

  • @rms13 said:

    @tja said:

    @rms13 said:

    @anickt said:

    @gregsmith said:

    @wim said:

    @Turok said:
    Any news about audiotracks?

    None that I've seen, and I don't think I've missed anything. It's still top priority, but no estimate has been given nor is likely to be given. It'll be ready when it's ready.

    It’s coming just after Cubasis 4

    When audio tracks for NS2 come out they will be bulletproof just like the rest of the app. I’ll bet they will be here within the next couple months. Just a guess on my part so...

    Is it bulletproof? When I was using it a few months ago I could't render tracks that included several AUv3 that I own. It may be bulletproof if you are only using the native instruments and effects but I definitely didn't experience a bulletproof experience when trying to use third party stuff with it. The only way I could get tracks out was to load NS2 into AUM and record my output that way. I gave up on it and just have been working in AUM because of that

    There are lots of bad AU out, more so than IAA, i even feel.
    But it is getting slowly better.

    Anyway, many hosts have problems with this or that AU, see for example the many problems of Cubasis with the lenght of rendered audio.

    So maybe try to find the problematic plugins.

    But yes, NS2 seems to do less to work around the problems of AU units.
    But is that REALLY bad?

    I know which plug ins are the bad ones in NS2 and they work fine in both BM3 and AUM. There are clearly a lot of moving pieces as to why one plug in works fine in one host but not another. But every host has it's own problems and limitations. BM3 is almost unuseable for me even on my current generation iPad. If I have say 2 instances of Ruismaker, 2 Synthmaster One and one reverb, one delay on seperate AUX channels and a compressor on master in BM3 the entire interface locks up on me. Then I have to go record tracks to audio and delete the channels with the plug ins. That's easy enough but then if I decide to add another part from one of those instruments I have to load it back up and record that to audio. Then I run into the same performance issues on BM3 even when everything if rendered to audio if I have too many audio tracks in my project. AUM handles 10x the amount of plug ins but it lacks automation and some other basic features that would make it a DAW replacement. An iOS DAW that had an eloquent to freeze tracks like you can in desktop DAWs would be nice and of course if all hosts could handle all plug ins using the AUv3 that would be nice. As a consumer, the idea of having a standard like AUv3 means it works in every host that supports the AUv3 standard. But this is life trying to make music in iOS. It forces you to constantly rethink your workflow. In one sense that's very annoying and kills creative flow when you are trying to create something and then you have to find work arounds or switch apps/hosts/plug ins for different tasks. In other ways working within limitations forces you to be more creative

    Zenbeats does the freezing thing very well

  • I’ve never had any problems rendering tracks in NS2, but I do have issues saving and loading songs if I use the “wrong” AUv3 plugins.

    I love NS2 and I’m not about to stop using it, but its biggest drawback for me is how many of my AUv3’s seem less reliable in NS2 than in other hosts. At this point, every time I buy a new AUv3 I’m taking the chance that I won’t be able to use it in NS2. Case in point, I just bought Bit Maestro; it works fine in AUM but in NS2 the preset browser is missing.

    It could well be the fault of the plugins, but then I have to wonder...what magic are those other hosts using to make the faulty AUv3’s work, and why can’t NS2 just apply that same magic?😁

  • @Shabudua said:
    I’ve never had any problems rendering tracks in NS2, but I do have issues saving and loading songs if I use the “wrong” AUv3 plugins.

    I love NS2 and I’m not about to stop using it, but its biggest drawback for me is how many of my AUv3’s seem less reliable in NS2 than in other hosts. At this point, every time I buy a new AUv3 I’m taking the chance that I won’t be able to use it in NS2. Case in point, I just bought Bit Maestro; it works fine in AUM but in NS2 the preset browser is missing.

    It could well be the fault of the plugins, but then I have to wonder...what magic are those other hosts using to make the faulty AUv3’s work, and why can’t NS2 just apply that same magic?😁

    The magic is probably the hard work of dealing with inconsistent and buggy implementations. I'm hoping that once the audio stuff is done, Marco will return to the (partial) AU3 implementation.

  • edited February 2020

    @Shabudua said:
    I’ve never had any problems rendering tracks in NS2, but I do have issues saving and loading songs if I use the “wrong” AUv3 plugins.

