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.
Comments
Yep, those are crackles alright. Great chord work though!
It seems that results are much better with well charged device, below 30/20% battery capacity things become pretty bad, and I mostly used RS275 below that limit last days. Note that except with ModelD, I usually don’t have this issue. Also noticed that on screen playing with Xequence keyboards is crackles free even with chords sliding, I seems that BTLE devices like Nanokey Studio adds some ressources stress. But again I had great fun tonight with NKS and well charged iPhone. Have to confirm this however with some other tests as even NKS has eaten its battery and I don’t have another set under my hand!!
Believe me or not but some of you should test a crazy fix I’ve found for a crazy issue!!
I’ve made more extensive tests this morning and this time fully charged iPhone don’t cure all crackles.
They don’t appears in my case with touchscreen keyboards but with external midi controller, only with fast played chords especially in my case with Nanokey studio chords mode which allow to play them as fast as notes and don’t let RS275 breath between them.
So... how to fix a crappy app with another crappy app on a crappy OS?
Audio damage Dubstation 2 has a very strange behavior: when you load it, there are some crackles, but when you open its window cpu gets lower and audio is ultra stable. I love that effect and when using it with my sax I always open its window. Counterintuitive I know!!!
With Ravenscroft 275, it also works like a charm: just load Dubstation 2 delay and don’t even route it to RV275 output. In AUM you can load it to a blank channel. Open delay window, and cpu will stay low with no audio crackles. On my device it goes from around 30% usage to around 10%. Fast chords playing is perfectly safe. Try with or without Dubstation 2 to hear the difference.
Big thanks Apple for your wonderful iOS 11!!!! We all hope as musicians for a reliable iOS 12, because this is crazy. Graphics thread priority over audio kills everything. Even Windows is fixed concerning that kind of issue since a very long time!!!
So it’s a crappy fix I know but it works!!!
Look at those screenshots and their CPU meter:
https://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/dubstation-2/id1253069666?mt=8
CPU buggy but the best delay on iOS IMO. As is Ravenscroft 275 and its killer sound!!
Please Audio damage don’t fix your plug before Apple fixes its iOS, it’s a useful tool to help us making music
Believe me or not but some of you should test a crazy fix I’ve found for a crazy issue!!
I’ve made more extensive tests this morning and this time fully charged iPhone don’t cure all crackles.
They don’t appears in my case with touchscreen keyboards but with external midi controller, only with fast played chords especially in my case with Nanokey studio chords mode which allow to play them as fast as notes and don’t let RS275 breath between them.
So... how to fix a crappy app with another crappy app on a crappy OS?
Audio damage Dubstation 2 has a very strange behavior: when you load it, there are some crackles, but when you open its window cpu gets lower and audio is ultra stable. I love that effect and when using it with my sax I always open its window. Counterintuitive I know!!!
With Ravenscroft 275, it also works like a charm: just load Dubstation 2 delay and don’t even route it to RV275 output. In AUM you can load it to a blank channel. Open delay window, and cpu will stay low with no audio crackles. On my device it goes from around 30% usage to around 10%. Fast chords playing is perfectly safe. Try with or without Dubstation 2 to hear the difference.
Big thanks Apple for your wonderful iOS 11!!!! We all hope as musicians for a reliable iOS 12, because this is crazy. Graphics thread priority over audio kills everything. Even Windows is fixed concerning that kind of issue since a very long time!!!
So it’s a crappy fix I know but it works!!!
Look at those screenshots and their CPU meter:
https://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/dubstation-2/id1253069666?mt=8
CPU buggy but the best delay on iOS IMO. As is Ravenscroft 275 and its killer sound!!
Please Audio damage don’t fix your plug before Apple fixes its iOS, it’s a useful tool to help us making music
What an amazing, arcane fix. Way beyond me but curious what others will say. Where the hell is Ravenscroft! I will write again. I am just too curios to hear what they might say but so far the wall of silence!
