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.

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

AUM for Mac?

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Comments

  • I don’t use Mac, but I think it is 100% reasonable to pay for a desktop version of a mobile app. ToneBoosters, Steinberg, FL, Audio Damage, and FabFilter are all pretty big names and they all have this same model.

  • Definitely interested and very timely. I’m about to buy a M1 Mac Mini. Have been looking for something lightweight to run plugins while being sequenced externally (Cirklon). AUM would be perfect.

  • What she said:

    @Svetlovska said:
    It wouldn’t ever become my first port of call as the whole point of AUM on iPad for me is the flow of the touchscreen with all the apps I have. It might be useful as an adjunct, allowing me to port over workflows from an AUM session for the rare occasions these days that I need to work on something further in Ableton, but honestly, I can see the problem being that even if AUM ports, all the apps it is hosting won’t, which kind of renders the point of it moot.

    Personally, I’d much rather see some minimal native timeline and automation features added (even as optional IAP) to iPad AUM over anything to do with Mac.

  • I probably wouldn't use a mac version, but I don't use a mac version of anything anymore.

    My question is what features would it have that wouldn't (or are not currently) in the iOS version? Or would "trickle down" to the iOS version?

    I voted neither, but you left this option off of the poll:

    • I'd rather re-buy AUM2 on iOS with those things that are "in the works"

    Here's my 2 cents you didn't ask for:

    You have an EXTREMELY dedicated userbase. A userbase that, for the most part, does not want to go back to a desktop/mouse/keyboard environment, but there are things they do miss from the desktop world. You'd make far more people happier improving the software that people already are dedicated to. My gut tells me you'd have an ridiculously high percentage of return customers that already purchased AUM if only some of what would be expected in a desktop version show up in iOS.

    AUM is one of those less-than-a-handful-of-apps people champion when asked "why iPads?". So my vote in the poll is the write in above. This forum (and probably your email box, voicemail, and text messages too) is a giant catalog of suggestions and feature requests.

    I can only assume that most of your user base would like to see some of those bigger desktop items that are missing. From things like Mackie MCU support, controller scripts/two way midi communication, and receive midi clock (yeah, we know how strongly you feel about that one), down to the smallest requests like snapshots, collapsible channel groups, or midi mappable book marks.

    Personally, it seems AUM was crafted specifically for the space it used in, not an app that is wedged into a platform to run it, which is what it would seem like to me on a desktop. I'd rather see you take this already great thing and turn it into some real next level shit. We all know you're more than capable of doing it.

    (sorry my 2 cents turned into all of that, but i tend to work pretty cheap. cheaper than i know i should)

  • edited November 2021

    Sometimes I just want to use my laptop as a sound module and effects processor, like how I use my iPad with external hardware sequencers, so AUM for Mac would be a nice and reliable friendly face.

    For me, the simple VST hosts on Windows are lacking in a lot of areas, or unreliable, and DAWs are usually overkill, so I'd buy it when I buy a Mac. (The synced recording feature in AUM is great.)

    Separate purchase for Mac would be fine by me. Multithreading would be a must though. Maybe MIDI Clock sync, and latency compensation, for the hardware folks. 🙂

  • edited November 2021

    Hell yes. The MIDI matrix in Aum is so much more intuitive than trying to route with the same complexity in Ableton or Bitwig. Hell, you can’t even route multi-midi from a plugin to another plugin at all in Ableton.
    The only criteria I have is that it it’d need to be compatible with VST/2/3 to be worthwhile for me personally.

  • Others have made the important point that the burden of development would likely take away from the development on IOS. I’d also like to see some improvements on IOS before it moves to Mac. Most importantly, I still wish to be able to group and fold tracks, and for more tracks to be visible at once. (Built in MIDI FX would be welcome as well, similar to the currently built in audio FX.)

    But either way, if this comes to Mac I would buy it.

  • I would have some use for it on Mac for sure but not enough to make me buy it probably. 🙃

  • edited November 2021

    For me personally it would not be useful as I am making music on my iPad only. I can fully understand that you go into this because I think the fun of developing is a mighty driver. If you ask me from my user perspective I would prefer if you would implement a multi threaded audio processing that scales well across the high performance cores. I think all MacOS DAWs including MainStage made their homework and have such an audio engine in place. A port of AUM to MacOS as it is would probably mean that you can run just a fraction of the number of plugins that you can run in the Mac DAWs. Correct me if I’m wrong but that is my assumption.