    I love NS2 and I’m not about to stop using it, but its biggest drawback for me is how many of my AUv3’s seem less reliable in NS2 than in other hosts. At this point, every time I buy a new AUv3 I’m taking the chance that I won’t be able to use it in NS2. Case in point, I just bought Bit Maestro; it works fine in AUM but in NS2 the preset browser is missing.

    It could well be the fault of the plugins, but then I have to wonder...what magic are those other hosts using to make the faulty AUv3’s work, and why can’t NS2 just apply that same magic?😁

    I’m not having that problem with Bit Maestro in NS2. 2017 iPad Pro 13”.

  • @Shabudua said:
    I’ve never had any problems rendering tracks in NS2, but I do have issues saving and loading songs if I use the “wrong” AUv3 plugins.

    I love NS2 and I’m not about to stop using it, but its biggest drawback for me is how many of my AUv3’s seem less reliable in NS2 than in other hosts. At this point, every time I buy a new AUv3 I’m taking the chance that I won’t be able to use it in NS2. Case in point, I just bought Bit Maestro; it works fine in AUM but in NS2 the preset browser is missing.

    It could well be the fault of the plugins, but then I have to wonder...what magic are those other hosts using to make the faulty AUv3’s work, and why can’t NS2 just apply that same magic?😁

    The "magic" is largely many, many workarounds in hosts. Some developers are more willing, and have more time, to implement workarounds for buggy plugins than others.

    I'm not saying that there aren't any bugs in NS2's AU hosting code. In fact, given that AU hosting seems to have been only somewhat begrudgingly added toward the end of development, rather than designed in from the start, I'm wouldn't be surprised at all. Add that the focus is on incorporating audio tracks, and NS2 is unfortunately only profitable enough to allow part-time work. I don't think there's going to be any great improvements in AUv3 support any time soon.

  • edited February 2020

    @wim said:

    @Shabudua said:
    I’ve never had any problems rendering tracks in NS2, but I do have issues saving and loading songs if I use the “wrong” AUv3 plugins.

    I love NS2 and I’m not about to stop using it, but its biggest drawback for me is how many of my AUv3’s seem less reliable in NS2 than in other hosts. At this point, every time I buy a new AUv3 I’m taking the chance that I won’t be able to use it in NS2. Case in point, I just bought Bit Maestro; it works fine in AUM but in NS2 the preset browser is missing.

    It could well be the fault of the plugins, but then I have to wonder...what magic are those other hosts using to make the faulty AUv3’s work, and why can’t NS2 just apply that same magic?😁

    The "magic" is largely many, many workarounds in hosts. Some developers are more willing, and have more time, to implement workarounds for buggy plugins than others.

    >

    If it really is sloppy coding in the plugins, I’d never hold Matt responsible for that, and I pity any dev who undertakes to work around another dev’s weaknesses. Sounds like a nightmarish job to me 😢

  • wimwim
    edited February 2020

    @Shabudua said:

    @wim said:

    @Shabudua said:
    I’ve never had any problems rendering tracks in NS2, but I do have issues saving and loading songs if I use the “wrong” AUv3 plugins.

    I love NS2 and I’m not about to stop using it, but its biggest drawback for me is how many of my AUv3’s seem less reliable in NS2 than in other hosts. At this point, every time I buy a new AUv3 I’m taking the chance that I won’t be able to use it in NS2. Case in point, I just bought Bit Maestro; it works fine in AUM but in NS2 the preset browser is missing.

    It could well be the fault of the plugins, but then I have to wonder...what magic are those other hosts using to make the faulty AUv3’s work, and why can’t NS2 just apply that same magic?😁

    The "magic" is largely many, many workarounds in hosts. Some developers are more willing, and have more time, to implement workarounds for buggy plugins than others.

    >

    If it really is sloppy coding in the plugins, I’d never hold Matt responsible for that, and I pity any dev who undertakes to work around another dev’s weaknesses. Sounds like a nightmarish job to me 😢

    You have no basis to say that. Of course it's possible that there are bugs in NS2 AU support! I'm sure Matt would agree with that statement.

    Matt is brilliant, and NS2 is brilliant. But AU wasn't his focus, was added late in development, the beta team was pretty inbred (I intend no insult with that term) with people who were very NS centric. Matt is an amazing developer, but AU support is way off his area of focus.