We need at least one or two confirmation from others here to make this a temporary « unofficial » fix, waiting for iOS11 well known thread priority issue to be definitely fixed.
Will try to do another illustration video this evening.
Hi @Janosax. I have tried for the third time to get UVIs attention on this issue. I mentioned your workaround. I have been corresponding with a rep in Paris by the name of Alexandre Sole in Customer Support. Perhaps you might contact him personally by email?. I cannot fathom why they would not be interested in what you have devised. My guess is they are reading this and not commenting. But that is not the solution, IMO. When a developer appears on this forum it is good for everyone concerned.
Purchased BeatHawk to use the AU for acoustic instruments. There are nice sounds indeed but...
Many looping instruments running not round. Not possible for me to run the acoustic guitar (just loops) in a musical way. May there are some tricks I have to figure out?
When BeatHawk is running for a while in background I loose all my work what is not saved before. BeatHawk always load the project from the very beginning. Is there no auto save function?
Also it’s quite limited with just 16 Patterns isn’t it?
Anyway I think BeatHawk will do a good job as AU for fully playable instruments but I don’t think that I will use the loops...
What do you think about the loops? Are they useable for you?
@chandroji Loading Beathawk as an Au and loading/saving from within Beathawk (au) seems to be the only safe way for me.
Wasted a day yesterday working out why as an IAA it stops playing after bar 38 and corrupts the standalone Beathawk save file. Running as an AU and loading/saving within aum has no issues.
@Janosax I don’t understand what you are doing with Ravenscroft, Dubstation and AUM or apeMatrix.
Can you please write a simple, short list with actions to do and check?
Ok I suppose it’s a bit hard to explain.
iOS 11 has an issue with cpu thread priority, graphics tasks have priority other audio tasks. This is why some users have often audio crackles when opening for example an audio unit GUI or switching between apps, it’s a common complaint. Very strangely, Dubstation 2 do the exact inverse: when you open its GUI/window, cpu usage decreases A LOT. I’ve constated this behavior when using Dubstation 2 with my sax and an Audiobus/AUM/Loopy setup: I had audio crackles here and there and found that opening Dubstation 2 window made a difference, no more audio crackles and lower cpu usage. I’ve mentioned that issue on AB forum some months ago, and another user confirmed this behavior despite behind sceptic at first. This simply confirms there is something wrong with iOS thread priority, when opening a plug-in window gives you better stability than closed...
So I’ve had yesterday that idea to test Dubstation 2 with Ravenscroft 275, as I had that feeling there was something unstable in the instrument audio engine behavior.
So here what you need to do to make some tests:
1- Load RS275 in host of your choice as an audio unit.
2- Load a Dubstation 2 AU instance too. You DONT HAVE to use it to add delay to RS275. You can set its dry/wet mix to zero if it’s on RS275 channel, or you can load it on separate channel for no added latency.
3- Play your RS275 with external midi keyboard (no issues with touchscreen playing) some fast chords to stress it a little bit and listen if it crackles or not. Look at your cpu usage too.
4- Open Dubstation 2 window (like in the screenshot above in precedent post) and see how is audio and cpu meter. It should be crackle free with lower cpu usage.
This is a way to use a app bug to fix another app bug on a bugged iOS. I’m not sure all devices will react the same, so it should be nice if some of you test that potential workaround.
I will make a video tonight, I know most of you must be sceptic but it’s an iOS thing, I’ve no responsibility with that weirdness lol!!
Hi guys,
UVI Dev here,
We are aware that some users encounter some performance difficulties on their devices. We are working on making the app more reliable.
Ravenscroft 275 uses many samples to make it sound special, it is basically a desktop plugin/app quality brought to the iOS world, it means that we are at the edge performance wise. We will do our possible to improve the performance while keeping the quality.
As some of you mentioned, iOS 11 does not really help performance-wise. At the first look it seems that Dubstation2 uses a different drawing method (Opengl?) for the UI so the OS dedicate more CPU to the App or switch the whole CPU to "Performance" mode instead of "Power Saving"/"Normal" mode.
