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.

Any apps with comping on record?

The desktop version of Cakewalk Sonar X3, and other apps like Cubase I believe, offer "comping" on record: When you record a live take, such as vocals, guitar, or anything else really, you can instantly re-record as many versions as you like and they will be automatically stacked on top of each other. Then you can quickly select and slice the best sections from each take, and they will automatically be merged (with just a little volume envelope wizardry) seamlessly.

See here:
http://blog.cakewalk.com/developer-notes-sonar-x3-comping/

And video example:

I would LOVE to find a DAW or recording app on iPad that offers this. Any ideas? Feature request!

Comments

  • It would be nice, but I suspect it is a little ways away...For example, Cubasis doesn't even do automation yet, and Auria doesn't even have a sequencer yet. I would imagine some of the more basic things will need to be done before we can get nice things like this...........it WOULD be nice after the automation and sequencer though... :-)

  • I'd like to see splitting/gluing of audio in Cubasis and better basic editing options in Cubasis before I would want this..... I need the basics first to be in there, and then the other nice things can come. :-)

  • Don't misunderstand though... I'd REALLY love comping! :-)

  • edited October 2013

    Exerpt from Meteor's user manual.

    Loop Recording.
    Meteor supports loop recording of MIDI files, and startin with version 1.6 we now support stacked recording of audio files too. Both of these features are only available in Single-Track record mode, which can be selected from the 'Options' menu.

    Loop Recording of Audio Files.
    The stacked recording feature allows you to record the same passage over and over again until you get a good take. Once you have several takes you can compare each in turn to find the best take.

    1) Ensure 'Single-Track' mode is selected from the 'Options' menu.

    2) Ensure a MONO or STEREO audio track is ARMed.

    3) Select a looping area by dragging a selection on the ruler. The area that is to be looped will appear in navy blue.

    4) Press the LOOP button on the transport panel.

    5) Press the REC button then PLAY to begin recording.

    Once recording begins you will see T1 appear in the lower left corner of the recorded clip. This stands for Take 1, and each time the cursor hits the end of your loop it will increment by one and begin recording at your loops start point.

    Press STOP after several takes and the last complete take will be automatically selected. If on playback you are not happy with this take simply TAP and HOLD on the clip and select a new take from the popup menus Takes submenu.

    Using this feature does consume more storage space as each take is stored on disk. In fact each take is stored end on end of the same audio file. If you want to edit this take, apply effects or use the Trim or Cross Fade you should first duplicate the clip replacing it with an optimized copy. To do this TAP and HOLD on the clip then choose 'Duplicate Selected' from the popup menu and use the 'Replace' option.

  • Auria keeps each take in a looped recording but there's no slick compibg UI. You have to unstack the takes on the track. UI for it is "on the list" though according to Rim.

  • Wow, pretty cool! So if I'm reading this right, you can do quick re-records and manage your takes. But unless I'm missing something, it doesn't sound like Meteor (or Auria) will allow you to do the fancy slicing bit like Cakewalk Sonar, where you can actually select the best bits from each take and have them layered into a single seamless comp? That's really the magic part, not so much the looped recording.

    But still, I can play around with it since I do have Meteor, just haven't used it.

    Also now that I think about it, doesn't Cubasis automatically loop live audio takes if you have the loop markers set on? I don't know if they're truly layered or just merged, haven't done enough live recording into it yet...

  • Yeah Cubasis will do loop recording really well...set loop points and record away..later just go and drag em and stack em on different tracks, tough to comp though....just as a matter of interest comping is how Dave Gilmour records all his solo's...a classic example being Comfortably Numb..

  • Wow, I never knew that about Gilmour, but sure enough... a quote of his from Guitar World magazine re: Comfortably Numb :

    “I banged out five or six solos,” says Gilmour. “From there I just followed my usual procedure, which is to listen back to each solo and make a chart, noting which bits are good. Then, by following the chart, I create one great composite solo by whipping one fader up, then another fader, jumping from phrase to phrase until everything flows together. That’s the way we did it on ‘Comfortably Numb.’”

    So I guess I could do it the old school way, using multiple tracks, selective muting, etc. Cubasis would be easiest since it's so easy to split and create volume fades.

  • @Flo26 you know what I mean :) @jesse_ohio here is another fantastic sounding old school trick..take 9 or so different keyboard sounds..say vocal sounds or synth sounds all slightly different..then record one note from each voice onto each track...but on track one for example record a c4, track f3, and so on until you have 3 chords, maybe a c,f and a minor..record over 2 bars and set to loop..cubasis is great for this...then set a drum loop...take all faders to 0 and set the drum loop to play...then make sure you inow what notes apply to each fader you can slide the faders up and down creating some amazing and interesting chords...works great with choir sounds...

  • Back in the day you could do this over say 24 tracks, but it was nightmare to set up as you can imagine...but once it was set up it was fairly easy to implement as you had real faders to play with..its a touch harder to do with digital faders on an iPad...if you have a midi controller its better..OMD used this on Souvenir..all the choir at he beginning was done this way..find the song on YT and listen to the intro..just had a thought..when we finally automation in Cubasis..you will be able to get some very nice fades going in...in fact you could do this in Looptical now...

  • I did that fader trick with two 7th chords a semitone apart on an 8 track back when I was at music college. Looped (spliced tape) my own voice on an old revox to get the notes. All the loops were slightly different lengths, which continuously varied the timing relationships between the wobbles and blips in the loops. Made for a great texture. I later found out that Clannad used the same technique for the backing chords in the theme to Harry's Game.

  • ProTools is about 3 years that have this feature...

  • @PaulB I'll bet it took a long time, but in the end worth it...it does create a unique effect..then and now..I cant think of anything else that can replicate the constent ebb and flow of chords like that..looping is somethat we all take for granted now...but then it was extremly costly and glitchy at the best of times....

  • I'd upload a digitised version, but it was a 20 minute piece and I don't have the room on Soundcloud. Lol

  • Dropbox yo!

  • edited March 2014

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  • @simon Yep.

    "It worked, but the loop itself — and this is where it gets interesting — had to be made up from multiple voices we'd done on the 16-track machine. Each note of a chromatic scale was sung 16 times, so we got 16 tracks of three people singing for each note. That was Kevin, Lol and GiGi standing around a valve Neumann U67 in the studio, singing 'Aahhh' for around three weeks. I'm telling you; three bloody weeks.

    http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun05/articles/classictracks.htm

  • edited March 2014

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