    That said ... I would never suggest any developer work around a known problem with any plugin. That just exacerbates the problem. But I seriously doubt that he's conclusively proven even to himself every issue is with misbehaving AUs themselves and not with NS2.

  • @wim said:

    @Shabudua said:

    @wim said:

    @Shabudua said:
    I’ve never had any problems rendering tracks in NS2, but I do have issues saving and loading songs if I use the “wrong” AUv3 plugins.

    I love NS2 and I’m not about to stop using it, but its biggest drawback for me is how many of my AUv3’s seem less reliable in NS2 than in other hosts. At this point, every time I buy a new AUv3 I’m taking the chance that I won’t be able to use it in NS2. Case in point, I just bought Bit Maestro; it works fine in AUM but in NS2 the preset browser is missing.

    It could well be the fault of the plugins, but then I have to wonder...what magic are those other hosts using to make the faulty AUv3’s work, and why can’t NS2 just apply that same magic?😁

    The "magic" is largely many, many workarounds in hosts. Some developers are more willing, and have more time, to implement workarounds for buggy plugins than others.

    >

    If it really is sloppy coding in the plugins, I’d never hold Matt responsible for that, and I pity any dev who undertakes to work around another dev’s weaknesses. Sounds like a nightmarish job to me 😢

    You have no basis to say that. Of course it's possible that there are bugs!

    Matt is brilliant, and NS2 is brilliant. But AU wasn't his focus, was added late in development, the beta team was pretty inbred with people who were NS centric. Matt is an amazing developer, but AU support is way off his area of focus.

    Dayum son, that's raw meat!

  • I do think that the dev should work out what’s happening with troublesome auv3s in NS2 that make it unable to save a project though.

    You can blame bugs on plugins up to a certain point but when your app can’t save that’s a huge problem.

    I’m not suggesting they should work around every plug in but I can’t understand why they let the app fail so badly when a plug in does misbehave.

    I’d prefer the app to post a message saying that they’ve discovered a naughty plugin and disable it rather than have a host app no longer functions at all.

  • wimwim
    edited February 2020

    @AudioGus said:
    Dayum son, that's raw meat!

    Maybe. But to confidently say that every AU issue is caused by plugins simply defies logic. I practically worship Matt, but no one is that perfect.

    Still, personally, I wouldn't lift a finger to work around confirmed AU bugs if I was a developer.

  • wimwim
    edited February 2020

    @klownshed said:
    I do think that the dev should work out what’s happening with troublesome auv3s in NS2 that make it unable to save a project though.

    Agreed, absolutely! Bulletproofing your own code so that other apps can't screw it up is fundamental. That includes gracefully handling anything that you allow to be used in your app can throw at it.

    You can blame bugs on plugins up to a certain point but when your app can’t save that’s a huge problem.

    Yes, it is.

    I’m not suggesting they should work around every plug in but I can’t understand why they let the app fail so badly when a plug in does misbehave.

    Time and priorities. For every one person seeing those issues there are probably dozens that are clamoring for audio tracks. And probably many of those are new paying customers. I know that sounds cynical, but there's only so much one person can afford to focus on.

    I’d prefer the app to post a message saying that they’ve discovered a naughty plugin and disable it rather than have a host app no longer functions at all.

    Yes. Absolutely.

  • Just wanna drop a quick shout, even though I know Matt won't see it here... but I spent my lunch break working on an iPad Air 1 using NS2 and a handful of AUv3s, CPU never went higher than about 55%. Air 1 is a freakin dog. But everything kept up nicely :)

  • edited March 2020

    For people wanting audio tracks in NS2, would MultiTrack Recorder do the job? I just saw this video demoing it.

  • wimwim
    edited March 2020

    @spacejack said:
    For people wanting audio tracks in NS2, would MultiTrack Recorder do the job? I just saw this video demoing it.

    Yes. It works very well.

    However, you can’t record external audio into it in NS2. You can record internal NS2 tracks to it, and you can load wav files saved on your device into it though. So, for instance, recording a guitar or voice needs to be done either in a different app or host, or in the standalone, then placed into the plugin in NS2.

    Also, since the timeline view of the clips is only in the app, you don’t have visibility of the clips showing in the NS2 timeline. A workaround for this is to place named empty clips in the timeline to represent where the audio is, if you need to be able to see it in the timeline.

