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.

Microsoft Surface Go

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Comments

  • edited July 2018
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  • Interesting thread.

    As long term Windows user I own besides a PC and a Windows laptop also a Surface Pro (1st version i5/4gb/64GB) this machine handles my DAWs FL Studio and Ableton 9.7.4 quite well. And I can run all VSTs I want on it. Ableton is good usable especially with the Surface Pen. Even better than the Apple Pencil on my iPad 2018. That said for me the problem with the Surface was when I upgraded to a Surface Pro 3 (i7/8gb/128gb) this thing was noisy (fan noise) because the housing was too small for enough cooling. You could do away with the noise but than the processor scaled back to the speed of a slow intel Atom processor. You can google this problem the seems to consist with all Surface i5/ i7 models starting with the Surface Pro 2. For me this was unbearable so I turned back to my Surface Pro that because of the buidling (thicker so more ventilation) doesn't have this fan noise problem.
    What I want to say is that if you are used to Windows you are are looking different at Windows machines than coming from a mac background. With cooler so more silence processors the new Surfaces could really be a competitor of the iPad, especially for those who are used to Windows and those who want to give it a serious try. The biggest hassle for me on an iPad is still the idiotic file system, while on a device like a surface you can easily import and export everything you want.
    Note the great backwards compatibilty of VSTs makes it a great choice for people that want to experiment. And there are 1000 of free VSTs to download.

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  • @Dawdles said:

    I wonder if we’ll at least see all the JUCE iOS apps start to show up on Surface, not that I know what many of those

    Yes this is happening already. I've been using Quanta on my touch screen Windows and it's great. So I think devs using this route and also releasing on windows are going to benefit a lot from this.
    I also have Mazetools Soniface on windows and that's as good as the ipad version, although not sure if that's JUCE

  • @Dawdles said:

    @greengrocer said:
    Interesting thread.

    As long term Windows user I own besides a PC and a Windows laptop also a Surface Pro (1st version i5/4gb/64GB) this machine handles my DAWs FL Studio and Ableton 9.7.4 quite well. And I can run all VSTs I want on it. Ableton is good usable especially with the Surface Pen. Even better than the Apple Pencil on my iPad 2018. That said for me the problem with the Surface was when I upgraded to a Surface Pro 3 (i7/8gb/128gb) this thing was noisy (fan noise) because the housing was too small for enough cooling. You could do away with the noise but than the processor scaled back to the speed of a slow intel Atom processor. You can google this problem the seems to consist with all Surface i5/ i7 models starting with the Surface Pro 2. For me this was unbearable so I turned back to my Surface Pro that because of the buidling (thicker so more ventilation) doesn't have this fan noise problem.
    What I want to say is that if you are used to Windows you are are looking different at Windows machines than coming from a mac background. With cooler so more silence processors the new Surfaces could really be a competitor of the iPad, especially for those who are used to Windows and those who want to give it a serious try. The biggest hassle for me on an iPad is still the idiotic file system, while on a device like a surface you can easily import and export everything you want.
    Note the great backwards compatibilty of VSTs makes it a great choice for people that want to experiment. And there are 1000 of free VSTs to download.

    +1 on all of that. And totally agree that Surface Go for portable music is probably much more appealing an idea for anyone already using Windows. Like when I use my partner’s Macbook it feels totally alien and clunky as hell to me. It’s just what people are used to..

    Yes that's really the point. Besides that my experience is that Apple users are in a lot of cases a little more biased than MS users. They are a lot more brand aware and as also was pointed out earlier in this thread are trying to defend Apple's choices, although some of Apple's choices could be critized.

    See also this video:
    iPad Pro Vs Surface Pro 3: Apple iPad Pro Blows Fanboy's Mind

  • The Surface Oro has been out for nearly as long as the iPad. Windows has supported touch screens even longer. No devs have put any effort into touch based apps in all that time. Why do you guys suddenly think devs will support yet another low priced attempts by MS to get into the tablet market? This is what now, try #4?

    If devs were going to port to Windows they would have done so by now. There’s nothing really new in the Go that hasn’t been offered by MS or an other OEM in the past.

    If Korg wanted a touch friendly version of Gadget on Window, it would be there by now.