We also know that when on low battery the CPU is slowed down.
We will dig this up and see how we can make R275 to trigger the "Performanceé mode like Dubstation2 seems to be doing.
Regarding the sustain pedal issue, can someone send us a MIDI file so we can reproduce on our side?
If some of you have issues that they do reproduce 100% and wishes to help furthermore, you can provide the information to the support: https://support.uvi.net/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=26801
Thank you for the interest in Ravenscroft275 and the precious information.
Cheers,
Bastien - UVI
What a great resource we have here. Kudos to the Audiobus team in making the forum an integral place where developers and users can come to work out problems.> @BastienCo said:
Well, son of a gun. It only took three imprecations to get them to respond. In my last email I mentioned 4,000 views had occurred on this thread. I guess that got their attention!
That being said, welcome Bastien! We are very happy you are here and that The RC team will try to address these issues. Please keep us informed, a and many members are available for testing any potential fixes you may come up with. thanks for paying attention. I think you will find the audiob.us forum. an important source of goodwill, expertise and audience for your iOS products, especially the RC275.
By the way, @Bastienco, have you checked the piano poll?
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/26407/the-piano-poll-part-2-with-new-samples#latest
See if you and your team can pick the Ravenscroft out of 17 iOS pianos!
If you read my thread here you know I raved about the RC275.
I voted on my favorites in the poll and crossed my fingers I would at least pick RC275 in the top ten. I don't know where exactly, but @Tja said it was in my top 8. It's a tough test but I think RC275 will do well! Please let us hear more from you! And thanks for joining us.
You got input via support-link. A nice heartbeat-midi-file only with cc64.
This is ridiculous.
As developers, have you no way to prove that to Apple as problem - maybe they can add a switch for the users to change this behavior, depending on their needs.
Also that problem with graphics threads having higher priority now compared to audio threads is such a problem.
Maybe Apple just does not know about that and would hear, if more developers complain.
I thought, this was changed only for iPhones and also a switchable by the user?!?
Otherwise it also falls into the above things of topics that need to heavily addressed at Apple.
I am in panic .... Apple needs to change those things!
Hi Bastien,
Here is a short video which illustrate audio crackles issue. When playing Ravenscroft 275 as an AU in Apematrix host, it’s cracklefest when playing fast chords with my external midi keyboard. When I load Dubstation 2 in Apematrix, without any routing BTW of RS275 to DS2, audio becomes perfectly clean. If I open DS2 GUI window just one time, audio will be clean when opened and will have crackles when closed. Look also to Apematrix cpu meter variations on upper right corner. Note that the issue is also there in standalone mode, and with external midi keyboard only. Onscreen touch keyboard playing don’t have the issue. RS275 has that issue, but BeatHawk too with Electric pianos and Electric organs packs too. So there must be something on your side. But to me, again if Dubstation 2 bug (I’ve that open/closed GUI issue with that plug in other situations, fun thing is that it can be useful to fix other apps issues!!) fix RS275 issue, main issue is with iOS11 for sure, and certainly is mainly related to their graphics over audio priority issue. As all my other AU and apps don’t have that kind of issues except for Launchpad sometimes, I hope something can be made on your side to fix RS275 and BeatHawk. Especially because I love BH and its packs, and RS275 is a such great sounding and inspiring virtual piano
Concerning pedal sound issue, I don’t even hear it with my external midi keyboard using its sustain button. But when using Xequence app and its sustain controller, I’ve heard it randomly and it was for sure pretty loud. I’ll try to do another video of this issue to illustrate this, and will try to do a midi file if it’s show the problem too.
As a temporary workaround, other users please try loading Dubstation 2 is you have it and don’t route nor open it and see if audio crackles are fixed:
Creeps that was freaky, i think im gonna buy Dubstation only for this, but Eos 2 for sure ...crackles once is a while and i have never seen low CPU with Eos2
I have this same issue (crackle) with beathawk pianos / Navichord/ Soundprism Link (certain presets)
Quick responses are not UVI's forte
I would be shocked and feel discriminated, if users felt customer service was better than 6/10
though 10/10 for great quality apps
@Janosax , maybe you can develop your own app with that ingenious solution! But iOS 12 is coming out in the fall I think.
