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.
Comments
The window doesn't bother me since it's behind the speakers and no sound is directly reflected off it. Maybe not ideal in theory, but in use I want to see out the window while working so I'll put up with it
I would definitely say that each space has it's own unique sound, everything from the shape of the room to the materials it's made out of affect that. I've had my desk, monitors, and most of the acoustic treatment in roughly the same place the last three rooms I've had though, and that helps keep things at least a little consistent. Unless maybe I'm not understanding your question?
I spent the bulk of last year getting into guitar pedals & buying a few guitars to replace ones I'd sold years before. I always just plugged straight into the amp and if I did use a pedal it was an overdrive & maybe a wah. Being home for months meant lots of guitar playing and experimenting with pedals kept me sane, as ludicrous as that sounds. My pedalboard as it is today:
I ran into some great deals on Reverb and bought a few Strat's and a Les Paul. I've been digging these rack stands as it allows easy access for experimenting with different guitar tones:
My main bass for years has been my Eko Barracuda Bass, a hollowbody ES style bass that was influenced by the Gibson EB2. It has tapewounds that have been on it for literally decades and it has that Hofner bass warm thud in spades. Unfortunately if you want a more present tone it just isn't the bass for projecting highs...or slapping, lol.
So after searching awhile I bought a Squier Classic Vibe Jazz Bass that I put roundwounds on; total James Jamerson, John Paul Jones territory. I got a Music Man Sterling StingRay Bass as well that I put RotoSound roundwounds on. Now that bass IS one you can slap on.
Now that I've got three basses each with a different string type (tapewound, flatwound & roundwound) it has made writing basslines a very cool experience. The different tones inspiring different directions to take. If you've got three basses I recommend trying it.
I remember posting in a studio thread before (there's a few) and my main set up hasn't changed too much. A Tascam US-2x2 interface, Behringer UMC404HD 4 input interface or a TC-Helicon Go Solo go into my Air 3 depending on what's being recorded. I usually just use a Novation two octave controller or onscreen keys for synths. An ART Tube MP for mics & direct bass go into an interface and depending on what the guitar setup is I'll either go simple into the Air 3 with the Go Solo or I'll mic up one of my amps (A Stage Right Tube combo that sounds surprisingly good, or my Fender Deluxe) with my pedalboard.
The reason I got into iOS music production is that I wanted to return to the tactile feel of working with PortaStudio's but with pro quality sound & plugins. Sitting at a desktop with a mouse was wearing thin. With the rumors of Logic possibly coming to iPadOS I wonder if this format has kind of snuck up it's own backside or will the iPad version of Logic be a game changing mixture of what we all love about iOS music production with the power and stability of a major league DAW?
We'll see...
@JRSIV lol that's waaayyyy too many guitars! Nice collection though 👍
My "studio" is really just my home office that I run my business from, and I have to try and keep it family-friendly:
I have 3 guitars, the one on the right is a 12 string I don't play much:
My two main guitars are a Les Paul and an Epiphone J200:
And behind the Les Paul is a little 5w tube amp, which is beautiful sounding:
And tucked in right behind the desk is a hard case:
With my relatively modest pedalboard inside, still WIP with mostly budget pedals:
But I like the fact it can be set up really quickly, and then tidied away when not in use.
Behind the door is a shelf with some more audio stuff:
And in the hard case on the top, my very small mic collection:
We moved the first of November last year to help my parents out. While I’m fairly comfortable with many tools, I’ve never taken on a project of this size before, at least not outside of landscape jobs. Obviously a work in progress. I have to keep reminding myself “I’m not a professional and I’m not 30 years old any more.” It is a 13 feet by 30 feet room. I get about a third of it as my studio space. Hopefully by the end of February it will be usable.
Homemade vocal booth:
I still don't ever see this happening.
@richardyot I always appreciate your comments Rich, you have been a big time friend of the forum. I know I don’t get on the forum too often but I always try to see if the SOTMC has submissions, and used to listen to the SoundCloud playlist every month in 2017-2018. It’s inspiring to see that you’re using some basic gear to create your songs; true to the ethos of iOS music production/ “mobile” production, even though it appears most of us have dedicated studio spaces to work from.
