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.

Do you have nanokey studio? Is it good?

Hi, anyone has it? How is the quality?
Is it handy and quick beeing a bluetooth device?

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Comments

  • For the price it’s excellent. If you’re primarily a keyboard player you wouldn’t consider this to begin with.

    The only real drawback is that the editor software doesn’t run on iOS.

    Regarding build quality, mine has travelled with me to three continents over the last three years and works like on day one.

  • edited January 2021

    I have it. Mixed feelings about it.
    It’s quick as a Bluetooth device (you do need a little app called BLE-midi to start it) and very stable.
    Super light but sturdy enough, great to carry around.
    The lights are cool.
    Impressive functionality for the price/size. Arpegiator, scale modes, drum pads, x/y pad, chords, knobs.

    Things I don’t like:

    • no midi channel switcher. You need to set up scenes for diff midi channels but (see next)
    • Need a pc/Mac to edit the mappings, there’s no way to do it from an iPad.
    • I’m shit at playing piano, and these plasticky keys make me feel like I’m even worse.
    • I wish it had a tiny display of sorts, probably omitted for costs. The arpegiator and specially the scale modes are hard to figure out without one, without a reference it’s hard to know where you’re at. So you probably need a little printed sheet (the one you lost).
    • Wish it had transport buttons (need nanokontrol studio for that)

    I’d ask your same question about nano Kontrol studio, don’t know how useful it’d be.

    Hope it helps!

    Edit: After reading my own post I checked the Novation Launch key mini, which looks great and has more comprehensive keys plus transport, but no Bluetooth. I think Bluetooth is a must for these small devices, no need for usb-c dongles ...
    what nanokey studio Bluetooth aleternatives are out there?

  • From the connectivity and portability perspectives it is absolutely unbeatable. That’s where it ends for me though. Clicky keys are not great but for me better than qunexus solution. The pads didn’t send full velocity range on mine. It would go from 40 to 127 which was annoying for me at the time I was testing Drambo because very light sounds wouldn’t trigger.

    I sometimes think of buying one again when I see them on eBay but when I travel I end up using iPad’s screen and when I’m home I have better controllers.

    Still, gadget integration is cool albeit you can achieve that with any controller with a bit of midi learning.

  • @supadom said:
    From the connectivity and portability perspectives it is absolutely unbeatable. That’s where it ends for me though. Clicky keys are not great but for me better than qunexus solution. The pads didn’t send full velocity range on mine. It would go from 40 to 127 which was annoying for me at the time I was testing Drambo because very light sounds wouldn’t trigger.

    I sometimes think of buying one again when I see them on eBay but when I travel I end up using iPad’s screen and when I’m home I have better controllers.

    Still, gadget integration is cool albeit you can achieve that with any controller with a bit of midi learning.

    Youre using novation sl right? I would really like to hear more hows it doing. With gadget/drambo

  • @yonhorizon said:

    @supadom said:
    From the connectivity and portability perspectives it is absolutely unbeatable. That’s where it ends for me though. Clicky keys are not great but for me better than qunexus solution. The pads didn’t send full velocity range on mine. It would go from 40 to 127 which was annoying for me at the time I was testing Drambo because very light sounds wouldn’t trigger.

    I sometimes think of buying one again when I see them on eBay but when I travel I end up using iPad’s screen and when I’m home I have better controllers.

    Still, gadget integration is cool albeit you can achieve that with any controller with a bit of midi learning.

    Youre using novation sl right? I would really like to hear more hows it doing. With gadget/drambo

    I have two rigs. One is based Novation launchkey mini mk1 and the bigger one on Novation remote 25 sl mk 1. I find it very good for Drambo. It has everything is logically organised in sets of 8, like Drambo tracks. It has templates and each template can be assigned to a button allowing for instant recall. A template has its own settings inc midi channel which I find very useful.
    This is the old Novation paradigm where they allow user for as much flexibility as possible. Another great thing is that you can edit templates from the unit itself. Ah, did I mention aftertouch on the keyboard? X/Y pad is a cherry on top.

    They are very cheap on eBay so you could just get it to try and sell it on if you don’t like it. They’re definitely stationary units, much bigger than nanokey but I guess that’s a completely different paradigm.