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  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • FL studio multitouch on Surface 3

  • edited July 2018

    @bert said:
    Buyers of these kind of hardware are not that prepared to pay for software or apps. That’s the main reason for the app gap.

    You don't have to pay anything for software on Windows because there's loads of really good freeware. The nice thing is even that most software developed 20 years ago is still running. From DAWs like Tracktion 6 to soundeditors like Audacity and there's an endless choice of really good VST(i) plugins that are sometmes even better than their commercial developed counterparts.

    The app gap for touch apps on Windows has in my eyes everything to do that devs on Windows just aren't interested to put apps in the WIndows Store. There's not really a necessity for that. You can develop your stuff in a variety of different languages, etc. and you don't need to pay for licenses or fees you have to pay for every app sold. Somehow you also see this in the Appstore for MacOS, although it's growing steadily most (audio) developers sell their apps still through their own websites.

  • As much as Surface and the ton of vsts on windows (some of which I already own) entice me, videos where touchscreen look painful on legacy GUIs, even while sitting at a desk really taper my expectations.

    It is completely subjective but the litmus test for me is how friendly it is to the walking part of the commute. Being born of mobile phones and not desktop, this experience has been fantatsic with the ipad.

    However, I really don’t need a steady stream of cheap apps, quirky/unique routing systems etc and could easily see in a couple years I may simply be running Surface GO2, Bitwig, Egoist, Aparillo, Fab Filters, plus only ONE additional bread and butter synth and be as happy as a clam for quite some time with 2x the ram and an open file system.

  • @jayfehr said:
    The Surface Oro has been out for nearly as long as the iPad. Windows has supported touch screens even longer. No devs have put any effort into touch based apps in all that time. Why do you guys suddenly think devs will support yet another low priced attempts by MS to get into the tablet market? This is what now, try #4?

    Agree on this, but as audio users on iOS are feeling unheard by Apple, and we have things that could kill iOS music on the horizon (iPhones then iPads without ports), there is more exploration into what other systems could support this beautiful little ecosystem we have. It’s most likely wishful thinking, and nothing will ever be as nice as it is now, but the impetus is fair.

  • @greengrocer said:
    FL studio multitouch on Surface 3

    There are some pretty neat ideas in this implementation that I would like to see on iOS 🙂

  • Preorder Surface Go 128GB + 8GB @Amazon.es €449 (incl. VAT) + S&S €5.50 in EU

    https://www.amazon.es/dp/B07FFVXZR1?tag=peppercom0f9-21

  • @jayfehr said:
    The Surface Oro has been out for nearly as long as the iPad. Windows has supported touch screens even longer. No devs have put any effort into touch based apps in all that time. Why do you guys suddenly think devs will support yet another low priced attempts by MS to get into the tablet market? This is what now, try #4?

    What about Bitwig?

  • edited July 2018

    @ksound said:

    @jayfehr said:
    The Surface Oro has been out for nearly as long as the iPad. Windows has supported touch screens even longer. No devs have put any effort into touch based apps in all that time. Why do you guys suddenly think devs will support yet another low priced attempts by MS to get into the tablet market? This is what now, try #4?

    Agree on this, but as audio users on iOS are feeling unheard by Apple, and we have things that could kill iOS music on the horizon (iPhones then iPads without ports), there is more exploration into what other systems could support this beautiful little ecosystem we have. It’s most likely wishful thinking, and nothing will ever be as nice as it is now, but the impetus is fair.

    I doubt that the headphone jack is going anywhere on the iPad. The source is constantly wrong in his predictions. So wrong that I would assume the opposite would be more likely, two headphone jacks. There are no other sources that have yet corroborated his claims.

    Beyond that, I won't say that the port is useless, obviously a lot of people use it. But it's not ubiquitous in the iOS music making scene. I, as well as many others in these threads, never use the headphone jack. In order to use my mic or guitar I have to use an audio interface. Those all come with their own 3.5mm jacks, and the audio routes to them automatically. I couldn't use the built in jack even if I wanted too.

    Finally, I still don't see how the Surface Go is going to encourage devs to create touch based apps. MS has been pushing the paradigm for years. There is nothing inherently different about the Go, then the Pro, other than price. Certainly nothing that would encourage devs to write touch based apps and not stick with the standard Windows exe's that they have been writing all along.

