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 Store

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

iSymphonic Questions

Hello everybody. iSymphonic is on sale for $29 and I had a couple of questions for iOS musicians who own and use it.

  1. How well does the MIDI play with DAWs like Cubasis, etc? Does it sync up properly or is there a delay (like Gadget)?

  2. How's the audio quality?

  3. Are their other apps that are better for symphonic sample players?

  4. Is it worth $29.99?

Thanks for your help. :-)

Comments

  • SampleTank with the Miroslav Orch. pack is an option. Many instruments are great, and many are duds or copies of another sound with different fx applied to make 1 patch become 6 variations.

    I guess we will never have every sound we need in one app (Gadget excluded) so we will probably end up getting multiple libraries to have options.

    I'd like to know more about iSymphonic from an actual user too.

    Here's a review:
    http://www.musicappblog.com/isymphonic-orchestra-review/

  • Thanks for the review Martygras. I found this part interesting. He's using an iPad Air to run the app with Cubasis.

    From the review:
    "Having given this a go, I then turned to Cubasis and installed iSymphonic Orchestra as an IAA app. I then set up multiple MIDI tracks – each operating on a different MIDI channel number – and was able to construct a multi-part orchestral arrangement in Cubasis without too many problems. The only issue was sorting out the various MIDI channels and, in particular, the MIDI channel used by my master keyboard as I created a new part. Other than that, things worked very well. The other issue to note here was that, when first launched as an IAA client, iSymphonic Orchestra offers you the choice of two modes of MIDI operation – IAA MIDI only or IAA MIDI and CoreMIDI; I had to use the second of these to get things to work as I wanted in Cubasis."

  • iSymphinic looks really cool -- but $30 -- geez !!

  • edited April 2015

    Music Studio is a great self-contained app for creating symphonic pieces with a pretty good sequencer, as long as you can dig on the provided Sonatina orchestra soundfont. Not quite Miroslav/Sampletank quality, but respectable, esp. for a Soundfont.

    At least Crudebyte's pricing is headed in the right direction. Picked up the excellent sounding Oriental Strings recently for $9.99, and iCathedral's been spotted at $19.99 ... At first all were over 50 bucks a pop :)

  • @mkell424 said:
    Hello everybody. iSymphonic is on sale for $29 and I had a couple of questions for iOS musicians who own and use it.

    1. How well does the MIDI play with DAWs like Cubasis, etc? Does it sync up properly or is there a delay (like Gadget)?

    2. How's the audio quality?

    3. Are their other apps that are better for symphonic sample players?

    4. Is it worth $29.99?

    Thanks for your help. :-)

    1. iSmphonic operates okay at times with Cubasis. However, it is IAA only and I've had problems in the setup (Cubasis midi out to iSymph, audio back into Cubasis) at various times so I tend to use it standalone and manually sync tracks as needed. It has a MIDI recorder/MIDI player (it will open MIDI files with the Open In... function) which is pretty nice. And it is a universal app.

    2. Most of the instrument samples are quite good...others are decent There was an update back in the fall that improved a lot of the sounds.

    3. For orchestra sounds, beyond Sample Tank there are soundfont player apps like BS-16i, there is Music Studio with some decent sounds, and let us not forget the beloved and solid performer: ThumbJam.

    4. Only you can know if it is worth the price. I think it is worth $29.99, probably because I bought at its initial release price: $54.

    @Flo26 -- thanks for posting the link; I don't get that many readers on my blog (I don't post often enough...about once a month), so it's nice to see that as a reference here.

  • Cool blog Toz. Great review. :)

  • @eustressor said:
    Music Studio is a great self-contained app for creating symphonic pieces with a pretty good sequencer, as long as you can dig on the provided Sonatina orchestra soundfont. Not quite Miroslav/Sampletank quality, but respectable, esp. for a Soundfont.

    At least Crudebyte's pricing is headed in the right direction. Picked up the excellent sounding Oriental Strings recently for $9.99, and iCathedral's been spotted at $19.99 ... At first all were over 50 bucks a pop :)

    How do you like Cathedral and Oriental? I was thinking of getting them.

