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.
Can we talk about Loopy Pro again?
I’m genuinely annoyed that Apple’s review policies delayed the release of Loopy Pro 1.1 until the VERY DAY they announced Logic for iPad. I definitely understand why Logic has dominated every single discussion space I frequent, but I would also really like to talk about Loopy Pro.
What’s your favourite new feature? Personally, I learned how loop pedals work on the EHX Hazarai delay so I was holding my breath for varispeed and reverse. But the radio dials are way more useful than I ever could have imagined. I set one up to scroll through Other Desert Cities presets; a double-tap opens the effects interface and a two-finger tap engages the loop mode. It’s not miles different from how I had it set up in 1.0.x, but it FEELS better.
Phase Align is also amazing — I created a widget that phase aligns all clips, and I quantized the action to a full bar. So I can twist everything beyond recognition and, with a single button press, bring it all back to coherence on the 1.
Definitely interested in your tips and tricks! I never quite clicked with Logic Pro X on Mac, and I think it’s great that it’s coming to iPad and I’ve dipped my toes into the subscription conversations, but Loopy Pro is so much more interesting to me.
Also, if you disagree and want to hijack this for yet another Logic discussion, well… it’s the internet so go ahead.
Comments
I will do my Logic Pro hijack and say that I hope @Michael @thesoundtestroom and @CapnWillie make a Logic Pro section in this forum since it's dominating everything at the moment, lol.
I plan to purchase the Loopy Pro update very soon and then can play with the new features.
Phase (re)align blows my mind. Seriously.
It's amazing the sheer amount of options and customizations available and the ease to implement them. I'm loving the new varispeed options.
There is so much great new stuff.
There are some simple things that have made a huge difference to me.
I love being able to send midi from AUv3 to the midi control system.
The ability to have multiple profiles in a project that can be independently enabled and disabled.
The action to set the master cycle to the length of another loop. This is really handy for me when using groups as song sections. As I can set it up so that the master cycle gets set to section’s length which is very handy when your sections vary in length.
I also love that stepped dials can be chained together to sequence clips. I’ve posted an example project on the Discord.
Yawn. I dunno.
Loopy Pro peaked too early with the auto project naming system. That set the bar too high, making everything added since then a bit of a letdown in comparison.
Can you elaborate on the advantages of setting Master cycle to length of a loop? I’m not sure I understand how this its supposed to be used in practice…
If you have recording quantization set to master, recordings will start at the top of the clock and and at the top of the clock. So, if you are playing along to an 8 measure loop (call it loop A) and master is set to 8, you can tap your new loop (b) at any time and recording starts at the beginning of the next cycle. If auto count-out is on, recording will stop automatically after 8 bars. Or if I ave auto count out off, I tap any time to have recording end at the end of the current eight bar cycle.
If your song sections have different lengths, it is nice to have the master cycle length change to match the length of section your are playing.
That way if section A is 4 bars long and section be 16 bars long section C 8 bars long, it really simplifies adding loops if you set it up for the master cycle length to adjust to a song section length.
I almost always have phase lock turned off as that is needed when song sections don’t share the same length.
As we are here….
Great update. Was looking for the auv3 replacement option. Now, if I use it the channel jumps to the first place in the mixer. That’s absolute not as I expected, because why should I use replacing if the result is the the Program just opens a new channel with the auv3🤨. Did I miss s.th., is there an option?
@Michael I really enjoy using the new dial widget for switching presets in AuV3 applications. However, it appears that I can only access the factory presets, not the user presets. Is this simply a problem with the applications not making this information available to the host (Loopy Pro)? I only tried three effect apps, so my investigation was not exhaustive.
My understanding is that this is related to how the plugin stores things. Do you see different behavior in other hosts with the same plugins?
Can you provide steps and a demonstration (maybe screenshots)? When I choose replace, my channels don’t move. Maybe there is a particular interaction causing it.
Here is what happens for me
I see that you answered me on Discord - wasn't sure where to post this. Yes, you are right - some apps show the user presets in the widget assignment and some do not (like the Juice apps that you mentioned). Many thanks!
