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
I keep reading the VirSyn Product description and I'm so confused:
virsyn.net/mobileapp/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29&Itemid=8
The words "slice, warp, stretch" do not appear anywhere on that page.
The words that do appear (Loop, Layer, Zone, Multi-sample, Morph) make me think this a an App to build "soundfonts" from audio content. To create new instruments from custom audio samples. What might be new is the idea of not modeling the physics of a piano (map soft recording to low velocity midi events) but an instrument that could be defined to morph between different types of sounds.
The Product page mentions it comes with 2 instruments. I've got to hear them before pulling the trigger. Are they "synth like" or "sampled" instruments? That would be a big clue where this Audio Sampling product fits. Is it like Recycle or Lyra? Or somewhere in-between?
A Hardware Based Sampler that lets you change the BPM and not change the pitch of the samples?
or a Keyboard-based MIDI event driven sampler like a Kurzweil?
The Product Page makes me think it's intended to be #2. If it is I want it but only if there's a community that will create instruments I can download and install. 'Cause defining Layers, Zones, FX across 61-88 keys is a huge commitment before you hear any music.
Time will tell. It's only Day One of AudioLayer.
yep, k2000
Well, I learned guitar many years back (and continue on) so I laugh at such a thing. Not in a snobbish manner, just in a set-in-my-ways, 30+ year-old in a rocking chair with an Arnold Palmer 'my method is easier suckas' way. This new one sounds like a ton of work to make a single instrument. But maybe I'm understanding it incorrectly. We'll see.
And the Virsyn trap translates, for me personally, to 'all their stuff sounds good and is quality programming, but they fall well wide of what I'm looking for'. Despite that, I've bought almost everything they've done. Tap Delay is great.
Well, well, guess some more testing should have been done using 'Local Storage'?
(And Nope, the AudioLayer folder did not pop up under my iCloud Drive on my Mac, bummer, I can however see it on my iPad).
Anyways, repeatable crash when using 'Local Storage'.
Go to Presets (after re-installing them to local storage), go up one level up go back to the folder BOOM crash-time.
(I will try re-installing the entire app and see if it still bombs, iPad Air 2, iOS11.4.1).
With iCloud Drive selected as storage the above works properly but since I'm on one device only and it doesn't pop up on my Mac it's of no pratical use as I do local backups of my iPad anyway...
I'll keep messing around but I already miss simple tools to do basic edits to imported samples (trim/crop, fade in/out etc.).
This feels like an ambitious project so I do hope in due time rough edges will be smoothed out
When iCloudDrive is disabled for AudioLayer you can not use the DocumentPicker/Files.app to import samples even from local sources. Only AudioShare is available.
Open In... and sending to AudioLayer seems to work though but stuff sent to AudioLayer like this end up in the folder of the currently selected preset...
Hmmm, that’s made me pause before buying - pretty essential tools for a sampler.
Need to see some vids.
@Samu isn’t the placement of the yellow markers for each zone the equivalent to crop/trim (as you can zoom in)? Fade would be nice but you can also use the Level envelope for fade in as well?
That works, but since I have limited (5GB) iCloud account it would fill up fast...
(Ie. The Files.app/DocumentPicker.app works with WiFi disabled).
I'll try to troubleshoot why I can't see all folders on my Mac though. It could be something silly like 'too iCloud enabled apps installed' too. Also I need to find a way to totally reset iCloud Drive on my Mac without re-installing the system, it's not enough to disable iCloudDriveand log-out from iCloud. I guess I need to do some manual housekeeping and delete some hidden files... The 'Geniouses' at Apple Chat support suggested complete system re-install, I'll wait for the next macOS version for that...
Over all I do like the way it's set up so kudos to @VirSyn for that but as usual It's got some rough edges that might need further polish.
Bake over some features from ReSlice and we'd have an iOS version of Ableton Simpler
Right. It sounds like you want an ‘Export zone to wav’ feature as well?
It’s basic purpose is to be able to build sampled instruments....so if you have a real instrument that you want to sample and use you can make a more realistic sounding one than if you used a single sample.
Velocity layers.....record a note e.g C3 from your instrument, record it 3 times, quiet, medium and loud....each sample has a different character (depending on the instrument).
You can now put these 3 samples one in each velocity layer, so as you play harder on the keys it will use the relevant sample, therefore changing the character of the sound. If you did this with a single sample all that changes is volume.
Zones....You can also record notes at different pitches, with most instruments the character of the sound changes with pitch as well as velocity...record as many as you need, space them out across the keyboard, and then use the zones to say which sample is used for each pitch range (zone). If you did this with a single sample the app will transpose the sample which will sound unnatural at the extremes.
Not too techie I hope
I'll try 'recording' some samples later. But for normal imported samples the 'left & right' sett the playback area but you can not 'cut away the slack'.
Excellent and accurate description but I have no intention of using it like that
I think I’m mostly going to be loading in a single long sample and then layering and triggering different sections of it, either sequenced or manually.
Time stretch will be very welcome when comes.
And transient slice plus the basic trim/crop/fade as above will also make this even better.
Is there a cool way to make and share presets created? I am a total noob in making sounds (bowing down before the Brices /redskylullabys /and thereof) but I love making music. So I am dependent on some good sounds or even some cool sound fests here.
Are there some preset/patches sounds implemented?
From my quick tests, when crating a patch it also creates a folder for the samples.
So in practice it should 'just' be a matter of creating a *.zip archive with the samples and patch-data.
Those are readily visible in the iCloud Drive (but I have yet to work out a way to actually see them on my Mac for easier sharing).
Sounds promising, I'm a fan of Reslice.
+1
Could be a bit too much work for me, I'm not really into building sampled instrument libraries, just want a quick and dirty way to record and play audio via AUM. I'll wait for the vids though, might be easier than it sounds, but £15 is a bit high to take a punt on something I might not use. Storage would be an issue too, my iCloud account is full.
Of course there are more 'creative' ways to use it too
I just copied this thread and saved to my gmail because it’s got a lot of info re storage that I need to peruse some more. Right now I’ve only got the iCloud 5gig per month 99c deal. Maybe Dropbox is the answer , I don’t know .
@Samu , thanks for all your great info once again and does this thing do anything that BM3 doesn’t?
It has a bit different 'architecture' compared to BM3 and it also works as an AUv3.
I'll see if I can become 'friends' with AudioLayer but so far it's been a bumpy ride...
(I tried deleting everything related to iCloudDrive from my Mac and still I can't get the AudioLayer folder to pop up in the Finder for easier file-transfers etc. etc.).
'Disabling' the Files.app based Import when not using iCloudDrive for AudioLayers is just plain stupid.
I mean not everyone is an 'iCloud Slave' but may use other cloud-services or store files locally they may want to import from...
Can it import complete instruments in one (or more) common file formats such as EXS24, Kontact or Soundfont? That would open up huge resources of premade instruments rather than having to make your own. (And provide material for more experimental uses). I mean, I like playing piano, but don’t want to have to build one!
I’m also confused as to why local storage would be crippled. Presumably this means if I am out of wi-fi coverage, I can’t play it!
@Samu thanks man! Really appreciate your quick replies and feedback! Thank you!
Can it? It would be an insta buy then, since my loopmasters packs have bunch of exs24 files on board. Wow, that would open up worlds of sounds. But I doubt it will
I'll treat it for what it is and dump my pre-looped SY85 samples into and treat it like a rompler
Cmon Virsyn. Some videos.