  • @yonhorizon Korg nanoKeyStudio is the best multi-performance controller for iOS. You have a keyboard, you have a Kaosilator pad and you have drum performance pads. There is also a REAL arppegiator and gate based arp. So this is a sequencer or sorts. If you get the Key Studio it is HIGHLY encouraged that you do get the Kontrol Studio as they both work hand in hand. As one commentor posted, there is no way to choose what channel your keyboard is on. The last thing you want to have is Korg Gadget installed on your device. Even if you have no plans to buy other gadgets (or IAP) there is this one gadget called Taipei that allows your to send midi directly to your channels in AUM or your DAW.

    The biggest let down in this amazing package is that Korg has not made an iOS app to help edit all of the midi control options. There are a lot of them. This was a dumb over site for one reason and one reason only; Kontrol Studio and Key Studio were released as midi controllers for iOS.

    These controllers “natively” were designed exclusively for Korg Gadget. And thanks to a new update to Electribe Wave these controllers can natively work with that iOS app as well.

    You can literally run Electribe Wave or Korg Gadget from these controllers without looking at your iPad.

    These controllers have BlueTooth...don’t waste your time with that, just go direct.

    I have had used the nanoKey Studio and nanoKontrol Studio for 3 years now. They are great controllers for iOS. It’s because they were designed for iOS.

  • I have one, use it all the time. I'm a piano player, and I don't like playing the glass (on virtual keyboards - Samplr et al are a different matter), so this is perfect. It's travelled thousands of miles with me, it never fails to connect, and it's nice to twiddle real knobs to change parameters. I've never used the kaoss pad or the sequencer, and, like @supadom, I've had no joy with the drum pads, but it does what it does really well, and the battery lasts a long time.
    The fact that it's bluetooth (with no latency I can detect) is a huge deal. It's makes the ipad feel like a real instrument.

  • Functionality, weight, size, the nanokey studio should be great. But I admit like others I find the weird clacky keys totally uninspiring, and the nanokey stays in a drawer. A shame, cos the drum pads, knobs, xy pad are all really nice.

    Curiously the OP1 keys are equally weird in their own way, but it’s great fun to play. Maybe it’s amazing craftsmanship, but it could also be fear of disappointing my wife who got me the OP1 for christmas. :)

  • It's a very practical unit. It's super light weight and portable. The keys are what they are, some like them some hate them. I personally don't mind them, they are usable enough and when you need velocity they beat the iPad screen.

    It's feature packed with 8 knobs, 8 pads, 25 keys, a multi-functional XY pad, arp, chords, scales, 8 scene memories, bluetooth(!). It works great with Gadget.

    What I'd like to have is the option to turn off velocity from the unit when I don't need it, or at least to be able to set the velocity response per scene instead of globally and also to select the MIDI channel from the device (something I really like in Arturia's Keystep). Luckily MIDI channels are memorized per scene so you can set a different channel per scene (and even per controller) and have access to 8 of them. An iOS editor would be awesome, but that's not happening.

    Also, worth mentioning is that the knobs MIDI resolution is 64 steps instead of the standard 128. I didn't find it problematic in real use though.

    I think the practicality of the unit outweighs it's few shortcomings, I use it quite often and I never regretted purchasing it.

  • Best pair for iOS synth. I’m using nano key studio with LPX without having any problems. But it’s up to korg whether they support iOS 15>.. bcoz Support for iOS 13 got huge delay

  • Very helpful info here for prospective buyers of the Nanokey Studio.

    Question: having little use for the pads of the arp/etc buttons below (in theory, we’ll see), can they be programmed in the editor to send MIDI CC? Use case: Gauss.

    Thanks.

  • @zilld2017 said:
    Very helpful info here for prospective buyers of the Nanokey Studio.

    Question: having little use for the pads of the arp/etc buttons below (in theory, we’ll see), can they be programmed in the editor to send MIDI CC? Use case: Gauss.

    Thanks.

    Yepp, you can assign anything to the pads, notes, cc's etc.
    (The buttons bellow the pads can however not be re-assigned).

    Even when you assign stuff to the pads their core functions remain when holding down shift and tapping the pads.

    What I like about the default config on the nanoKey Studio is that each of the 8 scenes have unique CC's assigned to the knobs so you can treat it like 'app scenes' when mapping knobs in apps. (scene 1 = app1, scene 2, app2 etc.).

    The Gadget integration is top-notch where it just works.

  • Mine is just mapped to a bass synth. In case you remix euclidean drum patterns elsewhere. You would need the bass man as ready as the drummer. Can use drambo to clear sequences by mapping pads to drambo.

    Maybe nanokey would be ok for koala also.