  • @AudioGus said:

    @jayfehr said:
    The Surface Oro has been out for nearly as long as the iPad. Windows has supported touch screens even longer. No devs have put any effort into touch based apps in all that time. Why do you guys suddenly think devs will support yet another low priced attempts by MS to get into the tablet market? This is what now, try #4?

    What about Bitwig?

    If you can accomplish the same thing with Surface Go that you can with an iPad feel free to switch. But the fact their are only a handful of quality touch apps on the Windows store, compared to the thousands of quality audio apps on iOS, I don't think you will be able too.

  • edited July 2018

    @jayfehr said:

    @AudioGus said:

    @jayfehr said:
    The Surface Oro has been out for nearly as long as the iPad. Windows has supported touch screens even longer. No devs have put any effort into touch based apps in all that time. Why do you guys suddenly think devs will support yet another low priced attempts by MS to get into the tablet market? This is what now, try #4?

    What about Bitwig?

    If you can accomplish the same thing with Surface Go that you can with an iPad feel free to switch. But the fact their are only a handful of quality touch apps on the Windows store, compared to the thousands of quality audio apps on iOS, I don't think you will be able too.

    Erf? Windows store? You cant install your own programs purchased from 3rd party vendors?

  • edited July 2018

    @jayfehr said:

    @AudioGus said:

    @jayfehr said:
    The Surface Oro has been out for nearly as long as the iPad. Windows has supported touch screens even longer. No devs have put any effort into touch based apps in all that time. Why do you guys suddenly think devs will support yet another low priced attempts by MS to get into the tablet market? This is what now, try #4?

    What about Bitwig?

    If you can accomplish the same thing with Surface Go that you can with an iPad feel free to switch. But the fact their are only a handful of quality touch apps on the Windows store, compared to the thousands of quality audio apps on iOS, I don't think you will be able too.

    Quality over quantity and I dont use thousands of apps on my ipad.

    Debating hardware and OS aside, in terms of audio tools I see it as something like this...

    BM3 <? Bitwig
    One Fab Filter < All the Fab Filters
    Egoist = Egoist
    ... < Aparillo
    Spacecraft = Coming Soon: Spacecraft
    Effectrix = Effectrix
    Turnado = Turnado
    ... < Looperator
    ...< maybe Sutter Fx (gui could be painful)
    One Bread n butter synth = One bread n butter synth

    That is ten apps and I am already full. :)

  • @AudioGus said:

    @jayfehr said:

    @AudioGus said:

    @jayfehr said:
    The Surface Oro has been out for nearly as long as the iPad. Windows has supported touch screens even longer. No devs have put any effort into touch based apps in all that time. Why do you guys suddenly think devs will support yet another low priced attempts by MS to get into the tablet market? This is what now, try #4?

    What about Bitwig?

    If you can accomplish the same thing with Surface Go that you can with an iPad feel free to switch. But the fact their are only a handful of quality touch apps on the Windows store, compared to the thousands of quality audio apps on iOS, I don't think you will be able too.

    Quality over quantity and I dont use thousands of apps on my ipad.

    Debating hardware and OS aside, in terms of audio tools I see it as something like this...

    BM3 < Bitwig
    One Fab Filter < All the Fab Filters
    Egoist = Egoist
    ... < Aparillo
    Spacecraft = Coming Soon: Spacecraft
    Effectrix < Looperator
    One Bread n butter synth = One bread n butter synth

    That is seven apps, all I need

    Nice. As I said if the apps you use are there, and Apple isn't making the hardware you want switch.

    For me:

    AUM/AudioBus
    Quantiloop
    Patterning
    Soft Drummer/Rock Drummer/iBassist
    ModStep
    BiasFX/Amplitude (these exist in some form on Windows, but my plugin purchases won't transfer over)
    All the various AUv3 effects
    Model 15
    Korg Module

    My usage is mostly guitar and vocals into the iPad for processing, then out to a PA. I use the other apps to create the rest of "the band".

