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.

Writing Jazz Etudes

I'd like to start writing jazz etudes. The ideal app for me would be a simple one that lets me do this:

  • Enter a chord progression with the typical selection of chords (major and minor 7ths with extensions, slash chords, etc.).
  • Enter a melody
  • Play the chords and melody together.

Started looking to see if there were alternatives to the powerful but sometimes hard to use Notion. I found this:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/leadsheets/id1105264983?mt=8

Pros: Chord entry is pretty quick. Plays chords and melody together. Handwriting recognition for note entry better than expected.

Cons: Stores only up to 3 tunes at a time - must pay for more tunes. No import of songs from other apps (no MusicXML, MIDI, etc.). Time saved by this fast workflow might be outweighed by time lost by having to recreate lead sheets after one hits the 3 leadsheet limit. Note editing is a bit fiddly.

I'll take another look at Notion soon.

Comments

  • I’ve searched about that too, I’m interested by answers you will get. Notion seems to be the most powerful.

    There is also Touch notation with chord name iap, you must check that this is really for jazz chords notation:

    https://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/touch-notation/id890358046?mt=8

    They also have a free version.

  • Thanks, Janosax - will take a look at Touch Notation.

    Notion can import files exported from iReal Pro - this is a fairly significant advantage, but it might be too much to ask of the cheaper apps - we'll see.

  • This has been a quest of mine as well, the chord progression part has a lot of options - iReal Pro, Chordbot, and Suggester are some that I'ved used. It's the melody part that's the problem. I haven't found a single app that does both. Of course the notation apps work for entry of a score and playback but that doesn't help me with development of chord progressions. I need to enter alternatives and hear them, preferably with different tempos and styles. The most workable system I've come up with so far is to export MIDI from the chord app into a DAW like Cubasis or NanoStudio, do the melody there, and then if I need a chart, export to Notion. Stuff like that.

  • Now if only MixedinKeys would make "Captain Chords" for iOS?..... :)

  • Yeah I've given up on finding that one do-it-all app to write a jazz etude. So far, as long as I'm working with jazz standards, iReal Pro + Notion is the way to go. The steps so far

    1. Find the tune I want to write an etude for (eg. Solar) in iReal Pro.
    2. Export the tune as MusicXML with the "Copy to Notion" option. Perhaps the PDF option might also work? Not sure.
    3. Use Notion's undocumented "Show as Rhythm Slash" feature to replace the default "diamonds" in the imported chart with rhythm slashes. Now Notion can play the chords in the chart.

    Next steps to learn:
    4. How to add a melody part/sheet to my Solar "score" in Notion.
    5. Enter my etude in this new melody part.

    The video showing the undocumented feature:

    This video shows how to enter a melody line once the chords are in there.:

Sign In or Register to comment.