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.
Sound disappearing when swapping from headphones to speaker output
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I've discovered an issue with Audiobus - I just tried Thumbjam into Echo Pad through AB via headphones and it sounded fine. Unplugged them and the sound was distorted. Plugged the headphones in again and there was no sound, and couldn't get sound out from the iPad speaker when I unplugged them again. Tried again with Nave, and after plugging in the earphones, and then removing them a couple of times the sound completely stopped again. I was experiencing these issues yesterday, but mistakenly put it down to the new FLUX:FX app I was using. Instead it seems any app I try will be affected.
I tested Thumbjam and Nave in standalone mode, and despite repeatedly unplugging and reconnecting them sound wasn't affected at all.
There seems to be a real unpredictability of sound quality using Audiobus since I upgraded to an Air 2 (iOS 8.1.1), with apps losing sound completely in a seemingly random manner. I also don't seem to be able to run as many apps as I expected - 3 inputs and the whole thing gets overloaded - even my iPad 2 could manage two inputs. I've also noticed that sometimes moving the ipad causes the sound to disintegrate. Again, this only happens when I'm using Audiobus.
The headphone thing is worrying me though - at first I thought it was hardware related, but since I can't replicate the issue any other way, it seems linked to Audiobus.
Comments
I've been thinking lately (not always a good thing) that a lot of these ios 8 issues could be down to the change over from Objective c to Swift.. maybe. And apps built previous, have been built using Objective c and running on an operating system geared up for Swift built apps.. Possibly.
Do you think that could affect the audio output? Maybe the Audiobus sound out is having issues with the iOS8/hardware headphone port? There's also the Air 2 speaker vibration thing - I don't mind it but maybe that's affecting Audiobus output when using the built-in speaker.
I'll run a test using IAA at some point, when I work out how to do the thing.
I probably don't know what I am talking about so this might be dumb input, but I was aware that a lot of apps turn off the sound to prevent feedback until headphones are plugged in, Could your iPad issue be related to this intended behaviour, I would imagine you considered this simple solution, but often when I am looking for a potential problem, I am not content until I manage to find one
This happens to me on ios7 occasionally. Have to hard restart the iPad to get it back.
That's a good point, I would have thought this would be more related to effects but maybe Audiobus has this built in somewhere. Thumbjam is fine if I play it int standalone mode.
Ah right, maybe I haven't got a dodgy pad then! I don't need to reboot, if I quit AB I still have sound using apps on their own.
I've just tested a loop via Audioshare and no problems with that, it does seem to be specifically related to Audiobus.
Hi @monzo, sorry about the delay.. been v. busy and forgot i'd posted here.
To be honest i haven't got a clue what it could be. If it was just one App then i'd say its an AU communication problem but it's not just one App. All i can suggest is to spend a day trying all your apps thru Audiobus and IAA to see what works best. Hopefully an Audiobus update or an ios update will fix this.
Hope you find a working soloution soon.
Thanks, hadn't had the issue for a while but it occurred again yesterday. When I added a third input to Audiobus, the sound went. Unplugged the earphones and the sound came back, plugged them in again and it was fine. Weird - can't be hardware related or it'd be more random than that.
very strange.I would consider taking it back and swapping it for another. Just to be safe. That way, if it does it again you know its an ios thing.
I've had the iPad three weeks now - would they swap it or insist on a 'repair'?
I believe you have up to 30 days.. But it could just be Ios 8. And things will improve on that front. I've just read a promising post by @superdom about warming to ios 8 (in Apps tricks and tips).
Hi guys,
I've just been playing with this to see if I can make any discoveries, and I did encounter some odd behaviour; it does seem app-specific, though, as I couldn't reproduce any of those problems with our Audiobus testbed apps alone.
There're a few issues at play here. The first, which produces distorted (a buzz) or silent audio appears to be another manifestation of our good friend bug #18793520 (see http://audiob.us/bugs), which is a problem with iOS, and unfortunately beyond our control, other than asking Apple to fix it (which we've done already).
The second appears to be app-specific - I'm going to let Chris know about this thread so he can take a look at Echo Pad and do a bit of diagnosis; hard to say right now precisely what's going on, but handling audio route changes (plugging/unplugging headphones) with IAA, which is what Audiobus is built on top of now, can be pretty tricky so there may be something in that.
If you find other examples of things going awry, do let us know, with steps to reproduce the problem. We've a big community of apps these days, and it can be tricky to pinpoint specific problems sometimes, so we can use all the info you can provide.
Cheers,
Michael
Thanks @Michael. So by plugging/ unplugging headphones during playback could be overloading cpu because it has to completely re-route audio paths.
Thanks both. Sounds like it's not a specific hardware issue with the iPad I have, but I'll post any other issues I notice here just in case.
Thanks for letting me know about this @Michael
@monzo
In the case with Echo Pad, the problem is that Echo Pad is detecting the audio route change from headphones to built in speaker, and mutes its audio input. This is a small bug in Echo Pad, as it should not be happening while Echo Pad is connected to Audiobus or IAA, it should only mute input when switching to speaker if you are using the built in microphone for audio input, this is to prevent sudden blasts of feedback from that I/O combo. I'll look into this and fix it in the next update.
Thankfully in the meantime there is a simple solution. If you switch from headphones to built in speaker and Echo Pad mutes its audio input, just tap the "Options" button in Echo Pad, then tap "Mute In" and audio will return as normal.
That's a good tip. Thanks, @HoldernessMedia.
Thanks for the info.
I remember Auria encountered issues when connecting headphones and disconnecting. Some iOS coreAUDIO related bug, but the dev managed to fix it I believe. But this was before iOS 8.
I had a couple of problems with vanishing audio when using Auria too. Can't remember if this was via AB or IAA. Think I need to keep testing.