Maybe it's all moot and I wonder if UVI might just wait it out and see if the new OS fixes it. Pedal noise won't go, though. I hope some other members wil send info to @BastienCo about that.
In gratitude (and because I finally watched some STR videos, I downloaded Beathawk. Looking to get some of the acoustic sounds. The inapp downloads came slowly and then not at all... and it ate up my limited G its of wifi at a voracious rate! Had to stop or I wouldn't have enough bytes this month to rant on this forum! Anyone else have a similar experience?
The "crackling" sounds more like a disk streaming issue to me.
BTW, measuring the time between hitting a key on the MIDI keyboard until sound comes out from the headphones output, what's the lowest playable latency you can get?
You can record with the iPhone Mic and the free Twisted Wave Recorder for example, and measure the time between "key hitting noise" and piano sound after zooming into the waveform.
I will try that, but I can already say that when RV275 has those audio issues, latency is much more important and playing becomes laggy. But disk streaming issue is IMO not first issue and should be fixable as using another AU like DS2 fixes the issue. So I still think it’s a thread priority issue. If it was a disk streaming issue only, DS2 should not fix that. So Disk steaming is certainly more collateral (audio) damage!
But perhaps changing ram loaded sample amount will fix it? Don’t know if it works on iOS like on VST’s. They could add an option to let us set that amount, as they could add sustain pedal level knob.
BTW, that particular sound is when hosted in Apematrix or AUM. When using in standalone mode, sounds more like usual crackles:
Just out of curiosity, depending on iPhone model the newer models (at least 7, 8 & X) use 48K as the hardware sample rate so there might be a few CPU cycles to spare by switching Ravenscroft to 48K and avoid having core Audio do the sample rate conversion from 44.1 to 48K.
Could be worth a try?
I’ve got a 7 Plus and played with headphones, usually iPhone 48khz conversion issue is only when monitored on its internal speaker. And I’ve tried with HP 44.1 and 48, all latency settings and polyphony amount at first and unfortunately that doesn’t change anything to audio crackles.
Ravenscroft owes you a free titanium harp @Janosax! They should really respect and acknowledge how members of this forum are working to make their app useable rather than simply abandoning it for an alternative. Of which there are many high quality pianos to choose from.
The Lightning->3.5mm dongle is 'locked' to 48K that why I thought it would be worth a try to avoid having Core Audio to do the 44.1K to 48K conversion by setting the app to directly produce 48K output.
Thanks I didn’t know that. I always use that dongle with AUM at 44.1 as I often use IAA apps which works better at this rate. I haven’t checked since a while if it has been fixed but IAA like Loopy, Blocswave, Gadget often crackles when hosted in AUM at 44.1. Do you think there is any issue with that, especially audio quality? I’ve noticed RS275 sounds slightly better at 48 than 44.1. In our RS275 issue unfortunately changing sample rate changes nothing regarding audio issues.
This is how iOS music production works today. I’ve sent mails for issues with Gadget, Blocswave, Unique, Thumbjam or Xequence and other apps. All their devs have fixed most of them. Like some of us I’ve also contacted UVI about some BeatHawk issues and some has been fixed some others not yet. We’ll see for RS275 but we can hope something can be done here. The only dev which is really hard to get attention from is Apple.
Interesting. The way the burst sounded in AUM (and looks in spectral view) reminded me of the "buffer repetition issue" in the first days of DFD: As long as storage was too slow, an audio buffer was repeated until sample data arrived (typical for a preload buffer that's too short).
Your second example sounds more familiar and often happened when more than one app accessed the audio device (although that should never be an issue).
Are you on iOS 11?
Very interesting!! I use iOS 11.4.