  • I would pay for it but only once enough other apps are also working on Mac. To be able to work on the same AUM project on iPhone, iPad and Mac would be an absolute dream!

  • ipad -korg gadget 2 (sale 25 $) (Russia)
    macbook - mainstage 38$
    AUM- 26 $ I refused to buy
    average income in Russia 350-500 dollars per month

  • @artin said:
    ipad -korg gadget 2 (sale 25 $) (Russia)
    macbook - mainstage 38$
    AUM- 26 $ I refused to buy
    average income in Russia 350-500 dollars per month

    So you purchased both an ipad and a MacBook, but when AUM costs 26usd then "Russia". 👌

  • I think it's absolutely reasonable to make the Mac version a separate purchase.
    I'm not sure I have much use for a Mac version though. When I'm on the Mac I have a different workflow and like to work with a timeline. And if I should only need a plugin rack Ableton and Reason already got me covered.

  • TBH I’d buy it just for MIDI routing

  • @j_liljedahl I've been thinking about this and that I'm always surprised how well my brain copes with the amount of off-screen channels I have in an AUM session, how a quick swipe either way is enough to navigate without losing track of what's going on. I guess that wouldn't be possible on a desktop without some laborious mouse work? However, there would be a lot more screen available. Would it be possible to have it vertically stacked as an option, i.e. 12 channels top and another 12 channels bottom? That would definitely have me tempted into using on a Mac.

  • edited November 2021

    @j_liljedahl if you could make it so that the Desktop version of AUM paired with the iOS version would allow MultiTrack streaming between the 2 devices over a Cable as a key feature…in addition to all the wonderful routing we love about AUM…well that would be a key feature and a way to replace a few audio interfaces.

    I wonder also if you could somehow treat AUM iOS as an aggregate device on the Mac so AUM macOS could take advantage of AUM and any audio interface hooked up to the iPad as an interface.

    AUM would then be best multitrack mixer on any platform and an app so many more musicians would use for their setups.

    Thanks for letting me dream a little 👊🏼™️

    My wallet is open and ready to pay for AUM on macOS with hopefully such a killer feature 😉

  • @echoopera said:
    @j_liljedahl if you could make it so that the Desktop version of AUM paired with the iOS version would allow MultiTrack streaming between the 2 devices over a Cable as a key feature…in addition to all the wonderful routing we love about AUM…well that would be a key feature and a way to replace a few audio interfaces.

    I wonder also if you could somehow treat AUM iOS as an aggregate device on the Mac so AUM macOS could take advantage of AUM and any audio interface hooked up to the iPad as an interface.

    AUM would then be best multitrack mixer on any platform and an app so many more musicians would use for their setups.

    Thanks for letting me dream a little 👊🏼™️

    My wallet is open and ready to pay for AUM on macOS with hopefully such a killer feature 😉

    Those would of course be awesome features, but huge work and currently I have no idea how to make that happen. It would mean re-inventing IDAM or Studiomux.

  • @steve99 said:
    @j_liljedahl I've been thinking about this and that I'm always surprised how well my brain copes with the amount of off-screen channels I have in an AUM session, how a quick swipe either way is enough to navigate without losing track of what's going on. I guess that wouldn't be possible on a desktop without some laborious mouse work? However, there would be a lot more screen available. Would it be possible to have it vertically stacked as an option, i.e. 12 channels top and another 12 channels bottom? That would definitely have me tempted into using on a Mac.

    That's an interesting idea. Maybe this would make sense also on 12.9" iPads?

    I guess they would be laid out like this then?

    1 3 5
    2 4 6
    
  • @echoopera said:
    @j_liljedahl if you could make it so that the Desktop version of AUM paired with the iOS version would allow MultiTrack streaming between the 2 devices over a Cable as a key feature…in addition to all the wonderful routing we love about AUM…well that would be a key feature and a way to replace a few audio interfaces.