    I hope that makes sense. It’s kind of hard to explain all that.

  • NS2 It's definitely my favorite DAW on ios and I really hope to see audio tracks and MIDI sync in/out in the next months.

  • edited March 2020

    @bresk said:
    NS2 It's definitely my favorite DAW on ios and I really hope to see audio tracks and MIDI sync in/out in the next months.

    I know audio tracks are on the roadmap but has midi sync ever been confirmed?

  • @wim said:

    @spacejack said:
    For people wanting audio tracks in NS2, would MultiTrack Recorder do the job? I just saw this video demoing it.

    Yes. It works very well.

    However, you can’t record external audio into it in NS2. You can record internal NS2 tracks to it, and you can load wav files saved on your device into it though. So, for instance, recording a guitar or voice needs to be done either in a different app or host, or in the standalone, then placed into the plugin in NS2.

    Also, since the timeline view of the clips is only in the app, you don’t have visibility of the clips showing in the NS2 timeline. A workaround for this is to place named empty clips in the timeline to represent where the audio is, if you need to be able to see it in the timeline.

    I hope that makes sense. It’s kind of hard to explain all that.

    Thanks. I was hoping to be able to use it with an AUv3 like Bias FX but maybe not? The video I linked showed it recording audio from PureSynth being used as an AUv3 so I thought I'd be able to swap out PureSynth for Bias FX, which would in turn be using the audio input.

  • @spacejack said:

    @wim said:

    @spacejack said:
    For people wanting audio tracks in NS2, would MultiTrack Recorder do the job? I just saw this video demoing it.

    Yes. It works very well.

    However, you can’t record external audio into it in NS2. You can record internal NS2 tracks to it, and you can load wav files saved on your device into it though. So, for instance, recording a guitar or voice needs to be done either in a different app or host, or in the standalone, then placed into the plugin in NS2.

    Also, since the timeline view of the clips is only in the app, you don’t have visibility of the clips showing in the NS2 timeline. A workaround for this is to place named empty clips in the timeline to represent where the audio is, if you need to be able to see it in the timeline.

    I hope that makes sense. It’s kind of hard to explain all that.

    Thanks. I was hoping to be able to use it with an AUv3 like Bias FX but maybe not? The video I linked showed it recording audio from PureSynth being used as an AUv3 so I thought I'd be able to swap out PureSynth for Bias FX, which would in turn be using the audio input.

    The external audio from Cubasis that Doug uses at the beginning of the video is imported from the files app, not recorded into MultiTrack from an external input.

    Next, he plays PureSynth and records that audio. However, PureSynth is hosted inside NS2, so that’s not a problem. NS can do that without issue.

    However, Bias FX is an IAA app, not an AU, so it can’t be hosted in NS2. So swapping out Bias FX for PureSynth isn’t an option.

    So, that would leave loading Bias into Audiobus or AUM and outputting the audio to NS2. However, that won’t work. NS2 doesn’t have any way to get audio from outside to an FX plugin.

    What you’re left with is the need either to record your audio outside of NS2, then to put that audio file into MultiTrack, or to record into MultiTrack in another host, then move the samples from MultiTrack’s pool into the song in NS2.

    I know, it’s confusing, but the bottom line is ... the only way to get outside audio to MultiTrack inside NS2 is to record it outside of NS2.

  • @wim said:

    However, Bias FX is an IAA app, not an AU, so it can’t be hosted in NS2. So swapping out Bias FX for PureSynth isn’t an option.

    Oh it's not! Haha, okay. Thanks again for the detailed explanation. I'm planning to set up a jam with a guitar player friend so that he only has to bring his guitar (me playing a keyboard.) I really like NS2 but I think we'll probably have to go with Garage Band, or maybe just run Bias FX and something like iGrand at the same time and not worry about recording.

  • All you need is AudioShare or AUM to be able to record to your hearts’ content. GarageBand will work too.

  • All NS2 heads inside the place - I see the BLEASS apps are on special and I’m particularly interested in Sidekick - but I’m wondering if I’ll be able to route this correctly in NS2? I’m not too sure how to go about testing it - I have a couple of FAC plugs that are multi out but how would I set this up exactly? The combination of kick designer and sidechain ducker sounds a lot more fun than doing it the (albeit simple) manual way!

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