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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[Logic Pro] Tips, Favourite Features, Discoveries and Surprises

edited May 2023 in Logic Pro

Perhaps we could share things we've discovered that are going to make our iOS music lives just that bit more creative, fun etc.

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Comments

  • edited May 2023

    I'll kick things off with the first thing that has surprised me, and offered a huge quality-of-life leap for the portable minimalists among us.

    The on-screen keyboard:

    Not only does it default to a double-keyboard (expand upwards to reveal), that can be changed via key-width from between three and almost six octaves, but it offers (Tap the 3 dots and select 'Surface Settings) Polyphonic Pitchbend and selectable Y-Mapping (Off, Modulation or Aftertouch). It also offers velocity as either Fixed or Dynamic, with Dynamic allowing velocity to be played as one might expect from a real keyboard, from a soft touch to a thump. Also, it's very easy to set the velocity range/threshold by pressing the button that brings up the pitch and mod sliders.

    Being able to independently slide the octave range of both keyboards is also a really nice touch. Skipping a couple of octaves to have access lower bass notes while playing (much) higher chords and melodies is 'goals' :) And because the keyboards are stacked above each other (but of course), it's possible to play these fuller chords with one hand.

    I'm sure some of this was already in Garageband, but all of it? And with such easy-access?

    It might seem a small thing, and totally useless for those who alway have a keyboard tethered to their tablet. But for me, these little touches have added more to the 'real instrument' aspects of this app.

    Noice!

  • My favourite simple trick is a double tap on the bottom menu bar closes all extraneous windows simultaneously

  • @zzrwood said:
    My favourite simple trick is a double tap on the bottom menu bar closes all extraneous windows simultaneously

    I Iove this one, yes!

    Coming from years of AUM, I just bloody love being able to have a proper view of the mixer with every channel lined up in tight rows. I really hope AUM implements this, it's my major gripe. Otherwise I could possibly see this replacing aum for me, even just for jams, but let's see...

  • Yes the on-screen playing surfaces are awesome, I've always loved them in GarageBand and they're even better in Logic.

    I do wish the faders were longer on the mixer, but I can get around that by opening the longer fader in the left-hand panel.

    Multi-selection of faders is great for when you have parts panned hard left and right, like double-tracked guitars for example. You can move the faders in unison, fantastic.

  • So far I really love the Samplr Alchemy, and beat chopper thing. I was using the Simpler (I mean simple sampler ; )) along with the new step sequencer to p-lock slices and pitches, but the beat chopper does it better, faster, and is way less fiddly.

    Still struggling with the buses, sends and returns, and all that. This was one of the reasons I switched to Ableton. But overall I love it. LOVE IT.

    Today I plan to see how it works with a Digitone and an OP-1.

  • edited May 2023

    @richardyot said:
    Yes the on-screen playing surfaces are awesome, I've always loved them in GarageBand and they're even better in Logic.

    I do wish the faders were longer on the mixer, but I can get around that by opening the longer fader in the left-hand panel.

    Multi-selection of faders is great for when you have parts panned hard left and right, like double-tracked guitars for example. You can move the faders in unison, fantastic.

    If you spin the iPad into portrait mode, you can get the entire mixer with a longer 'throw'.

    And the multi-selection is nice for quick experiments, but grouping, using Groups, Track-Stacks, VCA faders and/or sending sets of instruments to output on an entirely separate bus (Haven't checked whether the iOS version can do that, yet) offer other ways of making mixing easier ;)

  • Beat Breaker is awesome.

    I have never been a fan of Logic’s browser compared to Ableton but overall it’s been a pleasant experience.

  • Accessing sends / output bus in the tiles area. I quite like that. Keyboard surface is fabulous too

  • @el_bo said:
    If you spin the iPad into portrait mode, you can get the entire mixer with a longer 'throw'.

    Sadly that doesn't make the faders any longer, it just shows more of the mixer panel.

  • @richardyot said:

    @el_bo said:
    If you spin the iPad into portrait mode, you can get the entire mixer with a longer 'throw'.

    Sadly that doesn't make the faders any longer, it just shows more of the mixer panel.

    Perhaps I've not set things up properly when in Landscape mode (Only used it for a little bit), but the faders are noticeably longer for me, in portrait.

  • @richardyot said:
    Yes the on-screen playing surfaces are awesome, I've always loved them in GarageBand and they're even better in Logic.

    I do wish the faders were longer on the mixer, but I can get around that by opening the longer fader in the left-hand panel.

    Multi-selection of faders is great for when you have parts panned hard left and right, like double-tracked guitars for example. You can move the faders in unison, fantastic.

    I agree with you for the fader , a bit short and you don’t get the feeling of the fader on Cubasis.

    I try to get à only screen with all fader but I haven’t yet find where to tap for that any ideas how to have full screen mixer ?

  • I was surprised to discover in the Licence Agreement that Apple have been quite generous to those who were concerned that ending the subscription would also mean the end of having access to their project files!

    Quote: "after the end of your paid subscription, you will, however, have limited access - for a limited time - to the Apple Software, and will be able to retrieve, export and maintain access to, projects you have previously created and saved in the Apple Software."