  • edited April 2015

    @telecode101 I only have Oriental Strings. It sounds awesome :)

  • edited April 2015

    First class app, well worth $29.99. It's not perfect, but no app is. The last update improved sound quality and addressed some of the shortcomings I found with it (improved attack, some notes cutting off too early). The sound quality is much better than Sampletank's Miroslav IAP. There's some comparisons on Soundcloud to check out that were done before the sound quality was improved. The app does still crash sometimes when I try to load a large multittrack midi file. But that's not really why I use it, so it's not a big deal to me.

  • edited April 2015

    I invested in Notion a while back and like it, but find it fiddly (technical term). Any comparison between the two?

  • I took your guys advice and bought iSymphonic. :)

    I agree that it sounds spectacular. Especially on headphones. Like the effects and it syncs up with Cubasis. The only thing I wish is that it had more sounds. Like people have pointed out, many of the presets are just variations of the same sound. But I think it's worth $29.99 for the sound quality alone.

  • I very much enjoy the voices in iSymphonic. I'm a softie for those classical and orchestral sounds. The voices are great, but the app needs work. I'm hopeful for an update soon.

    It doesn't work well with Audiobus3. Trying to launch it in an input slot is an exercise in frustration. I also tried to add it as an IAA in a Cubasis audio track, and it launches and then crashes... The problem appears to be when iSymphonic loads voices. If you launch it from either Audiobus 3 OR Cubasis, they switch to iSymphonic. Sometimes it crashes, often it returns to Audiobus3 with a "switch to fix". The only surefire way I've been able to get it into a mix is to launch it FIRST, let it get its startup stuff out of the way (loading instruments, giving MIDI caution messages, etc) then add it as an IAA instrument in Cubasis. It doesn't work well with AUM either. The only thing I have yet to test is whether launching it before adding it to an AUM input slot works. I'll let you know.

    I just want to repeat for those trying to get it to work the one way I DID get it into a mix:

    Launch iSymphonic first, wait for it to completely initalize, then set it as an IAA instrument in Cubasis.

    P.S. I have an unresponded support email that's a couple of days old too. Support could be better.

  • @mkell424 said:
    I took your guys advice and bought iSymphonic. :)

    I agree that it sounds spectacular. Especially on headphones. Like the effects and it syncs up with Cubasis. The only thing I wish is that it had more sounds. Like people have pointed out, many of the presets are just variations of the same sound. But I think it's worth $29.99 for the sound quality alone.

    I use it everyday as I’m a symphonic composer. Don’t go for SampleTank, it’s not auv3. The miroslav sounds are not that great. iSymphonic has wonderful sounds, don’t you think?

    The only app that reaches it sound quality is NOTION. Notion is an app based on notes. The downloaded instruments are great. You can download a midi file and import it into notion and it will give all voices it’s correct instrument. What’s even better... is the compatible desktop version. The desktop sounds you can buy is among the best ever :)

  • tjatja
    edited February 2018

    @Kühl said:

    @mkell424 said:
    I took your guys advice and bought iSymphonic. :)

    I agree that it sounds spectacular. Especially on headphones. Like the effects and it syncs up with Cubasis. The only thing I wish is that it had more sounds. Like people have pointed out, many of the presets are just variations of the same sound. But I think it's worth $29.99 for the sound quality alone.

    I use it everyday as I’m a symphonic composer. Don’t go for SampleTank, it’s not auv3. The miroslav sounds are not that great. iSymphonic has wonderful sounds, don’t you think?

    The only app that reaches it sound quality is NOTION. Notion is an app based on notes. The downloaded instruments are great. You can download a midi file and import it into notion and it will give all voices it’s correct instrument. What’s even better... is the compatible desktop version. The desktop sounds you can buy is among the best ever :)

    Could you please post a link to notion?
    There seem to be more than one and i am not sure which is the right one :-)

    Edit: This one?
    Notion by NOTION Music, Inc.

    Hmm.
    I do not seem to be able to copy a link to an App in the App Store?!?

    Edit2: Trying to send the link as iMessage offered a way to extract the URL ... instead of a picture.
    This is VERY confusing!

    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notion/id475820434?l=en&mt=8

  • @motmeister said:
    I very much enjoy the voices in iSymphonic. I'm a softie for those classical and orchestral sounds. The voices are great, but the app needs work. I'm hopeful for an update soon.

