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.

What about Wotja Generative music?

Anyone owns it and uses? Is it easy to play/create music on it?

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Comments

  • Yes and yes.
    Yes and yes.

  • edited December 2017

    Nah, gave up on these guys.

  • It's great and configurable in many ways and offers live MIDI In and Out

  • edited December 2017

    @tja said:
    Yes and yes.
    Yes and yes.

    more details? How easy is to create music by this app? How is the quality of a sounds and fx? How intuitive it is? Is it stable?

  • You did not ask that ;-)

    Creating something can be one click, as easy as possible.
    You can change the things that will be used.

    I constantly use it to create some background music.
    The inbuild sound is good enough, but as I wrote, you can easily use others Synths.

    It's not so easy to use everything it offers and not always intuitiv.
    But I still use it and yes, it is stable!

  • It's fairly intuitive once you get the general syntax and layout. I have the full version but not subscription. It bugged me that they abandoned Mixtikl in favor of shifting all efforts to a subscription model with Wotja, but they did come back with a full annual version. They do keep it updated and maintained. Fixes come quick if needed.

    My install is for 2017, but I haven't decided if I'll buy the next full version or not.

    I'd say for a focus on generative music, Wotja is still, overall the king on iOS. A very close second for me would be Refraktions. The library of generative sources in Wotja is fairly vast, and you can import your own samples as well. But, Refraktions shines in that it's more sort of "playable". Both very good in this genre.

  • Yes, I also have the full 2017 version and do not see a need for a subscription.

    One example just created, out of Wotja 2017 without any changes:

    But it can do many different things and you can control what and how things are done.

  • It's good and capable ;)

  • Any ideas why name of the app changed?
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/intermorphic-ltd/id347409280
    Is this the same app? Users who purchased 2017 version has updates or no?

  • @MAtrixplan said:
    Any ideas why name of the app changed?
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/intermorphic-ltd/id347409280
    Is this the same app? Users who purchased 2017 version has updates or no?

    Users who purchased 2017 version only have updates in 2017. This is part of the deal. We now have 2018. This is the reason for the new name/version.

  • @MAtrixplan said:
    Any ideas why name of the app changed?
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/intermorphic-ltd/id347409280
    Is this the same app? Users who purchased 2017 version has updates or no?

    There's also a subscription version which works out cheaper or the same unless you want the ability to have pieces play for more than 8 hours continuously, which is only offered as a subscription tier. 2017/2018 versions are for users who'd rather have a one-off payment and/or keep older versions around, though I have both because it's not AU and I sometimes like to run two instances. (This is NOT something a normal human will ever want to do.)

    The 2018 version does have one quite compelling new feature over the 2017 one: you can create an entire album to your specification with a single button press. (It's just an extension of the 2017 random-piece generation feature; you choose which of your own files and the provided templates get used to generate the tracks, and set various randomisation parameters, though they were saying in the forum yesterday that they're planning to allow you to save presets of randomisation settings, which would be a big deal.) It's no different from creating ten new random files in a row from the same setting, but I've been rather enjoying taking a single-cell patch of my own and spinning it into an entire album of related variations. No new sounds in the 2018 version, but there are good new collections of demoes and templates.

  • edited January 2018

    I love the concept but I simply cannot understand how does it work.

    I got the 2017 edition when it came out but I used it max 5 times ‘cause it was too confusing for me and the interface was uninviting.

    Definitely a powerful tool but not my cup of tea.

  • @rumorazzi said:
    I love the concept but I simply cannot understand how does it work.

    I got the 2017 edition when it came out but I used it max 5 times ‘cause it was too confusing for me and the interface was uninviting.

    Definitely a powerful tool but not my cup of tea.

    Yes, the interface isn't going to win any prizes for aesthetics. But for those coming to it for the first time, the cell view does give a reasonably intuitive visual sense of its overall workings: on the left (under Voices) is the generative engine, and on the right is the sound engine. Tap a generative voice to get all the options in one gigantic scrolling page with a sidebar for quick navigation to sections, and tap a Poly object to get the modular synth network. (You don't have to use this at all if you just want to use the generative engine to drive other apps over MIDI.) A lot of the depth is hidden from view behind instant-gratification auto-generation and randomisation features for casual users, so you can ease your way into it, though the provided templates and demoes can be a bit samey and thin-sounding compared to what the app is capable of.

  • @Masanga said:
    the provided templates and demoes can be a bit samey and thin-sounding compared to what the app is capable of.

    Any recommended demos?

  • @Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr said:

    @Masanga said:
    the provided templates and demoes can be a bit samey and thin-sounding compared to what the app is capable of.