It doesn't do that for me?
You're long-pressing on the app icon at the top of the mixer channel, then picking replace? It doesn't create a new channel. It replaces the AU without disturbing anything else about the channel.
I’ve occasionally had channels change position depending on which other channels I have loaded (eg if I have four Hardware inputs and I swap the leftmost one for an Audio Unit, it will move to the right). But all of the effects and audio/MIDI routing stay the same.
I tend to use it within general categories — for my percussion track, I have Octachron driving a channel with RoughRider 3 and Fosfat in the effects slots, and everything monitors through Orange. I use the Replace option to switch between Ruismaker, Slammer, hardware Electribe, etc. without needing to change my effects or reconfigure monitoring.
I love the AUV3 replacement feature because it updates the reference EVERYWHERE. In my template, I’ve set up a series of buttons for each midi controller: when the synth button is pressed, it activates and shows the selected synth, and deactivates and hides all others in that group. (You can enable multiple active synths using swipes). Previously, if I wanted to replace one of the synths, I needed to update all the show/hide/enable/disable/swipe references by hand: now I just use the replacement feature for the synth and Loopy handles all the updates automatically. Wonderful.
Does the new reverse mode work instantly? As in I record a loop and it will play backwards straight away?
Yup
Amazing.
The varispeed implementation is insane too… This is the only app that does it without throwing sync out!
Sweet!
Loopy Pro is such a fantastic app. I bought it at release and sat on it for a very long time (probably due to Endlesss) but I regret that now that I’ve started to dig into it.
I’m trying to recreate the way that Endlesss lets you apply/record effects retrospectively to a running loop. Any suggestions on how to replicate that functionality with Loopy Pro?
Also, any news of a potential release date for the MacOS version? I need it NOW…
My two favorite apps on iOS (LP and Endlesss) though I will throw piano motifs in the top three. I replicate the Endlesss experience in LP by using color groups. So make all your base loops orange. Apply effects to the Orange channel and make the loops that “catch “ the effected loops blue. Simply tap a blank blue loop and you just looped the effected channel. Unlike Endlesss you can do this multiple times and keep each loop without having to go back through the history of past rifffs. Save a template for the next session.
Another hint: long press on the receiving color section to pick the colors you want in there.
What do you mean by apply effects retrospectively? When you record retrospectively , it will capture whatever effects were on the signal. If you want to capture the wet signal, put the effects where they will be part of the recorded signal. If you want the option of wet or dry signal being recorded, create two color paths , one with the effects baked in and one without.
Is there any certain “best” tutorial video to really get started on Loopy Pro? I’ve used it for simple tasks but haven’t fully dove into yet but I really want to. I just need to find a good video demoing all, or a lot of, the features and how to get there.
Never heard of it..how and why does it blow your mind?
Loopy is brilliant. Very reliable. I was hesitant to move over from AB3 because of the lack of IAA state saving support but I have to say launch and play operation is fantastic.
It integrates with Drambo very well too.
I feel like I’m taking your work for granted but amazing work @Michael you make tools that make a lot of people happy.
Thank you!
You can reverse loops, change their speed, mess them totally up, then transition them back into sync with the rest of the project instantly or smoothly over time. It's just kinda amazing that it can even work and not sound like shit.
Truly it is. With the “over time” option I’ve created some wholly original sounding stuff that makes my toes curl as the transition to phase realignment happens. So dang cool!
Some intense maths to make that work, was a blast 😄
Sorry I forgot to come back and say thank you very much! That's really helpful. So basically this creates multiple iterations of the loop in your project, right? Is there a way to stop the original loop automatically when the new one picks up the changes?
I want to create an original loop then mangle it with effects after committing the initial version to create a modified version of that loop. That way you have multiple iterations of a certain loop that can ultimately be chained together to create an evolving progression, or if you go far enough then you end up with a related yet different section that could become an entirely different part of a song. This is kind of how I use Endlesss to start with something basic and then transform it over time--live looping but warping the loops as you go. Oh, by retrospectively, I mean sometimes it takes a few passes to get the right mutation so I want to be able to hear the result before I commit the modification.