    If you want to read it yourself, go to the App Store page for Logic iPad, scroll down towards the bottom, the Licence Agreement is there.

  • I was surprised with bouncing options. Just made short midi region for Playbeat with Soundaw on top of it. But when I stretched 4 bar loop to 16 bars in seems in bounced that part to. Seems pretty handy for exploring loops with lots of modulation.
    Hence still struggling with busing, fx chains (is it possible to save them?) and transfer loops between arranger and clip launcher.

  • edited May 2023

    @el_bo said:

    @richardyot said:

    @el_bo said:
    If you spin the iPad into portrait mode, you can get the entire mixer with a longer 'throw'.

    Sadly that doesn't make the faders any longer, it just shows more of the mixer panel.

    Perhaps I've not set things up properly when in Landscape mode (Only used it for a little bit), but the faders are noticeably longer for me, in portrait.

    Ah - it depends on how much you have expanded the mixer panel. So if you have only expanded it halfway, when you rotate into portrait the faders stay the same size. However if you expand your mixer panel to take up the full height of the screen, then rotate into portrait, the faders get bigger. Awesome.

  • @mistercharlie said:
    Still struggling with the buses, sends and returns, and all that. This was one of the reasons I switched to Ableton. But overall I love it. LOVE IT.

    In cases where LPiOS matches (or almost) the workflow of the desktop version, you're probably better off just watching desktop Logic tutorials. Here're a couple of good primers:

    But I'd also search for full Logic mix walkthroughs. The features might not match exactly, or are accessed differently, but you'll get a much better understanding of the bigger picture, and the why behind using these things:

    These two use stock Logic stuff only:

    This last one uses 3rd-party plugins also, but the mixer has a great overall workflow:

  • edited May 2023

    @richardyot said:

    @el_bo said:

    @richardyot said:

    @el_bo said:
    If you spin the iPad into portrait mode, you can get the entire mixer with a longer 'throw'.

    Sadly that doesn't make the faders any longer, it just shows more of the mixer panel.

    Perhaps I've not set things up properly when in Landscape mode (Only used it for a little bit), but the faders are noticeably longer for me, in portrait.

    Ah - it depends on how much you have expanded the mixer panel. So if you have only expanded it halfway, when you rotate into portrait the faders stay the same size. However if you expand your mixer panel to take up the full height of the screen, then rotate into portrait, the faders get bigger. Awesome.

    Yes!

  • @richardyot said:

    @el_bo said:

    @richardyot said:

    @el_bo said:
    If you spin the iPad into portrait mode, you can get the entire mixer with a longer 'throw'.

    Sadly that doesn't make the faders any longer, it just shows more of the mixer panel.

    Perhaps I've not set things up properly when in Landscape mode (Only used it for a little bit), but the faders are noticeably longer for me, in portrait.

    Ah - it depends on how much you have expanded the mixer panel. So if you have only expanded it halfway, when you rotate into portrait the faders stay the same size. However if you expand your mixer panel to take up the full height of the screen, then rotate into portrait, the faders get bigger. Awesome.

    Nice trick . We need to be a team to understand and learn all possibilities in LPios . 😂 I always state that the learning curve of such daws is not in hours but weeks and months of practice from my personal experience.

  • @richardyot said:

    @el_bo said:

    @richardyot said:

    @el_bo said:
    If you spin the iPad into portrait mode, you can get the entire mixer with a longer 'throw'.

    Sadly that doesn't make the faders any longer, it just shows more of the mixer panel.

    Perhaps I've not set things up properly when in Landscape mode (Only used it for a little bit), but the faders are noticeably longer for me, in portrait.

    Ah - it depends on how much you have expanded the mixer panel. So if you have only expanded it halfway, when you rotate into portrait the faders stay the same size. However if you expand your mixer panel to take up the full height of the screen, then rotate into portrait, the faders get bigger. Awesome.

    Fantastic!

  • edited May 2023

    Here's a tip I discovered.

    I like to have multiple tracks all playing the same instrument sometimes, for example on the Mac I'll put region automation on a separate track from the notes to make it easy to duplicate to other sections. Another example is with a drum kit, I might want the snare on it's own track so I can use the inspector to change the quantise, feel (i.e. adjust the delay just for that track to bring the snare forwards or backwards) and to adjust the velocity without going into an editor -- non destructively. Or I might have a few different ideas and I'm not sure which to keep, kind of like manual comping (just mute all but the one you want).

    Putting the automation on a separate track can be very effective as you can loop it in a different length region to the other parts (Say an 8 bar pattern with a 7 bar automation so it's different each time through).

    There's no direct way to add a track for the iPad as there is on the Mac ("New track with same instrument").

    BUT you can split a region by notes (Convert->Separate by Note Pitch) which puts all the individual pitches on a separate track of the same instrument. You then get multiple regions you can Join back together, and a nice bunch of empty tracks all set to the same instrument. Hide them in a folder stack if they're in the way, or delete any excess tracks.

    Another example, I like using the step editor to automate parameter lock style. But if I want to do that to an existing MIDI region I would have to convert the region to Pattern first. Which isn't always what I want.