    Any recommended demos?

    Zebra404 is always worth checking out. Among the built-in demoes, the three haiku ones at the end of the 2018 in-app album are the least plinky (not that plinky is necessarily bad, but there's a bit of an excess of it in the templates). Nobody seems to be using it for beats at the moment, which surprises me a bit.

  • I like Wotja's algorithms, and I got used to the new interface. It's definitely worth the time to try out the demos.

    My favorite in the generative genre is Refraktions... or maybe tied with Wotja. What I like about Refraktions is that you have more direct control to influence by means of sorta playing it. It also just got a fresh update:

    What's New in Version 2.2
    • Audiobus 3.0.2 added. Refraktions is available as an Audio Source, MIDI Source, and MIDI Filter.
    • App can now receive note input from external MIDI controllers or other iOS apps (as destination "Refraktions").
    • Play / pause functionality added by tapping center circle.
    • Added 8th synth, "Coastal Synth."
    • Added ability to change root key in musical scales.
    • Added per-track customization of playback, composition, volume, and pitch.
    • Added global and per-track customization of MIDI sources and destinations.
    • Added shake detection, which rearranges the composition.
    • Improved note creation, including fixes to MIDI on / off for each tap.
    • Rebuilt internal metronome with average drift variance of < 0.7 ms.
    • Switch from UserDefaults to CoreData for data storage.

    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/refraktions/id866134037?mt=8

  • Yes, I'm a fan of Refraktions too; they sort of complement one another in that Refraktions' actual workings are rather mysterious and activated by what you do with it, while Wotja gives you control-freak levels of access to every single thing it does and the awesome power to break something that was absolutely perfect a moment ago by changing something tiny and making a butterfly bring down your whole majestic creation by flapping its wings with no undo.

  • @Masanga said:
    Wotja gives you control-freak levels of access to every single thing it does and the awesome power to break something that was absolutely perfect a moment ago by changing something tiny and making a butterfly bring down your whole majestic creation by flapping its wings with no undo.

    You sound like you'd love a hardware modular synth.

  • Noatikl (predecessor of Wotja) is my main sound (and midi-) generator, I also bought Wotja 2017, but it didn‘t make me wanna switch yet. Lots of updates, though, and the devs are very open for constructive ideas... . Will buy W2018, too, to show my appreciation to those guys.

  • http://whitherwalter.blogspot.com/2013/07/noatikl-for-ipad-tutorial-1.html - a tutorial series I did on Noatikl (precursor to Wotja). Still relevant to learning internals. Dial Wotja to single cell mode and this should get you going. 8 part tutorial.

  • Are these videos? @oldlibmike
    Any chance of a link to the tutorials?

  • trying the demo...
    Perfect for shopping center and lift music - maybe even a dentist?
    So far - pretty bland.
    No videos on how people construct quality work - it all sends me to sleep :(

  • edited January 2018

    Going back still further, the videos on Noatikl and Mixtikl from UncertainMusicCorps go into things like the synth network; if you think the current UI is a bit unwelcoming, be prepared for some traumatic interface horror, but the functionality he describes is all still there, though it's all sliders rather than knobs these days.

    A couple of immediate tips:

    • It's not the friendliest feature since they did away with the pattern editor from Koan Pro days, but fixed patterns are vital for any kind of structure or beats, and the syntax isn't that horrible once you get used to it, though it can be a bit laborious for more elaborate effects. (My own quickie tutorial yesterday included the gentlest possible introduction by using it for a single fixed-length drone.)

    • If you haven't already done so, do go into Settings (bottom right button in the edit view) and turn Virtual MIDI on and ISE for Synth & FX off, then route the Wotja output through an external sound source such as Zeeon over Virtual MIDI. The output settings are global setting, so you can now go back to the demo albums and try each demo through a variety of different synth patches. (If you have Yamaha FM Essential unlocked, you can even use that side-by-side in split screen on iPad, though all the patches in the locked version sound pretty horrible with it.) Many users bypass Wotja's deep but idiosyncratic synth network entirely and just use it as a MIDI generator.

  • edited January 2018

    @Masanga
    Did the indevice user sample import from Mixtikl not make it into Wotja?

    I’ve got the new Wotja, and Mixtikl 7, can’t find I user sample import in Wotja yet...
    Thanks for any info

  • Can it get nasty and funky, or is it just alway soft breezes and happy clouds floating along?

  • edited January 2018

    @Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr said:
    Can it get nasty and funky, or is it just alway soft breezes and happy clouds floating along?

    I definitely plan on finding out- the previous Mixtikl was bendable to ones will, in part given user sample import but the synths onboard both apps are pretty wide open

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