    I wonder also if you could somehow treat AUM iOS as an aggregate device on the Mac so AUM macOS could take advantage of AUM and any audio interface hooked up to the iPad as an interface.

    AUM would then be best multitrack mixer on any platform and an app so many more musicians would use for their setups.

    Thanks for letting me dream a little 👊🏼™️

    My wallet is open and ready to pay for AUM on macOS with hopefully such a killer feature 😉

    While we are in dreamland…
    StudioMux/iDAM type functionality would be convenient to have in AUM as would internal audio routing, e.g. have a separate AUM audio route plugin which you could add to an effects chain inside a DAW to route audio from inside one app to the main AUM session as just another bus. Similar to SonoBus but specifically made for local bussing. You could then demux NS2 tracks as separate AUM lanes, or route audio in and out of Zenbeats, for example.

    Continuing in dreamland…
    On the Mac being able to add any app as an audio input would be cool. I have my eye on RogueAmoeba Loopback which seems to be the best audio routing solution on the Mac at the moment but having this inside AUM would be useful. A lot of work though I expect as Loopback needs to install some kind of kernel level code to work.

  • edited November 2021

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @steve99 said:
    @j_liljedahl I've been thinking about this and that I'm always surprised how well my brain copes with the amount of off-screen channels I have in an AUM session, how a quick swipe either way is enough to navigate without losing track of what's going on. I guess that wouldn't be possible on a desktop without some laborious mouse work? However, there would be a lot more screen available. Would it be possible to have it vertically stacked as an option, i.e. 12 channels top and another 12 channels bottom? That would definitely have me tempted into using on a Mac.

    That's an interesting idea. Maybe this would make sense also on 12.9" iPads?

    I guess they would be laid out like this then?

    1 3 5
    2 4 6
    

    For me more:

    1 2 3
    4 5 6

    then I'd have all my instruments top row with midi / buses / audio inputs bottom row - perhaps user configurable is the answer? As others have already said, thanks for letting us dream.

    EDIT - and yes, I'd be up for testing this if you wanted it evaluated on a 12.9 iPad. I rarely need a long throw on the volume faders, though I guess I do tend to stack up quite a few FX nodes on each channel.

  • edited November 2021

    I'd buy Mac AUM for the MIDI Matrix alone.

    I currently use MIDIFire for MIDI routing on desktop. It's great. But I'm not sure if Nic will be supporting it much into the future.

    If I can do all the scripting with the StreamByter AU within Mac AUM then it'd be great to have those two as options.

  • edited November 2021

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @echoopera said:
    @j_liljedahl if you could make it so that the Desktop version of AUM paired with the iOS version would allow MultiTrack streaming between the 2 devices over a Cable as a key feature…in addition to all the wonderful routing we love about AUM…well that would be a key feature and a way to replace a few audio interfaces.

    I wonder also if you could somehow treat AUM iOS as an aggregate device on the Mac so AUM macOS could take advantage of AUM and any audio interface hooked up to the iPad as an interface.

    AUM would then be best multitrack mixer on any platform and an app so many more musicians would use for their setups.

    Thanks for letting me dream a little 👊🏼™️

    My wallet is open and ready to pay for AUM on macOS with hopefully such a killer feature 😉

    Those would of course be awesome features, but huge work and currently I have no idea how to make that happen. It would mean re-inventing IDAM or Studiomux.

    Or have a close peek at iConnectivity‘s solution... which is (still) the only one that reliably transmits bidirectional streams without any extra configuration over a USB line ;)
    You just set the number of send/receive channels (any mixture as long as the sum doesn‘t exceed 20 mono or 10 stereo).

    My suggestion would be similiar to the one above: not a a full AUM on Mac but a remote node of the iPad app.
    The iConnectivity solution probably works so well because it‘s based on a certain USB Codec.
    I‘d expect a general approach way more challenging.

  • I for sure would only want to use aum mac version in the short term if it supported AU and Vst etc. But also, I think in the long term more auv3 apps are going to be cross platform between ios and mac, in which case the usefulness of aum mac would continue to increase. I'm curious to hear more about your vision @j_liljedahl of what would be special about aum on mac. It does seem like to be as effective as it is on ios, it needs to be hub for all kinds of audio plugins/apps on desktop, or a hub that better bridges ipad and mac. But in general, im very positive about the idea! and would purchase for sure

  • I think a VST would be cool, which would automatically save and load my AUM project alongside to my daw project. This would make the integration into the desktop way more flexible and convenient!

