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
That is a really beautiful option in Xequence.
Thanks.
Got it. Genome didn't cut if for me.
That first screen is a shocker. Got nowhere fast last night. I'm going to spend 7 days with ModStep and dig in to this puppy. Main goal = use this app to bridge the gap between my ios fun and my hardware fun. I'll be back with questions i'm sure.
Jakob haq has a pretty good tutorial series for beginners. If you need any more help just ping me.
A few big things that threw me in my first few hours. (granted, I didn't read the manual, never had to until I was trying automation).
-Long press the scene buttons for many key options
-Long press the currently focused pattern (right under the song name) to faster get to it without turning it on or off or opening options for it.
-The drum v. piano roll editor are separate per track (I kept thinking my stuff was disappearing).
-The edit/copy/delete/etc. work on a lot of stuff more than just the main page. Within the piano roll, within the files page.
@gonekrazy3000 @Multicellular
Thanks much. I'll be on this at lunch time.
Abandoned?
From the Modstep thread..................
cblomert
October 8 edited October 8
Haha we wish. We've spent more on soda than we earned
but it's alright - it had great value for us to get it done.
Modstep is next on our list !
very happy to hear that some of you are digging into it again at the moment.
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/20137/modstep/p1
@Iso thanks.
I'm optimistic BUT it's also a godsend to those of us (self) who haven't done the hard yakka but and can now drift off with a yeah, yeah, when the update's out I'm gonna get serious....
Think you/we ('ve) got time!
thats so cool an update or a modstep 2 would be in the works! I myself have gotten full value out of modstep one, and would happily pay for a modstep 2....with a proviso....it would need to be easy peezy to move existing songs to a new version. Currently modstep is my brain in the way ableton used to be, I have maybe 50 songs there, and my regular gigs depend on modstep working. If i cant move my songs painlessly and with no loss then I wont, in fact id probably go back to ableton. having moved between platforms over the years, like mc909 to mc 505 to sp 606 to ableton to modstep, I have little patience for painful moves. Werildy, modstep has been crashing a lot lately and Im thinking of updating my ios to 12.x
bring on the update!~or modsep 2!
I'm fairly certain the update is free. The devs have mentioned sporadically that it is. Just like cubasis 2 was.
Can anyone point me to info on sequencing external synths with ModStep? Videos on YouTube are not getting me there. Thanks.
Do you mean hardware synths or like external IAA synths?
And what specifically is the problem?
For most of my hardware synths, I just
-turn it on in settings (or for the 5 pins, they are all chained off my iRig so turn that on)
-assign it on the track
That's it.
Only added complication was Modstep was running the sequencer on Monologue when I didn't want it to. Had to just delete the pattern on it.
From Jakob:
Set it up last night to control a Korg Volca Keys, via Presonus iTwo interface. I could see a light on Volca (inside transparent case) lighting with a key press in ModStep but that was it. No sound. Thanks!
@echoopera Thanks, will watch again.
Hmmm. Keypress lighting up suggests it is getting midi.
A few troubleshooting ideas
-Again, double check that you've turned notes at least on in settings, _outgoing _on the iTwo; upper right in Modstep.
-Assign the track to the iTwo
-Oh, I may have forgotten a step above, ARM the track
But you probably have these right since you're getting a midi light
-Would the keys be on the wrong midi channel?
-Any restriction of octaves on the Volca? i.e. try, like Cs from -2 to 5 or 6.
-Double check you have iTwo midi out to Volca
-Double check you're getting sound by laying the Volca on its own keypad.
-Double check you're sending the right velocity note to Volca i.e. not hitting too quiet a note
But I don't know...again, I found setup so easy, don't have a lot of ideas to troubleshoot.
My Volca Keys doesn’t light up via MIDI note, so you must be sending it CC or something. I was using Modstep just last week to control 3 Volcas and I don’t remember needing to do anything extraordinary to get it all working. Make sure your MIDI channels are set correctly, and is your Volca plugged into a mixer (or whatever) and getting sound?
I had an issue with Modstep during this setup where using pitchbend would suddenly stop all sound to any channel it was on. I like pitchbend a lot especially with Volca Keys. I can’t remember what I had to do to get everything working again, but I never resolved what was causing it. At least I think it was Modstep as the problem, it could have been MIDIFire or my USB interface I suppose, but neither one of those was doing anything but the most basic function. It was also on an old ipad 2.
A a good clue!
I don't have a Volca. I just knew they worked because I played them in the store with Modstep.
Kinda want the Volca bass.
I used to think the Volcas were amazing, but then I got an iPad and the price of 3 Volcas (at their original $150 price when I got them) is as much as the refurbished Air 2 I got over 2 years ago ($450). Then you have cables everywhere and 18 AA batteries and need to start the awful task of finding a small footprint portable mixer if you actually want to be portable.
Modstep is working great with them though. I have them so might as well use them. After you suggested how to clear the notes on the piano roll quickly without deleting step length it’s definitely my #1 choice for my Volca setup I’m doing with an old iPad 2 and only using stuff I already have laying around. I made a soundcloud page for the explorations/jams just last week. This is the first jam I did after switching to Modstep with it. Just a sloppy live jam so far there were only a few clips and I mostly just played on top live. It’s worth dealing with it just to have time signatures, and I’ll soon try the tempo change feature. I just remember I forgot to turn off the clave here I was using it as a metronome to avoid Modstep’s metronome
The Volca Bass is okay, but really I think the best reason to get it is if you really want something super small and portable and absolutely want one thing that is not your iPad while traveling. The sequencer on the VBass is awful blip beep repeat is all you get. The glide time is kind of fixed, but I think you can edit it externally. Via MIDI only one part can be sequenced, if you use it’s own sequencer you can sequence each Osc individually and each part can have it’s own step length. That is another great feature, but limited to 16 steps it gets really repetitive. I actually really like VKeys and Bass layered as one funky bass/lead sound.
I hope if they update Modstep they also update the manual!! It seems to be for v1.1 still.
Enjoying your tracks.
I'm not thinking about it for portable. I'm quite happy with my Minitaur, iPad, midi controllers board.
But I have a synth rack that stays home that has a little space on it.
But I guess I should think on what synth might be more different. a Make Noise 0 Coast?
This is as good a time as any to bring back a classic video:
Thanks guys. Hope to find time tonight to work this out.
You will love it once the workflow syncs in and you will wish you had used it earlier. 🤪
Audio Dabbler also has some great tutorials:
Success! Decided to hook up my Minilogue and send a sequence from ModStep to it. The display made it easy to show that I was indeed on midi channel 1. So good, I know that it is a setting on the Volca (likely midi channel) I need to change. Bought it used so I guess someone had fiddled with settings.
Thanks for all the help. I’m off and running ...
Yeah I sold all my Volcas now but remember that was always catching me out, midi channel is easy to change when you know how (I forget now).
Make sure the volca is powered off, hold memory, power it on, select one of the first 1-16 “key” for for channel, then hit record and I’m pretty sure that is how. At least that is what my memory is telling me.