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.

Running AudioKit Synth One on a Mac? Sure... using an emulator in Xcode

McDtracyMcDtracy
in Other

I was listening to Matt Fecher's interview about AudioKit Synth One and he said anyone could install it in an emulator on their Mac. Really? I should try that:

  1. Download Xcode
  2. Create GitHub account (probably optional step needed to save projects)
  3. Import AudioKit/Synthone repository into Xcode on Mac
  4. install CocoPods
  5. run pod install in synthone project folder
  6. Select a hardware device to emulate (I went with the 12" Pro iPad)
  7. Hit "RUN" button
  8. App appears sideways in portrait mode
  9. Use Simulator Menu for Hardware -> Rotate Right
  10. Press a key on the App and the synth plays. Wow. Thanks Matt. Empowering.

MIDI IN and Bluetooth MIDI settings don't seem to work so no driving the Synth from external sources like Logic Pro X, etc. But it opens the door to maybe building an App using AudioKit's code for the really hard parts and Apples code for the GUI stuff.

Needed to watch a Youtube video to get the Xcode project details but it wasn't hard to do but I've used GitHub before so somethings were familiar if not Xcode itself.

I'll probably start with the Swift Code examples to learn how to make my own Apps.

Comments

  • analog_mattanalog_matt
    edited December 2018

    Great job!

    And, glad the code compiled for you. That's half the battle. 😂

    You can indeed map MIDI to the Xcode simulator. It's how I make cool YouTube videos like this one of Ableton sending bank change to D1

    Or this silly one, sending some notes to D1 on the mac while a drum beat plays in Ableton:

    If you're using Logic or Ableton, you'll want to setup an "external instrument" on a track.

    To route MIDI to the simulator use the "Audio Midi Setup" app on your mac.
    First press the MIDI "Network" button:

    Make sure the app is running in the app simulator. Then, you'll choose the "iPhone Simulator" when it appears and then "connect"

    And, you'll see various options of MIDI connections you can run to it (network sessions, any MIDI controllers you have connected, etc)

    Setup your external instrument in Logic to send MIDI to that routing. And, you're good to go. The downside is that you have to re-connect every time you run the app in the simulator. But, it works.

  • McDtracyMcDtracy
    edited December 2018

    I was excited by your information but something is different for me:
    Xcode 10.1
    Os X 10.13.6

    The MIDI icon and Bluetooth Icons are no there.
    My simulator is in the back.
    You screenshot image is in the middle
    My MIDI Studio is up front without the MIDI,Bluetooth Icons I see in yours.

    It's not your job resolve this but something is different for my install/config of the simulator's MIDI.

  • analog_mattanalog_matt
    edited December 2018

    @McDtracy said:
    My MIDI Studio is up front without the MIDI,Bluetooth Icons I see in yours.

    My screenshot is of Mojave's MIDI Settings.

    Luckily, those same Network & Bluetooth buttons are in the screenshot you posted. Only, bigger. Very sneaky, Apple. B)

    You can just hit the big Network button. Which will take you to the same screen as the smaller Network icon in Mojave.

  • McDtracyMcDtracy

    Thanks Matt... I was able to have an external keyboard activate the iPhone Simulator's Synth One App! And then with chords it started crackling like crazy. It's always something.

    I probably need to adjust the buffers but it was great to see the MIDI "session 1" network work end-to-end. IOS is so much easier to use than these OS X configuration schemes for MIDI, Audio and Network Sessions. There are learning curves for everything.

    But I'll chalk it up as a win!

    I think I'll start looking through the tutorial examples to understand more how code makes the magic happen using AudioKit Swift examples.

    But the Objective-C experiments will be "on the roadmap".

  • analog_mattanalog_matt

    Great job, @McDtracy

    You're a true audio hacker! 👨🏻‍💻

Sign In or Register to comment.