I went way overboard last year with the guitars, but the dystopian times on Earth (Armageddon? 😂) can definitely make you take on a YOLO outlook. It’s serendipitous though that this thread got bumped because I have been procrastinating rearranging my space and getting some of the effluvia out of here. Your studio is clean as Skeeter’s peeter and guys like @Tarekith have it Sussex too. Love that streamlined setup.
You're lucky to have a dedicated room that you can devote to music
I'd quite like to acquire some additional guitars, especially as it would allow me to mess around with different tunings, but that's a dream for the future due to budget (and marital) constraints.
I hope you've found the time to make some music with all that lovely gear! You should post some in the SOTMC sometime.
Thanks! That setup actually works and makes a huge difference. My room is very lively due to the wooden floors and the complete lack of soft furnishings, there are reflections everywhere and it's very reverberant.
Using those acoustic foam pads mounted onto board around me when I record my voice really helps to dampen down all that natural reverb. I do a lot of voice-over stuff for work so that's the primary reason I made these panels, but they're also useful for recording vocals in my songs.
Yeah I'd like to see that. Mine are really simple: just acoustic foam glued to some artboard, and to make them stand up I bought some cheap bookends from Amazon which I glued to the boards.
I can just stack them flat out of the way when not in use, and the total cost for making them was around £25.
Go ahead - you might even figure out some ways to improve them. 👍
Genius! Yeah those portable U shape vocal booths that attach to a mic stand are not any more complex than what you are doing @richardyot. In fact I've seen some off Amazon that are appalling quality wise.
With a decent cardioid condenser the 180°/opposite side of the mic does still pickup reflections but it's totally manageable. It's the left & right sides that can be tricky and Rich's solution or even a mic in a closet put between the clothes on hangers can work too. Although sometimes too dry of an environment can make vocals sound off too, so if a bit of presence is still coming through the mic it's not a big deal.
I used to have a large space (attic) in our house, that is a childrens bedroom now, and I had to move to the smallest room with my gear. I had to downsize a lot, so I won´t call this a proper studio, it is only a setup.
I run my guitar through some pedals and a Palmer Einds tube head into a small mixer, and from there I can choose the direction, straight to the speakers, into a desktop, or the Zoom R8 recorder which is also the interface for the Ipad. I also have a T-rex Quint Machine pedal, for playing bass om my guitar.
I have more bits and pieces in the house, but this is my main rig. For playing keys I have an Akai MPK mini and a Korg Nanokey Studio, and an old Roland/Edirol PCR-500.
This is totally my kind of pornography!
Love seeing everyone’s setup! So motivating!
Also using a BlueBoard midi pedal below this stuff.
*I do have a more standard, iMac Ableton based setup with monitors, a Native Ins KK s49 keyboard, Apollo interface and a vocal setup….but who wants to see the usual when I have a pile of glowing, colorful Midi CC’s mapped to a portable iPad AuM rig? I run this hot mess into my Ableton w IDAM through usb. Controllers are in hubs and can be assigned to control iPad software or mac software pretty easily and midi and audio flows in both directions as well. But I usually just airdrop the loops n whatever I make on the iPad setup and warp them in Ableton if needed. Also use my iPhone for tons of portable fun, especially using Koala! Most of the time I’ll take sounds n loops from iPad time into the iPhone and sequence layers in Koala’s patterns. Working on using the export to Ableton in my workflow but usually just bounce the audio out and into stems I can import into DAW.
You know you wanna do it..........
I don´t want to be a w*nker, but.... when you have an Ipad (touch screen), do you really use all this controllers together? I used to have a desk with synths, samplers, efx units, mixers, midi routers, patch bays, keyboards, wires, (all gone now, thank god....) and there was always something not working, just to startup, load patches, and troubleshoot, took too much time, and kills inspiration. I needed to read a lot of manuals too before I had a deeper understanding of the gear.
If I would go back into hardware synths, I think I would just store them on shelfs, unplugged, and the one that is needed for a session gets connected for the moment. To keep my desk as clean as possible.