    Now I can use the above method and have both pattern and MIDI regions playing the same instrument.

    Here's an example with both a MIDI region and a pattern region (for automation) playing the same instrument:

    Bit of a workaround -- but it works. Better than waiting for apple to add the "New track with same instrument" command :-)

  • edited May 2023

    @el_bo Thanks! 👍

  • @richardyot said:

    Multi-selection of faders is great for when you have parts panned hard left and right, like double-tracked guitars for example. You can move the faders in unison, fantastic.

    I didn’t know about this one. Sweet.

  • This one is a genuine game changier:

    USB input from Digitone, output to OP-1 F. Digitone and Logic audio comes out the OP-1’s little speaker!!

  • @boone51 said:

    @richardyot said:

    Multi-selection of faders is great for when you have parts panned hard left and right, like double-tracked guitars for example. You can move the faders in unison, fantastic.

    I didn’t know about this one. Sweet.

    And what's more there are several other ways to do this: you can create a mixer group (it's similar to a fader group in Auria, that are numbered 1, 2, 3 etc), or you can put the channels in a folder stack, or a summing stack (a folder stack can't be processed, a summing stack can, for example if you want to add bus compression).

    For most purposes folder stacks work well, but it's nice to have so many different options.

  • For me one of the most important features in a DAW is just having the ability to organise your mix: creating groups and busses so that common elements can be controlled with one fader (drums, bass, music, vocals all bussed to their own grouped faders), being able to nest groups and busses, having full send channels, and being able to divide the song into the different sections of the arrangement.

    This is one area where Logic really shines, there are so many options for grouping, sending, colouring, labelling etc... that a 40 or 50 track mix can be tamed really quickly. Cubasis by comparison really sucks at this. So far only NS2 could do this really well on iOS, but Logic does it even better.

  • Great trick on the split MIDI regions to get multiple tracks of same instrument!

    I’m loving the browser previews. It’s a little thing but in desktop logic you can’t preview patches. You have to load them and play. Here, every single patch has a preview. Also the browser tagging system is way way better and very easy to find and filter sounds. Love it.

  • @Eclipxe said:
    Great trick on the split MIDI regions to get multiple tracks of same instrument!

    I’m loving the browser previews. It’s a little thing but in desktop logic you can’t preview patches. You have to load them and play. Here, every single patch has a preview. Also the browser tagging system is way way better and very easy to find and filter sounds. Love it.

    Right little things that I find always useful and so simple to implement. I never understood was it wasn’t implemented in the destop Logic.

  • @mistercharlie said:
    @el_bo Thanks! 👍

    🍻

  • @BerlinFx said:

    @richardyot said:

    @el_bo said:

    @richardyot said:

    @el_bo said:
    If you spin the iPad into portrait mode, you can get the entire mixer with a longer 'throw'.

    Sadly that doesn't make the faders any longer, it just shows more of the mixer panel.

    Perhaps I've not set things up properly when in Landscape mode (Only used it for a little bit), but the faders are noticeably longer for me, in portrait.

    Ah - it depends on how much you have expanded the mixer panel. So if you have only expanded it halfway, when you rotate into portrait the faders stay the same size. However if you expand your mixer panel to take up the full height of the screen, then rotate into portrait, the faders get bigger. Awesome.

    Nice trick . We need to be a team to understand and learn all possibilities in LPios . 😂 I always state that the learning curve of such daws is not in hours but weeks and months of practice from my personal experience.

    Logic Remote will be so nice for LPiOs....... I think.

  • @RajahP said:

    @BerlinFx said:

    @richardyot said:

    @el_bo said:

    @richardyot said:

    @el_bo said:
    If you spin the iPad into portrait mode, you can get the entire mixer with a longer 'throw'.

    Sadly that doesn't make the faders any longer, it just shows more of the mixer panel.

    Perhaps I've not set things up properly when in Landscape mode (Only used it for a little bit), but the faders are noticeably longer for me, in portrait.

    Ah - it depends on how much you have expanded the mixer panel. So if you have only expanded it halfway, when you rotate into portrait the faders stay the same size. However if you expand your mixer panel to take up the full height of the screen, then rotate into portrait, the faders get bigger. Awesome.

    Nice trick . We need to be a team to understand and learn all possibilities in LPios . 😂 I always state that the learning curve of such daws is not in hours but weeks and months of practice from my personal experience.

    Logic Remote will be so nice for LPiOs....... I think.

    I use it with Logic desktop it add dedicated screen and a bit of touchscreen, you can also have your short cut in it , more than useful and it’s free.

    To have it for LP ios could be nice but I don’t know if it will fit with LP ios designed to do all on the same screen traveling …

  • @richardyot said:
    Yes the on-screen playing surfaces are awesome, I've always loved them in GarageBand and they're even better in Logic.

    I do wish the faders were longer on the mixer, but I can get around that by opening the longer fader in the left-hand panel.

    Multi-selection of faders is great for when you have parts panned hard left and right, like double-tracked guitars for example. You can move the faders in unison, fantastic.

    You can turn your iPad vertically to get long faders fyi

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