    I'm glad to see that Windows is getting some love. It's just not there for my use case, and even if it was, I would lose all the software I currently have. Ableton Link could mitigate that a bit if I continued using older devices with the software that's currently on them. But then I would be using two devices, a lot less portable.

  • @jayfehr said:

    @AudioGus said:

    @jayfehr said:

    @AudioGus said:

    @jayfehr said:
    The Surface Oro has been out for nearly as long as the iPad. Windows has supported touch screens even longer. No devs have put any effort into touch based apps in all that time. Why do you guys suddenly think devs will support yet another low priced attempts by MS to get into the tablet market? This is what now, try #4?

    What about Bitwig?

    If you can accomplish the same thing with Surface Go that you can with an iPad feel free to switch. But the fact their are only a handful of quality touch apps on the Windows store, compared to the thousands of quality audio apps on iOS, I don't think you will be able too.

    Quality over quantity and I dont use thousands of apps on my ipad.

    Debating hardware and OS aside, in terms of audio tools I see it as something like this...

    BM3 < Bitwig
    One Fab Filter < All the Fab Filters
    Egoist = Egoist
    ... < Aparillo
    Spacecraft = Coming Soon: Spacecraft
    Effectrix < Looperator
    One Bread n butter synth = One bread n butter synth

    That is seven apps, all I need

    Nice. As I said if the apps you use are there, and Apple isn't making the hardware you want switch.

    yah the big deciding factor for me is the central host/daw. If BM3 evolves the way I am hoping or a decent multitrack audio editor emerges in the next couple years on iOS then I will stay put but for the time being I am saving my pennies over the next couple years and avoiding the thousands of micro impulse buy wallet drainers. There are big holes for me on iOS that I hope get filled on iOS but if they aren’t then so be it.

    For me:

    AUM/AudioBus
    Quantiloop
    Patterning
    Soft Drummer/Rock Drummer/iBassist
    ModStep
    BiasFX/Amplitude (these exist in some form on Windows, but my plugin purchases won't transfer over)
    All the various AUv3 effects
    Model 15
    Korg Module

    My usage is mostly guitar and vocals into the iPad for processing, then out to a PA. I use the other apps to create the rest of "the band".

    Makes total sense. I feel that the people happiest in iOS use it the way you do.

  • @AudioGus said:
    As much as Surface and the ton of vsts on windows (some of which I already own) entice me, videos where touchscreen look painful on legacy GUIs, even while sitting at a desk really taper my expectations.

    It is completely subjective but the litmus test for me is how friendly it is to the walking part of the commute. Being born of mobile phones and not desktop, this experience has been fantatsic with the ipad.

    However, I really don’t need a steady stream of cheap apps, quirky/unique routing systems etc and could easily see in a couple years I may simply be running Surface GO2, Bitwig, Egoist, Aparillo, Fab Filters, plus only ONE additional bread and butter synth and be as happy as a clam for quite some time with 2x the ram and an open file system.

    The magic trick in this case is the Microsoft Pen or Apple Pencil. While Apple start more and more merging iOS and MacOS the input device will be more and more the good old styus with extra functionality. Works very good for small buttons and knobs.

  • @greengrocer said:

    @AudioGus said:
    As much as Surface and the ton of vsts on windows (some of which I already own) entice me, videos where touchscreen look painful on legacy GUIs, even while sitting at a desk really taper my expectations.

    It is completely subjective but the litmus test for me is how friendly it is to the walking part of the commute. Being born of mobile phones and not desktop, this experience has been fantatsic with the ipad.

    However, I really don’t need a steady stream of cheap apps, quirky/unique routing systems etc and could easily see in a couple years I may simply be running Surface GO2, Bitwig, Egoist, Aparillo, Fab Filters, plus only ONE additional bread and butter synth and be as happy as a clam for quite some time with 2x the ram and an open file system.

    The magic trick in this case is the Microsoft Pen or Apple Pencil. While Apple start more and more merging iOS and MacOS the input device will be more and more the good old styus with extra functionality. Works very good for small buttons and knobs.

    Not while walking though.

  • @AudioGus said:

    However, I really don’t need a steady stream of cheap apps, quirky/unique routing systems etc and could easily see in a couple years I may simply be running Surface GO2, Bitwig, Egoist, Aparillo, Fab Filters, plus only ONE additional bread and butter synth and be as happy as a clam for quite some time with 2x the ram and an open file system.