But hey, I enjoy your pictures a lot. I am just wondering what I would do.
Totally fair question. I actually used to have a mountain of glowing crap i hardly used on my desk just because I thought it looked cool and like “hey you never know when you might need a Maschine a padKontrol and 3 Launchpads at the same time”? Lol jk But the setup I have showing in the photo includes the pieces of gear which nearly every single knob, key, button and slider are used pretty much every time I mess around with my main templates. *it’s not pictured in the image, but there’s also an iMac directly in front of me running Ableton which explains the gear far better than if I were just using an iPad rig. But still, I do very frequently use every component shown in an AUM template I often start with when I’m demoing stuff and wanna play around with it a bit before I export the loops n samples to Ableton for arrangement, vocals and all around better quality audio. Also my finalized stem mixing and mastering and a decent amount of production work that just can’t be done on iPad or just can’t be done with Ableton is also not done on the mobile rig.
Most of all the Apc is for transport and mixer functions in AUM, launchpad mini is used for the 4 sample triggers n recorders in Koala, the launchkey pads trigger loops/sequences in Koala and it’s keys are usually mapped to a synth that can handle my bass like 808 or Bleass Alpha. Also the top 8 knobs in apc r volumes for the 8 koala channels which I have inside a buss making up my first channel on the mixer and in aum, second is bass, third is a Segment sampler to chop audio up with, next two are receiving input from mics into my audio interface which have Brusfi gated and some compression and eq, and then 6 is my “Dj live fx” channel where I have lots of Sugar Bytes stuff, some filters, Koala FX and other things I can really mess w the sound using Banks on my cc knobs, and then finally I have two send fx channels, one for reverb and delay, one for distortion and lofi tape stuff…then my master volume which all others output to has a pro-q, a WOOtT compression, and not much else.
It’s really the dj fx channel and volume faders/mutes/solos that I’m messing with when I jam.
It might seem silly but it took a long time to narrow my default setup down to these lovely toys. Funny thing is that the controllers in my fav setup are wayyyyyy less expensive than the pieces I took out of it! Even ended up selling a Maschine since it really just slowed down my process!
Oh last thing, my other station at the computer for when I’m fully in Ableton mainly just uses a Komplete Kontrol S49 keyboard. N the old ass APc still holds its own too in that situation. But thats all I’m really using after I’m done doing my messy looping “dj” playtime on the iPad lol
Hope this justifies more than my love of random neon lit buttons and knobs lol
I have to keep it compact since i don’t really have that much space. We do what we can with what we have 😜
Vertical studio nice one @echoopera
my "studio" .. all i ever needed .. perfect setup, missing literally nothing.
Really nice, thanks for detailed photos.
What is this case? Self build?
Yes I think that is mandatory, using a template so everything reacts as expected. I always start from scratch, and then midi learn hardware knobs to virtual knobs is a lot of work.
edit: I connected my PCR to TAL U-NO-LX
I have almost all faders and toggles connected, only no Portemento time, no fader left. And the deep LFO editing is not possible to connect.
The TV has been now replaced with a 24'' Ben Q Eye Care Monitor, & the midi keyboard has beep replaced by a Novation 61 LaunchKey MK3.. This was taken a few years ago, but nothing else has changed..
Oh yeah.. I lost my chins through summer now..
Nice to see you @studs1966. How are things on Cyprus?
Busy with day work & music collabs... But..... Nice & cold now thanks Mike.. After a few earthquakes here in the last couple of weeks (including one this morning.. Only a little tremor tho)
.... Give it a couple of months, then the heat will be back.. 
Exterior / Interior
Tardis. Bigger on the inside...
East wall
Not pictured: maschine plus, akg c2000b mic, apoge 24/96 mic, roland vt4, nektar panarama p4, tc helicon talkbox, tc helicon voicelive play, imac 2021 i7, ica 4+, apogee duet, alien egg shaker, turntable, dual cassette deck, dvr/cd player, toy guitar, yamaha hs8 monitors, ipad pro, iphone12, ath50x headphones and subpac