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.

FYI: WERKBENCH is on IPhone?

I just saw that.

Cool.

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Comments

  • Oh, so cool!

  • Genius app for beatboxing...

  • Introduced version 1.0.0 in Dec 2012 and never got an update!? Yikes. No AB, but cheap and presumably still works.

  • This app is responsible for the video of arguably the most impressive self-contained iPad "performance" I've ever seen. The developer(?) is a passenger in a car, improvising on Werkbench. It's incredible. Check it out on YT. Recommended.

  • @markk said:

    Ok that is cool.

    @RustiK
    Yet another only-on-iOS thingamajig, a weird wonderful world unto itself, that I have now reinstalled and am goofing around with all over again, and it's yer fault.

  • @Littlewoodg said:

    @markk said:

    Ok that is cool.

    @RustiK
    Yet another only-on-iOS thingamajig, a weird wonderful world unto itself, that I have now reinstalled and am goofing around with all over again, and it's yer fault.

    Interesting. Nothing heard from those guys and then three or four days ago they release:

    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tronika/id1130657444?ls=1&mt=8

    A game, with music, sorta. I wonder how many music devs will wonder well, maybe that's what the kids want....

    Me, being a weird and creepy romantic, can't help but wonder if the girl on the horn is still around...

  • My favourite Werkbench video:

  • the dev is currently working on a major update for this app, and he is very receptive and wants to hear your ideas so send them to him.

  • edited July 2016

    Would love to see four sequencers in the next version. And see them as four linear tracks of 16 vertical lanes like the DM1 or SPA automation lane. Would be a lot easier on my brain to see what's going on and a lot easier to adjust than knobs. Would also allow for things like draw mode ala midiSequencer.

    And, of course, song mode. Or maybe just a slightly more robust chaining system.

  • edited July 2016

    Werkbench is a favorite here! The sampling is the easiest in ios. Lots of fun to use. One of my tricks is to make a bunch of similar, but not identical samples for sounds that get repeated, to help the sequences sound more organic. Like, for claps on the 3rd beat of the measure, recording 4 of them rather than reusing one.

    That's great the developer is working on it again. I don't feel like it is missing much, maybe more of a song mode, for chaining together patterns, Ableton Link would be great. Some scenario that would allow longer samples at slower beat divisions would be cool, but whatever shape the new work takes, the simplicity is it's charm.

  • @Processaurus said:
    Werkbench is a favorite here! The sampling is the easiest in ios. Lots of fun to use. One of my tricks is to make a bunch of similar, but not identical samples for sounds that get repeated, to help the sequences sound more organic. Like, for claps on the 3rd beat of the measure, recording 4 of them rather than reusing one.

    That's great the developer is working on it again. I don't feel like it is missing much, maybe more of a song mode, for chaining together patterns, Ableton Link would be great. Some scenario that would allow longer samples at slower beat divisions would be cool, but whatever shape the new work takes, the simplicity is it's charm.

    Funny. I find it very confusing to look at/work with. Reminds me of being in a Hungarian deli at rush hour in 1955.

  • @JohnnyGoodyear said:
    Funny. I find it very confusing to look at/work with. Reminds me of being in a Hungarian deli at rush hour in 1955.

    The goulash is worth it! The fundamental idea is interesting, it is a sampling drum machine with essentially a different channel for each beat, rather then a channel per piece of the kit.

    One thing I liked, that I wish other drum machines had, was the chain button between the 16 step patterns, it's a nice way to get 32 steps, 64, etc.

  • Realized I didn't say it on reread: easily one of my favorite apps on iOS. Always seem to like what comes out of it. I just think it's a bit constrained by its steampunk UI.

  • the dev is looking for skin ideas too, he said so on this very forum so send him a chime, already put in my suggestions, he's very open minded.

  • edited July 2016

    It hasn't had a steam punk UI for ages :( so my idea for a skin is a steampunk one

  • edited July 2016

    @BiancaNeve said:
    It hasn't had a steam punk UI for ages :( so my idea for a skin is a steampunk one

    My bad. Conflating the designs in my head. Now that you say it (and I googled the old version) I sorta miss parts of the steam punk graphics too!

    Here's a hack job of what I'd like to see, cobbled from DM1 and SPA. The buttons on the top of each lane would switch to match the Werkbench buttons like level, pan, filter, decay... and perhaps others like delay on/off. On the left, some sort of track header that would house patterns and maybe something like a 'can be transposed'. Above the top would be the app's current header (this is cropped).

    I'm not suggesting the app should take on a design like DM1 or SPA but would definitely love 16 x 4 on a single screen!

  • @Processaurus said:
    Werkbench is a favorite here! The sampling is the easiest in ios. Lots of fun to use. One of my tricks is to make a bunch of similar, but not identical samples for sounds that get repeated, to help the sequences sound more organic. Like, for claps on the 3rd beat of the measure, recording 4 of them rather than reusing one.

    That's great the developer is working on it again. I don't feel like it is missing much, maybe more of a song mode, for chaining together patterns, Ableton Link would be great. Some scenario that would allow longer samples at slower beat divisions would be cool, but whatever shape the new work takes, the simplicity is it's charm.

    I second that. Especially Ableton LINK is really something important nowadays. So I hope it will be implemented in the update.

  • edited July 2016

    Hey Folks!

    Werkbench dev here. It's awesome to see that Werkbench is still stimulating creativity and discussion. Here's an update:

    Werkbench 3.0 is in the works. It will be universal, an update, and probably like... I dunno... $15 bucks. No guarantee of timeline.

