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.

BM3 Learnings

Like others, I've struggled some to make sense of BM3. I've spent the last couple of weeks thrashing around in the program and taking notes as I go along. I'm sharing those notes here in case they might be helpful to others.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=13lPCQbYtZ1rG30s3CnuNPmhY6AbzvGn3suhoxjZgzXM

If you notice any big errors, please let me know and I'll do my best to fix them.

Please note that this is not a comprehensive guide to BM3. The BM3 manual is very comprehensive and is worth reading. These notes are simply observations on parts of the program that for me are key to understanding how the program works.

I hope some find this useful.

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Comments

  • I like the idea behind this. Thanks for sharing.

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  • " You can control which pattern MIDI gets record into by toggling on Track Helper and clicking the "create pattern" button at the bottom left and then selecting that pattern before hitting record. "

  • Are you even frigging kidding me? This is a GREAT addendum to the manual.. A MUST HAVE.. Thank you SO much!

  • yes, awesome points awarded

  • Ooof. Very good Christmas gift. Thank you @ecamburn.

  • Awesome-I love these kinds of workflow tips. Thank you to @ecamburn

  • I like many have had their head scratching moments with BM3, but it’s coming together now.

    The main problem though is not BM3 itself, but all the lovely sidetracking through iMPC Pro2 and Groove Rider GR-16! Not to mention AUs coming to Moebius Lab, extra AU Midis in Rozeta and a stash of new AU fx.....phew......

    O, and the worse distraction of all.....Audiobus Forums! ;)

  • @AudioGus said:
    " You can control which pattern MIDI gets record into by toggling on Track Helper and clicking the "create pattern" button at the bottom left and then selecting that pattern before hitting record. "

    This is how I create every song in BM3. I use scene mode to keep the ideas flowing. You can switch patterns right away too

  • edited December 2017

    @YZJustDatGuy said:

    @AudioGus said:
    " You can control which pattern MIDI gets record into by toggling on Track Helper and clicking the "create pattern" button at the bottom left and then selecting that pattern before hitting record. "

    This is how I create every song in BM3. I use scene mode to keep the ideas flowing. You can switch patterns right away too

    Yah, I just use song and pattern. Tried a few times to make friends with Scene mode but no luck/love.

    One question: when using patterns how do you ‘unfade’ the patterns in the song and why do they ‘fade’ in the first place?

  • edited December 2017

    Ahh yes, and one reason I recall not being into the pattern editor is that it seems you can/could only record AU automation to tracks and not patterns (at the time). So I bailed early on it as this was big to me.

  • edited December 2017

    @AudioGus said:

    @YZJustDatGuy said:

    @AudioGus said:
    " You can control which pattern MIDI gets record into by toggling on Track Helper and clicking the "create pattern" button at the bottom left and then selecting that pattern before hitting record. "

    This is how I create every song in BM3. I use scene mode to keep the ideas flowing. You can switch patterns right away too

    Yah, I just use song and pattern. Tried a few times to make friends with Scene mode but no luck/love.

    One question: when using patterns how do you ‘unfade’ the patterns in the song and why do they ‘fade’ in the first place?

    >

    Oh i see... you select each bank then hit ‘play song’. Hmmm, OK I will give the Scene Editor a complete and honest try today. Not that I feel anything is lacking working between Song and Pattern, but why have loose ends?

  • edited December 2017

    @AudioGus said:

    @AudioGus said:

    @YZJustDatGuy said:

    @AudioGus said:
    " You can control which pattern MIDI gets record into by toggling on Track Helper and clicking the "create pattern" button at the bottom left and then selecting that pattern before hitting record. "

    This is how I create every song in BM3. I use scene mode to keep the ideas flowing. You can switch patterns right away too

    Yah, I just use song and pattern. Tried a few times to make friends with Scene mode but no luck/love.

    One question: when using patterns how do you ‘unfade’ the patterns in the song and why do they ‘fade’ in the first place?

    >

    Oh i see... you select each bank then hit ‘play song’. Hmmm, OK I will give the Scene Editor a complete and honest try today. Not that I feel anything is lacking working between Song and Pattern, but why have loose ends?

    We'll be waiting for a report back (without mince pies). It was your honest declaration (I believe) to give them a pass that I have been following in my own blunderings...:)

  • edited December 2017

    @JohnnyGoodyear said:

    @AudioGus said:

    @AudioGus said:

    @YZJustDatGuy said:

    @AudioGus said:
    " You can control which pattern MIDI gets record into by toggling on Track Helper and clicking the "create pattern" button at the bottom left and then selecting that pattern before hitting record. "

    >

    This is how I create every song in BM3. I use scene mode to keep the ideas flowing. You can switch patterns right away too

    Yah, I just use song and pattern. Tried a few times to make friends with Scene mode but no luck/love.

    One question: when using patterns how do you ‘unfade’ the patterns in the song and why do they ‘fade’ in the first place?

    >

    Oh i see... you select each bank then hit ‘play song’. Hmmm, OK I will give the Scene Editor a complete and honest try today. Not that I feel anything is lacking working between Song and Pattern, but why have loose ends?

    We'll be waiting for a report back (without mince pies). It was your honest declaration (I believe) to give them a pass that I have been following in my own blunderings...:)

    Well, I gave the Scene Editor a good couple hours now.

    In the end, for me I still find incorporating it feels redundant, less direct and just adds more steps. I like slicing patterns up and rearranging / editing them via the song view. I find it much quicker and more direct than jumping to the Scene Editor. Maybe with certain loopy genres or aproaches it is a benefit. I tend to be more of a noodeler/editor/chopper than a musician though... more of a special FX/photoshop ethic when it comes to composition as opposed to performance. I find it easy and fast to just copy and move patterns in song view with the advantage of slicing them up and not having to organize or maintain looping patterns.

