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.
Casio CZ on sale $19.99-$7.99
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cz-app-for-ipad/id954171519?mt=8
Anybody use this thing? I always thought it was waaaaay overpriced, but heard it in one of Doug’s videos and thought it actually sounds pretty good.
Comments
I made some presets for it quite a while back (have lost them since).
While it can sound great, I think there are better digital era synths out there such as PhaseMaker
it is quite different drom other synths so for that reason I found it was worth it at sale price. however, it has a few bugs that stopped me from using it at all
Can you elaborate on the bugs?
tempting, as I have a CZ1000 around... but (sorry) I don't trust Casio to have THAT sound captured in a modern digital device.
These things have a lot of digital grit and analog dirt and use to end kind of boring if just the math is applied.
If someone has the app and provides a screenshot of the patch, I might record the original with the same settings - mine is controlled by the Coffeeshopped CZ-Patch app which has almost identical graphics.
if I remember correctly, mostly workflow related issues, like you can have up to four synths running at the same time (which is great) but to edit those instances is so complicated that it was useless to me. There were some minor bugs too but iirc the synth itself was rather solid, and at the current price worth it if you're after this kind of sound.
The app is 4-part multi timbral and uses next to no CPU...
It would be just perfect as an AUV3
The app has an occasional bug I’ve found:
Some freezing happens when fiddling with the envelopes
This was on the last version of iOS though and I’ve not tested it for a while.
What would be the closest thing to this in Gadget?
I loved my CZ-101’s back in the day. I find the app fiddly to program compared to the hardware, particularly the envelopes. I wish they included the original sounds that came on the 101. It does crash more than I would like. I lost interest for those reasons.
Good question. Anyone?
chang mai?
CZ = phase distortion
chang mai = phase modulation
one man’s modulation is another man’s distortion?
guessing here
(side by side CZ sounds more FM more grit than Chang Mal...synth experts?)
afaik Yamaha's DX-FM isn't true FM in the sense of modulating waves in an analog synth.
In fact it's also dealing with the signal's phase in the first place.
Pure (digital) frequency modulation needs an amount of calculation power that was way out if reach in the 80s.
Yet they called it 'frequency modulation' and branded the term, so Casio had to create their own label and called it 'phase distortion'.
Both FM and PD are very similiar, but since the method is quite sensitive to small parameter changes, it results in a diffent sound. Casio has more complex envelopes and the analog conversion adds it's own specific colour, too.
(which also applies to Yamaha's implementation: different hardware versions (of the same algorithmic model) sound quite different and even more different if the math is applied with high precision in a modern digital device, be it a Mac/PC or tablet.
Just picked it up yesterday ... the most glaring issue I came across was the small dead zone in the middle of all the on-screen keyboard keys.(at least on my 12.9 Pro). .. It should aproximate and play either the key to the left or right of your finger, but to play nothing at all and for it to happen quite often unless I’m concentrating on landing my fingers just right, makes the onscreen KB quite useless to me.
P.s.
Just downloaded and tested it out on my air 2 and it’s much more playable on it , the dead zone is quite a bit harder to trigger. They certainly need to update the app to better deal with larger screen iPads.
Anyone who dared to compare it with Phase84?
here's a page from Coffeeshopped's blog introducing a patch bank he did on a real Casio CZ with a video (just the raw sound plus the patch name).
Imho it's a good example why that (original) sound is still appreciated.
https://coffeeshopped.com/patches/cz-pack-1
You may skip to the 4 patches at the end for a quick idea what it's about.
Really hard to describe the sound, kind of strange brew between digital and dirty analog.
Round bass fundament, but some over-gritty highs and lot's of low volume side effects in the background.