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.
Apollo MIDI over Bluetooth -- free for a limited time, and a Music IO Windows VST update
FYI -- lots of stuff happening at the 'base, and with my partners in the Music IO project.
We're making Apollo MIDI over Bluetooth free for a bit. This lets you send MIDI over BTLE between a pair of iOS devices, or iOS and a Mac. Unlike Apple's version, we support iOS 6-8, and OS X 10.7 and up. Apple came out about a year after we were on the market. IMO, Apollo is easier to use. If you've got a couple of iOS devices, you can use one to control the other (like, you know, some other new app that just came out ;-) ).
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apollo-midi-over-bluetooth/id720942905?mt=8
On the Music IO front -- there's an update to the Windows VST, with added support for sample rates other than 44.1khz. It should also be fairly stable -- we're still calling it a beta, but the primary thing we've been focused on is figuring out all the weirdities of the different Windows DAWs (and some of them are really weird). It seems stable on all versions of Windows we've tested, except XP -- and that may be possible to wrangle too. There will be more Music IO news in the next few weeks.
http://www.musicioapp.com
The MIDI-only version of Music IO is still free, and we're hoping to integrate some cool stuff into the Windows build very shortly.
Apollo Sound Injector and Apollo Remote Recorder should be updating to the latest Audiobus libraries in the next couple of days. I'll give a shout when those drop.
And also in the next few days, expect Stompwatch -- this is a MIDI pedal board type of app, sort of like an FCB1010, except a heck of a lot lighter, and it doesn't need external power. Ten pages, each with ten pads. Each page can be configured to send MIDI to an arbitrary set of destinations. Each pad can send MIDI PC, CC, a note, or a chord. You can trigger the pads by tapping on the screen, with a Bluetooth (QWERTY) keyboard (assuming the app is in the foreground), the Apple Watch, or with Audiobus Remote. Should be a handy way to control all sorts of remote gear that responds to MIDI.
But wait, there's more! Next two weeks should bring a major reboot of an app I took off the market a couple of years ago. It's gonna be back, baby, and better than ever!
So far, this summer has gone really well. Lots of fun hacking projects.
Comments
Thanks, apollo is my indispensable go-to connector, and musicIO is very straightforward and solid.
Free app, stompwatch, & major reboot!? I can't wait!
Has normal service resumed with bluetooth iOS to Mac OSX, because it was hit and miss last time I tried, but that was a while ago, in the interim I had to resort to wi-fi?
For Apollo MoB, things can still be flaky with OS X (particularly with USB Bluetooth adapters). To geek out for a minute.... What seems to be happening is that for some Bluetooth chip sets on OS X, the operating system saves some connection information the first time it establishes a link with a new Bluetooth peripheral device. Think of it as "pairing," in a very limited sense. And then.... this information gets corrupted some how (only seems to happen with some Bluetooth adapters). Once it's corrupted, it will not connect again.
The result of the glitch is that one side of the connection thinks everything is hunky dory, and the other side is convinced that there's no connection at all. Super annoying.
On one of my development machines, I could install OS X from scratch -- totally blank the machine, make a fresh install. And then either Apple's MIDI over Bluetooth, or Apollo, could connect once and only once. First connection works like a champ, MIDI cruises across, all is right with the world. Shut down the connection, and then it will not restart again. The only solution was to blank the machine entirely, and then we're good again. For one and only one connection. Apple has been doing a lot of work on their Bluetooth code -- it really has been changing a lot, if you look at the APIs that come with iOS and OS X. It's been a moving target. I took a little bit of comfort in seeing Apple's MoB fail in the same way as Apollo -- so it wasn't just me -- but that doesn't help people trying to get MIDI working.
The new OS X version of Apollo may be better for some machines. On some versions of OS X, if the connection fails the first time; I can get it to connect by clicking the "disconnect" button on the Mac, and then trying to connect again. I'm dancing around some weirdness in the OS X library, and that seems to help.
Between iOS devices, things seem pretty stable. I've got one iPad where I sometimes it will think there's a connection, but the other side doesn't see it. Solution is to tell the iPad to disconnect, and then retry. Once the connection is established, it stays up without trouble.
For connecting to a Mac, though -- I'd recommend Music IO. It's free for the MIDI part, and faster than Bluetooth. We've been putting more energy into that (it's been exhausting dealing with the shifts in Apple Bluetooth APIs).
'expect Stompwatch -- this is a MIDI pedal board type of app, sort of like an FCB1010, except a heck of a lot lighter, and it doesn't need external power'
^^ This sure does look interesting!
audio over wifi VST still don't work in Live as well as FL Studio