  • @steve99 said:

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @steve99 said:
    @j_liljedahl I've been thinking about this and that I'm always surprised how well my brain copes with the amount of off-screen channels I have in an AUM session, how a quick swipe either way is enough to navigate without losing track of what's going on. I guess that wouldn't be possible on a desktop without some laborious mouse work? However, there would be a lot more screen available. Would it be possible to have it vertically stacked as an option, i.e. 12 channels top and another 12 channels bottom? That would definitely have me tempted into using on a Mac.

    That's an interesting idea. Maybe this would make sense also on 12.9" iPads?

    I guess they would be laid out like this then?

    1 3 5
    2 4 6
    

    For me more:

    1 2 3
    4 5 6

    Hmm, then what happens when you scroll?

  • edited November 2021

    @sloJordan said:
    I for sure would only want to use aum mac version in the short term if it supported AU and Vst etc. But also, I think in the long term more auv3 apps are going to be cross platform between ios and mac, in which case the usefulness of aum mac would continue to increase. I'm curious to hear more about your vision @j_liljedahl of what would be special about aum on mac. It does seem like to be as effective as it is on ios, it needs to be hub for all kinds of audio plugins/apps on desktop, or a hub that better bridges ipad and mac. But in general, im very positive about the idea! and would purchase for sure

    Yes, the ideal is full support for CoreAudio on mac, and native mac AUs and VSTs, just like in any other host on mac.

    Also it would not be limited to Apple Silicon, but would run on both intel and M1 machines.

  • I think it’s cool and I’d buy it… but I wouldn't want it to take too much time away from further developing the iOS version. I want this AUM baby to grow still…AUMnipotent

  • If VST and AU full support are possible, would definitely buy!

  • If all (or many of/the important [to me, lol] the great iOS audio and midi plugins are eventually available on Mac as well, I suppose I indeed would. But I don’t have an apple silicon Mac, and have no idea what’s available, what needs to be purchased twice, price differences, etc. But I’ve surely thought to myself ‘it would be great to have (some iOS only instrument) going through (xyz iOS only FX) sequenced by (iOS midi AUs) on my desktop’, and in that scenario I would indeed prefer an AUM like environment over a DAW. That said, NOTHING is more important to me in ALL of iOS music making world than continued additions and progress to AUM. It’s literally the only reason I got into or continue to use iOS for music. It’s an absolute joy, and I like many others do fear a Mac version might slow that.

    Having said that, much of my desires for AUM have already been added! All I can think of right now for my wishlist is slaving to a midi clock, some condensed views for easier overview with many tracks and/or collapsing or hiding of channels/groups/something along those lines, and…hell, I guess there isn’t a ton left I’m wishing for!

    So…fuck it, man. Go for it! Hopefully one day I’ll have a Mac that can run it lol. And ABSOLUTELY charge again for it. Almost every time I post about AUM I mention you need a tip jar, or should charge for updates. I want to pay you for your work, and you’ve far surpassed being compensated fairly from my initial purchases only.

    …I wouldn’t complain if those features for iOS were considered first, though ; )

  • edited November 2021

    @j_liljedahl said:

    @steve99 said:
    @j_liljedahl I've been thinking about this and that I'm always surprised how well my brain copes with the amount of off-screen channels I have in an AUM session, how a quick swipe either way is enough to navigate without losing track of what's going on. I guess that wouldn't be possible on a desktop without some laborious mouse work? However, there would be a lot more screen available. Would it be possible to have it vertically stacked as an option, i.e. 12 channels top and another 12 channels bottom? That would definitely have me tempted into using on a Mac.

    That's an interesting idea. Maybe this would make sense also on 12.9" iPads?

    I guess they would be laid out like this then?

    1 3 5
    2 4 6
    

    This is the #1 feature I've been waiting years to see. I think 10-12 channels visible would be the sweet spot.

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