  • I have one and I really like it.
    One issue is that the resolution on the knobs is low. It only has 64 steps. So you have to keep that in mind if you need to make super slow knob tweaking.

  • @Lorichs said:
    I have one and I really like it.
    One issue is that the resolution on the knobs is low. It only has 64 steps. So you have to keep that in mind if you need to make super slow knob tweaking.

    And the funny thing if you go from max to min you get the odd steps starting at 127 :sunglasses:

  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • edited October 2021

    Have one and liked it alright until the upper-left most key and bottom left key quit sending out midi information. They were working half the time until I popped the keys off and cleaned them with a q-tip and tiny bit of alcohol and let it dry.

    Anyone successfully performed surgery on the keys?

  • Thank you to all for the info. I could see how the low-resolution knobs might be an issue, but…might there be an app solution that could smooth out the “jumps”? (Midiflow, perhaps?) Will check that out and report back if I can find one.

  • wimwim
    edited October 2021

    @zilld2017 said:
    Thank you to all for the info. I could see how the low-resolution knobs might be an issue, but…might there be an app solution that could smooth out the “jumps”? (Midiflow, perhaps?) Will check that out and report back if I can find one.

    Most, though not all, apps should have their own smoothing. I don't often audibly notice any jumps with the NKS. It's more that you can't select the values that are missing. An app can't help with that part.

    I can't honestly say it's ever been an issue for me other than that it bugs me having something be limited like that.

  • Do any of you use the scale modes?. I have to look up the manual every time.

  • @wim said:

    @zilld2017 said:

    I can't honestly say it's ever been an issue for me other than that it bugs me having something be limited like that.

    Good to have that assurance. Thanks.

  • wimwim
    edited October 2021

    @tahiche said:
    Do any of you use the scale modes?. I have to look up the manual every time.

    Same. Because I have to look it up, and because it's so annoying to use two hands to get to the scale I want, I rarely use it.

    I think I would use the Scale Guide for practicing purposes if you could also set a root note. As it is, I don't see any point in practicing scale fingerings with just C as the root.

    It's OK for just banging around on the "white" keys with Easy Scale, I suppose.

  • wimwim
    edited October 2021

    In general, I find that if I think of the NKS in terms of how disappointing the implementation of its extra features are, I'm pretty dissatisfied.

    But if I just think of it as a handy keyboard, pads, and knobs (I never use the XY pad), then I'm perfectly fine with it. It's my most used controller.

  • @Model10000 said:
    Have one and liked it alright until the upper-left most key and bottom left key quit sending out midi information. They were working half the time until I popped the keys off and cleaned them with a q-tip and tiny bit of alcohol and let it dry.

    Anyone successfully performed surgery on the keys?

    Added plastic. Still need to dust though. Sometimes I think my eyes are foggy. Or theres smoke in my room.

  • Vaccum packed

  • @wim said:

    In general, I find that if I think of the NKS in terms of how disappointing the implementation of its extra features are, I'm pretty dissatisfied.

    But if I just think of it as a handy keyboard, pads, and knobs (I never use the XY pad), then I'm perfectly fine with it. It's my most used controller.

    Got the x/y to work with elastic drums. Maybe it might map to spectrum/granular.

  • @sigma79 said:
    Got the x/y to work with elastic drums. Maybe it might map to spectrum/granular.

    Making it work ain't the problem. It's just glitchy and not all that useful IMO.

  • @wim said:

    @sigma79 said:
    Got the x/y to work with elastic drums. Maybe it might map to spectrum/granular.

    Making it work ain't the problem. It's just glitchy and not all that useful IMO.

    Thats what I thought/heard. Seemed kind of ok. With elastic drums. Stutter selection ( just reversed polarity ) but didnt really test much before relegating app.

  • edited October 2021

    @tahiche said:
    I have it. Mixed feelings about it.

    SNIP

    • Need a pc/Mac to edit the mappings, there’s no way to do it from an iPad.

    SNIP

    I stopped at this. This is excellent observation! We have year 2021. The history of iPad is enough long just to have opportunity to edit mappings of our small devices with iOS, or iPadOS. Hands down.
    Sounds like rant. Sorry.
    VG

  • @VoytecG said:
    Sounds like rant. Sorry.

    Totally justified rant. Any controller that you have to plug into a desktop just to change midi channel** is just plain dumb IMO. I will never buy another controller that you can’t change midi channel on board.

    ** Yes, I know you can assign different channels for each of the eight scenes and change that way, but I prefer to use those scenes for other functions.

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