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.
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I don't know if this counts, but I somehow managed to convince my high school media department to buy Propellerheads Rebirth, so I don't have a box or receipt. It did keep me happy and busy for a couple of years
Side anecdote: at some point I busted a mixer and sound card at school because I hadn't grasped the concept of different signal levels
Edit: nice, I found this
http://retrosynthads.blogspot.com/2019/05/propellerhead-rebirth-rb-338-techno.html
My family bought my brother a Commodore 64 sometime in the 1980s, and we played around with some tracker software, but I don't remember what it was. (Maniac Mansion was the first game that I got hooked on, and since I'd play the intro tune repeatedly, for Christmas my parents gifted me a Casio keyboard, which was my first musical instrument.)
First software I purchased myself in the late 1990s was Yamaha XGEdit and later XG-Gold 3.0 with a DG50XG attached to a Soundblaster 16 soundcard. Old Yamaha XG SOS article.
Also used one of the early versions of Cakewalk Pro Audio, but things really got cooking when I got Acid Pro 3 and Sound Forge 6 in the early 2000s. SF6 was still my most used software up until last year.
This beautiful beast on an Atari, synced to a Tascam 8 track, Roland electronic kit, M1, ASR10, DW8000, Roland JX3P.
Cubase Lite was my first introduction to daws.
First computer DAW was Cracked version of Nuendo my one friend who was Audio Engineer student gave me to cut my teeth on. Also Fruity Loops, of course.
First legit bought pro software was going in with some friends on Logic Express in 2004 and a used Mac
and then I was hooked! and purchased Ableton Live 6 in 2006 and bought my own iMac.
Fruity Loops - 1999 back before they had to change the name to FL Studio.
Actually it was the 2nd piece of software. The first was a recording app (Cakewalk maybe) that came for free with a multi-FX pedal, and itself included a coupon for a limited edition of Fruity Loops. None of the included drum loops with the Cakewalk software fit what I wanted to do and I saw something or other about making drum loops in this Fruity program. Tried it out and mind was blown that you could make your own loops. If I could stand to create music on the desktop, FL Studio would still be my favorite DAW.
Meaningfully: Reason 2.5, with GarageBand soon after and Logic Express 7.
In 1999, Fruity Loops, though I mostly laughed at it.
My gateway drugs.
I guess I have given up, sold or whatnot whatever I may have gotten
Maybe I gotta check if there's something left in my parent's house.
Not my first love, from the Shareware era... ModEdit by Normal Lin in 91 or 92:
Then I recall stumbling into Dance and Hip Hop Ejay in a computer store...
OH MY GOD! Look at that interface
Later it was rebirth and Guitar Pro 3
I may be forgetting something from that period
And I recall friends copying around Fruity Loops 2, some DAW (gonna guess cakewalk) and band in a box
Dark times with no decent software representatives
Noise Tracker 2 on the Amiga. Yes the Atari ST had midi ports, but the Amiga like the c64 before it had a mighty internal sound chip!
The Extended Basic cartridge for the TI-99/4a, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI_BASIC_(TI_99%2F4A)
It had four voices and was easy to program in songs with. It didn't sound great but was still pretty mind blowing for me at the time.
The first real music application I had was Melody Assistant and Harmony Assistant from https://www.myriad-online.com/en/index.htm
I think the first audio recording thing I had was TC Works Spark, https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/bright-spark and that's what got me going on the path to trying to learn to write plugins.
Forgot bout Mario Paint!
Was living my best 2400baud life on a IIgs with a futuresound card
(And that was the 4th apple product I owned...god I've been at this apple thing a looooooooong time)
Did a have brief stint with an Amiga. Real brief. Kinda wish they stuck around tho.
Cartridges for the Yamaha CX5m
Around 92-93, I had a self-built Windows 3.1 PC with a 486 proc, 160 mb hard drive, 4 mb RAM, Diamond video card, Sound Blaster audio card.
Had some lame midi sequencer freeware, but Cool Edit 1.5 was amazing. I was sampling CDs and making loops, constantly backing up to floppy disk.
Pro tracker on Amiga
DeckII and Soundedit16 for me, running on a sweet 7600 AV powerMac. Surprisingly capable for the time. I could watch cable TV in a little window in the corner while editing tracks.
First was OctaMED, from a cover disk of CU Amiga magazine http://amr.abime.net/issue_595_coverdisks
I notice now that it made a bold claim, it seems I should have just stuck with it:
@MisplacedDevelopment Same! Octamed on an Amiga.
My first “proper” music software was Hybrid Arts Edit Track, which I got for my Atari ST 1024 after seeing it used in a local recording studio to record some demo tracks with one of my bands. The engineer had a guitar with a midi pickup that allowed me to play a piano and trumpet solo on it, which blew my mind back then!
Amiga 500 with Pro Tracker and an 8-bit Turbosound sampling cartridge. When I eventually got to PC it became Cubase, also use(d) Akai MPC and quite recently got myself a MacBook with Bitwig.
FruityLoops & Hip Hop eJay here too:)
I remember stumbling on HipHop eJay demo on a magazine CD and then went to a guy that pirated software and bought a shady CD with "Hip Pap BJ"
which turned out to be FULL of music software, and that's how I started.
Then Dance eJay, Acid, SoundForge, etc...
I used Cakewalk & Sonar a lot for composing using MIDI and a Yamaha DS XG something driver that was a rompler or smth and recorded the output as a single track.
Man... we're so spoiled nowadays
I also had an AmDrum that attached to my Amstrad CPC464 that allowed me to sequence real drum samples from kits loaded via the inbuilt Cassette player of the CPC!
Snap! (Even the cover disk 😁)
Well, I'm 'OLD' and my first music 'proper' software on the C64 was Chris Huelsbecks Soundmonitor V1.0...
Got it on a Swap Floppy...
...this is one of his tunes (I mean the person who sent me the floppy, not Chris...).
(The tune was included on the floppy I got and could be loaded into Soundmonitor).
Voyetra Sequencer Plus on a 286 Dos machine. I can’t remember if it worked with a mouse or not. Not my pic…
Opcode EZ VIsion. Followed by the full version of Vision.
My Dad’s company had a Mac II and LaserWriter II in the home office (which put us streets ahead of the competition in terms of presentation for literally years and years).
I somehow managed to convince him we needed a MacProteus which is what I used with EZ vision.
The macproteus was an E-Mu Proteus 1 on a nubus card which slotted into the computer. Kind of like a hardware VSt plugin before VST was ever invented.
I ended up swapping the macproteus for the standard Proteus 1XR for reasons I can’t remember which was lucky as not long after that we were burgled and the Mac II and LaserWriter II were stolen :-(
I still have the Proteus.
This one...