    It doesn't work well with Audiobus3. Trying to launch it in an input slot is an exercise in frustration. I also tried to add it as an IAA in a Cubasis audio track, and it launches and then crashes... The problem appears to be when iSymphonic loads voices. If you launch it from either Audiobus 3 OR Cubasis, they switch to iSymphonic. Sometimes it crashes, often it returns to Audiobus3 with a "switch to fix". The only surefire way I've been able to get it into a mix is to launch it FIRST, let it get its startup stuff out of the way (loading instruments, giving MIDI caution messages, etc) then add it as an IAA instrument in Cubasis. It doesn't work well with AUM either. The only thing I have yet to test is whether launching it before adding it to an AUM input slot works. I'll let you know.

    I just want to repeat for those trying to get it to work the one way I DID get it into a mix:

    Launch iSymphonic first, wait for it to completely initalize, then set it as an IAA instrument in Cubasis.

    P.S. I have an unresponded support email that's a couple of days old too. Support could be better.

    You should try using it as an AU. I loaded it in Audiobus3 and Cubasis at the same time without any problems.

  • edited February 2018

    @tja said:

    @Kühl said:

    @mkell424 said:
    I took your guys advice and bought iSymphonic. :)

    I agree that it sounds spectacular. Especially on headphones. Like the effects and it syncs up with Cubasis. The only thing I wish is that it had more sounds. Like people have pointed out, many of the presets are just variations of the same sound. But I think it's worth $29.99 for the sound quality alone.

    I use it everyday as I’m a symphonic composer. Don’t go for SampleTank, it’s not auv3. The miroslav sounds are not that great. iSymphonic has wonderful sounds, don’t you think?

    The only app that reaches it sound quality is NOTION. Notion is an app based on notes. The downloaded instruments are great. You can download a midi file and import it into notion and it will give all voices it’s correct instrument. What’s even better... is the compatible desktop version. The desktop sounds you can buy is among the best ever :)

    Could you please post a link to notion?
    There seem to be more than one and i am not sure which is the right one :-)

    Edit: This one?
    Notion by NOTION Music, Inc.

    Hmm.
    I do not seem to be able to copy a link to an App in the App Store?!?

    Edit2: Trying to send the link as iMessage offered a way to extract the URL ... instead of a picture.
    This is VERY confusing!

    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notion/id475820434?l=en&mt=8

    Sorry I didn’t post a link, I didn’t know how :)
    It’s the right NOTION Yep!
    It is an app by PRESONUS. Don’t be fooled by the Notion Music Inc notion...
    PRESONUS also has loads of good desktop software, a real contender to Avid Pro Tools.
    https://www.presonus.com/products/Notation-Software here’s the link baby. Rock’n’Roll.

    PS if you own Notion, you can crossgrade to other software on desktop.

  • I use it in bm3. Sounds great once it loads. That’s the downfall for me is it takes minutes to load sounds. So not very expedited if your looking to groove fast. But the sounds are awesome.

  • @CracklePot said:

    @motmeister said:
    I very much enjoy the voices in iSymphonic. I'm a softie for those classical and orchestral sounds. The voices are great, but the app needs work. I'm hopeful for an update soon.

    It doesn't work well with Audiobus3. Trying to launch it in an input slot is an exercise in frustration. I also tried to add it as an IAA in a Cubasis audio track, and it launches and then crashes... The problem appears to be when iSymphonic loads voices. If you launch it from either Audiobus 3 OR Cubasis, they switch to iSymphonic. Sometimes it crashes, often it returns to Audiobus3 with a "switch to fix". The only surefire way I've been able to get it into a mix is to launch it FIRST, let it get its startup stuff out of the way (loading instruments, giving MIDI caution messages, etc) then add it as an IAA instrument in Cubasis. It doesn't work well with AUM either. The only thing I have yet to test is whether launching it before adding it to an AUM input slot works. I'll let you know.

    I just want to repeat for those trying to get it to work the one way I DID get it into a mix:

    Launch iSymphonic first, wait for it to completely initalize, then set it as an IAA instrument in Cubasis.

    P.S. I have an unresponded support email that's a couple of days old too. Support could be better.

    You should try using it as an AU. I loaded it in Audiobus3 and Cubasis at the same time without any problems.

    WOW. I'm not that familiar with AUs yet, but I definitely will try it!

Sign In or Register to comment.