    One additional bread and butter synth on Windows? Sunvox has you covered.

  • @jayfehr said:

    @ksound said:

    @jayfehr said:
    The Surface Oro has been out for nearly as long as the iPad. Windows has supported touch screens even longer. No devs have put any effort into touch based apps in all that time. Why do you guys suddenly think devs will support yet another low priced attempts by MS to get into the tablet market? This is what now, try #4?

    Agree on this, but as audio users on iOS are feeling unheard by Apple, and we have things that could kill iOS music on the horizon (iPhones then iPads without ports), there is more exploration into what other systems could support this beautiful little ecosystem we have. It’s most likely wishful thinking, and nothing will ever be as nice as it is now, but the impetus is fair.

    I doubt that the headphone jack is going anywhere on the iPad. The source is constantly wrong in his predictions. So wrong that I would assume the opposite would be more likely, two headphone jacks. There are no other sources that have yet corroborated his claims.

    Beyond that, I won't say that the port is useless, obviously a lot of people use it. But it's not ubiquitous in the iOS music making scene. I, as well as many others in these threads, never use the headphone jack. In order to use my mic or guitar I have to use an audio interface. Those all come with their own 3.5mm jacks, and the audio routes to them automatically. I couldn't use the built in jack even if I wanted too.

    Finally, I still don't see how the Surface Go is going to encourage devs to create touch based apps. MS has been pushing the paradigm for years. There is nothing inherently different about the Go, then the Pro, other than price. Certainly nothing that would encourage devs to write touch based apps and not stick with the standard Windows exe's that they have been writing all along.

    You may not be the most careful reader. As I said, I agree with you on the Surface Go not being materially different than previous Surface generations, I was just giving you context on why people like @Dawdles are looking in different directions.

    I also didn’t say no headphone jack, I said no ports. That would be the thing that would make IOS music creation as we know it impossible. This has at least been on the table for the iPhone X designs, and I can see enough trade-offs for most users to make it a possibility (waterproof iPhones and iPads, more durable single body construction).

    The only way I was referring to the iPad headphone jack rumor threads is the takeaway that iOS musicians are such a small population that our needs don’t matter. If that continues, and Android fixes its latency problem, or Windows wooed the Audiobus creators to its platform, things could get interesting.

  • I really would like there to be some good Linux tablets. At least one good one.

  • I think iOS musicians who can be tempted by this Surface Go don’t search for typical iOS apps in Windows 10 environment. They search IMO for powerful DAWS like Ableton Live or Bitwig on the go. Small screen can certainly be manageable with Live zoom, or and with stylus. Biggest question is will the little Intel CPU up to the task? Live has very nice and reliable freezing feature, that could helps. About Windows 10, I think it’s reliable enough if you do updates manually. If you use GPO on W10 Pro version or/and install gpedit.msc on Home version, it’s manageable. I’ve made a tutorial on my IT business website, but it’s in french. Main idea is to set automatic Windows update GPO to disable.

    https://www.mediacareservices.fr/2018/03/20/desactiver-les-mises-a-jour-de-windows-10-professionnel/

  • @raindro said:
    But if you helped me solved this I would be really really really happy.

    Very easily solved with Dante Via Asio Driver

    I can route audio and midi between any of the following devices: iCA4+ , Audiofire12, Audiofire8, Behringer 404HD, Surface Pro 3, iPAD, Bitwig, Reaper.

    You can just keep adding any audio interface or software that is compatible with your OS and it will talk locally and across a network cable to any other networked machine.

  • @Dawdles said:
    Just read about this. Seems like a potentially valid alternative to iPad for mobile music. I find my surface pro 3 almost the same as using laptop in convenience/Weight/size but this is only 10” and much cheaper than current surfaces.

    I'm happy with a recently purchased used Surface Pro 3, i5, 8GB, 256GB @ AUD$295 delivered.

    You get 3 licences with Bitwig, so one goes on this Win10 Surface. Folks have run Linux successfully on the Surface and because Bitwig also runs on Linux this could be another option should Windows become a drag.

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