    My songs normaly end up looking like this...

    ...but when I use the scene editor things end up like this, being loopier and blocky in their organisation, which feels confining to me...

  • @AudioGus said:
    Well, I gave the Scene Editor a good couple hours now.

    In the end, for me I still find incorporating it feels redundant, less direct and just adds more steps. I like slicing patterns up and rearranging / editing them via the song view. I find it much quicker and more direct than jumping to the Scene Editor. Maybe with certain loopy genres or aproaches it is a benefit. I tend to be more of a noodeler/editor/chopper than a musician though... more of a special FX/photoshop ethic when it comes to composition as opposed to performance. I find it easy and fast to just copy and move patterns in song view with the advantage of slicing them up and not having to organize or maintain looping patterns.

    >

    I appreciate you sharing your findings Doctor. Although we have different end goals/interests/sounds(whatever) this....more of a special FX/photoshop ethic when it comes to composition as opposed to performance....really strikes a well-explained chord. The fact that, scenes aside, you are making sufficient progress for BM3 to be the center of your focus (according to comments about others apps and their suitability or otherwise etc) is encouraging to those of us who keep meaning to take off the vest and have a more committed wallow....

  • I'm glad some folks are finding this useful. Just trying to pay back some of the abundant sharing that goes on here!

    I too am finding your research helpful @AudioGus . I can see what you mean about Scene mode versus just working in Song mode. Initially for me it was easier to keep track of patterns and listen to them after dumping them into Scenes. But I'm seeing now that you always have access to the patterns in a bank via the Track Helper. And they're nicely organized in a list. So I can see how Scene mode would feel redundant.

  • Scene mode works for me probably because I make rap music. I set up an 8 bar loop going and let the ideas flow out. When it’s time to track everything out I can just grab the patterns from the track header and put them in song mode. That way if I ever feel the need to add something I can always go back to scene mode and work again

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  • Excellent OP, excellent thread, and excellent document, thanks!

  • @StudioES I incorporated your polyrhythm tip into the doc

  • Great stuff, read over multiple times. BM3 is really powerful but their sampler first approach is not like any other DAW I've used. More like a MPC or Pioneer SP-16.

    Quick question, I have a bank using the Rozetta bassline sequencer on a pad 1 and Troublemaker on pad 2. I've routed midi between and everything is working great. The only catch is that I'd like to only use the bassline sequencer with it's random/variation mode and not record any of the notes to the BM3 sequencer/piano roll.

    Is there a way to disable midi recording to the BM3 sequencer for a pad and still get midi notes to that pad? Seems like whenever I press record it wants to record the midi coming into that pad. I was looking for an 'arm/disarm' for a single pad but my eyes haven't found it yet.

    Thanks again for the great resource!

  • @shwanton said:
    Great stuff, read over multiple times. BM3 is really powerful but their sampler first approach is not like any other DAW I've used. More like a MPC or Pioneer SP-16.

    Quick question, I have a bank using the Rozetta bassline sequencer on a pad 1 and Troublemaker on pad 2. I've routed midi between and everything is working great. The only catch is that I'd like to only use the bassline sequencer with it's random/variation mode and not record any of the notes to the BM3 sequencer/piano roll.

    Is there a way to disable midi recording to the BM3 sequencer for a pad and still get midi notes to that pad? Seems like whenever I press record it wants to record the midi coming into that pad. I was looking for an 'arm/disarm' for a single pad but my eyes haven't found it yet.

    Thanks again for the great resource!

    I brought that up on the Intua forum. I recommend joining up, the devs are super cool.

    https://intua.net/forums/index.php?p=/discussion/5909/midi-record-arming-per-bank#latest

  • This thread has been very useful, thank you. And I’m glad I’m not the only one struggling with the learning curve.

  • @AudioGus Thanks! I signed up and added a comment to that thread.

  • @shwanton said:
    @AudioGus Thanks! I signed up and added a comment to that thread.

    Looks like it is in the next update too! Ahhh... you know, if BM3 was out six years ago I probably would have saved around two thousand dollars in iOS exploration...

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  • edited December 2017

    I really appreciate this thread. I realized Scenes is particularly awesome for playing back midi drum loops. I’m blown away how simple it is to now load up Roland SC and have a bank send the midi out to RSC while I can tap on the Midi drum loops in realtime! This really helps build a drum track fast too.

    Was having a hard time editing midi notes though once they’re in scene mode I don’t know where to edit.

    But again being able to drag and drop midi loops straight into the time line and from the documents folder is impressive!

  • To play around, I opened the "Summer Lights" session and tried to exchange the drum samples on A1 by the Ruismaker plugin.

    But this did only exchange the currently selected pad, not the whole bank.

    Does that mean, I would need to have 16 instances of Ruismaker to do this?

    I suppose, that I just misunderstand something.
    I hope :-O

  • @AudioGus said:

    @shwanton said:
    @AudioGus Thanks! I signed up and added a comment to that thread.

    Looks like it is in the next update too! Ahhh... you know, if BM3 was out six years ago I probably would have saved around two thousand dollars in iOS exploration...

    But the journey IS the destination Mister Gus....... ")

  • @tja you have a lot of different options. Do you want to replace all the Summer Night samples with Ruismaker sounds? If so you’re better off just adding a new bank and adding a Ruismaker to it. If you want to be able to sequence Ruismaker but still be able to trigger all of the othe Summer Nights samples just load 1 Ruismaker and leave the other samples where they are. You can load multiple Ruismakers on multiple pads in a bank. That could be a good option if you wanted to do separate processing of different Ruismaker channels

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