    New features that have already been implemented:

    Bit Crusher (really a down-sampling algorithm) variable per step.

    Nudging timing per step (the control allows you to push a step in time to any location between its neighboring steps. I'm considering shipping the app with preprogrammed 'feels' that can be applied to the sequence with a tap or adjusted manually.

    Reverb (a modified gVerb with added parameter smoothing and an added band pass filter for sculpting tone) that works similarly to the delay (global and per-step sends). Love the Roland TR-8's per step implementation and tone/decay controls. I've got something similar.

    ●Step editing for envelope attack and hold

    Reverse samples (extremely cool paired with the nudging feature)

    ●Live recording of parameter automation. Now every control on top of the loop has an analogous step editing parameter, you can record movements of the global controls into the loop at you play. Still need to get the UX to be satisfying.

    Werkbench file format. This just opens things up a bit. You will be able to share and backup your loops / distribute sample packs as a third party sound designer. There are at least a few people using multiple iPads running Werkbench and lack of proper file management has been an issue.

    Features in progress (and thoughts):

    Abelton Link will be easy.

    Expanded pattern banks. Likely just doubling it to 8 per side. At the moment I hold all 128 samples in RAM for immediate playback. 256 may tax device capabilities. Testing is needed and/or building a proper ring buffer setup that only reads the full sample when needed and just stores the beginning in RAM.

    Sample length. Longer samples are a common request. The factors here are polyphony and memory usage. As the samples get longer they are more likely to overlap during playback. At high tempos and pitched down (longer) samples it is easy to get 20+ voices playing at once. Every voice is basically a full synth voice: multiple filters, busses, sample interpolation, and parameter smoothing need to be calculated for every sample for every voice! And as mentioned before, the current implementation holds all of the waveform data in memory. I shot for a happy balance at the time of release. The hardware has come some way since then so it's worth revisiting the limits.

    Four sequencers. We all want it. This is my top candidate for an IAP feature. While wb is great with 2 sequencers, the real heads want 4. The 3.0 update will be free for existing users but I'm gonna at least try to sell you something. It will be cheaper than a second iPad.

    Four sequencers is also a UX challenge. I could put the sequences on lanes as suggested (or just offer that mode). I feel strongly about the 4x4 grid. I find it is much easier to see the rhythm at a glance. Many popular rhythms have a stronger graphic fingerprint when displayed 4x4 than when they are displayed linearly. It's even easy to hand write sheet music for WB by just drawing dots. Think of the children.

    Graphics:

    As was mentioned before, I released a game last week called Tronika. It's free and universal. Check it out. It was a fun audio hacking project, an exploration into shipping universal apps, and a chance to test out a working relationship with a graphic designer. It went well and I'm going to work with him to skin Werkbench to be functional and friendly without being distracting.

    Werkbench iPhone version:

    Yes it exists! No it won't get updated sorry. At the time that I wrote it, the code base diverged significantly from the iPad version to accommodate the 3GS. It also wasn't as much of hit and is limited compared to the full iPad version. There are <200 copies out there. WB3 will be universal and the iPhone version will be phased out.

    Beta testers:

    If you are a very active Werkbench user or have an interesting use-case please get in touch at [email protected]. Tell me what you're up to and we'll talk. I can always benefit from testers that are engaged!

  • Great news

  • Very cool app.....glad to see you are working on advancing it further!

  • Too. much. good. news. for. one. post. Holy wow!

    Re: sample length. Never been much of an issue with the way I use the app but (ram issues aside) setting a max polyphony somewhere and implementing some sort of voice stealing seems like it could be a good compromise.

  • PS. Not anti the 4x4 — just that it takes up a lot of room. Though perhaps that's the circles+spacing? NanoLoop uses a 4x4 grid. Certainly the iphone version of NanoLoop's grid size could fit 4 up on a screen.

  • edited July 2016

    @syrupcore said:
    Too. much. good. news. for. one. post. Holy wow!

    Re: sample length. Never been much of an issue with the way I use the app but (ram issues aside) setting a max polyphony somewhere and implementing some sort of voice stealing seems like it could be a good compromise.

    You're exactly right. This is actually already available in WB2. The concern has more to do with how often we hit the limits. Extending the sample length is of little utility of they are always getting truncated. That said, I am investigating the possibilities.

  • If 3.0 comes out as a new app we could have four WB tracks at once. :D

  • @syrupcore said:
    If 3.0 comes out as a new app we could have four WB tracks at once. :D

    Check out the musician Justin Walter. He uses two synced iPads running Werkbench. He's got a special version of the app that has MIDI control for switching sequences. He's using a custom built MIDI foot switch controller that I had a hand in engineering.

  • @StormJH1 said:
    Introduced version 1.0.0 in Dec 2012 and never got an update!? Yikes. No AB, but cheap and presumably still works.

    I am using in AB right now as an output while sampling into it from addictive.

  • @Tritonman said:

    @StormJH1 said:
    Introduced version 1.0.0 in Dec 2012 and never got an update!? Yikes. No AB, but cheap and presumably still works.

    I am using in AB right now as an output while sampling into it from addictive.

    The iPad version was updated more recently and works fine on the latest version of iOS.

    Looking forward to an update and the new features Karl wrote about.

  • @RustiK needs to update the thread title, because he's burying the lead. Very excited to hear a V3 is coming, and I'm not even sure which new feature mentioned is my favorite, but if adding Link is so easy, please do stuff it into the old version now to help us wait out the new one.

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