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DAW for audio recording/editing, which can be midi slaved(or syncs to BSP in other ways)?

edited January 2019 in General App Discussion

I have been revamping my setup for a while now and think i found the way i would like to make music. Record audio loops from my modular to an ios daw(preferably) and make compositions from them

https://cdn.modulargrid.net/img/racks/modulargrid_762156.jpg

The 3 voices, drums, bass and lead, go through separate inputs for separate FX chains in AUM, sequenced by BSP and audio from AUM streamed to a DAW. Then cut and arrange the audio loops in a daw. Idea is to record both shorter loops and longer sections, which naturally have all 3 voices mixed together.

Now i need your help selecting the right DAW. I have auria pro, cubasis, bm3 and fiddled with stagelight a bit, but havent used these in a while. Daw needs to be able to somehow record the modular in sync, so that its easier to cut the audio. Midi slaved to BSP, midi transport controls that i can map to BSP or something.

BM3 would be my #1 choice for a daw if i were to make everything on it, but i just need one for audio cutting etc. It has a bonus that i can start/stop it via midi, but it also has some funky midi behavior that i perhaps might be able to get over with the midi filter AU in AUM. And i could route the controller channel on BSP to bm3 pads. But thats not really what im after for in this.

Cubasis doesent seem to react to any transport controls nor has midi.

Auria pro is supposed to work, but i could find a way to get it working with transport controls for some reason.

Stagelight seems like it could evolve into something i would want to use, but needs a bit more polishing to be more appealing.

What else would fit the criteria and workflow? I could also use my computer and some daw on it, but ableton is not fully compatible with mojave yet and i wouldnt care to learn and buy a new expensive desktop daw. And i also have my mpc live as an option to record loops, but im trying to find a replacement for it and sell it to expand my modular setup in some ways.

Any other ideas or suggestions for how to expand this setup?

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Comments

  • How about recording straight into AUM? Use that to gather the loops, then drop them into your daw of choice. It can receive midi transport controls.

  • edited January 2019

    @ToMess You pretty much summarized today's state of the art.
    For what you do, I use either Ableton with modified MIDI Clock Slave behaviour in its Options.txt or maybe Loopy HD which also syncs to external MIDI clock and can share loop wave files to your DAW.

  • edited January 2019

    Good call. I’ve heard Loopy has fantastic midi sync.

  • You can always try to record a sync pulse to an audio track, then copy and paste, if you have multiple outs on your sound card and use a track as a sync track, by varying the pulse you can add swing or deviate from a strict tempo.

  • edited January 2019

    @mistercharlie said:
    How about recording straight into AUM? Use that to gather the loops, then drop them into your daw of choice. It can receive midi transport controls.

    I could, but i could also recprd directly to a daw and some trouble in not having to export the audio to daw for editing. Recording to aum works great for jam sessions and such, but its bit too simple for other stuff.

    @rs2000 said:
    You pretty much summarized today's state of the art.
    For what you do, I use either Ableton with modified MIDI Clock Slave behaviour in its Options.txt or maybe Loopy HD which also syncs to external MIDI clock and can share loop wave files to your DAW.

    Yea i thought of loopy(got it free ages ago, but preferred blocs for a looper), i might give it a shot, but would prefer a straight up daw where i csn also edit the audio. And yes, if ableton would be updated to mojave it would be an option. Havent tried how badly it bugs tho, i could give it a shot as well to see if its useable, but would prefer it on ios. Universal(and useable ui on the tiny iphone se) would be really nice, but not a must. And for this AU isnt a must either, so perhaps there is some simple audio daw that would fit the bill that im not aware of.

  • Have you reached out to Rim to see if you can sort out the Auria problems? Seems closest to your requirements.

  • @ToMess said:

    @mistercharlie said:
    How about recording straight into AUM? Use that to gather the loops, then drop them into your daw of choice. It can receive midi transport controls.

    I could, but i could also recprd directly to a daw and some trouble in not having to export the audio to daw for editing. Recording to aum works great for jam sessions and such, but its bit too simple for other stuff.

    @rs2000 said:
    You pretty much summarized today's state of the art.
    For what you do, I use either Ableton with modified MIDI Clock Slave behaviour in its Options.txt or maybe Loopy HD which also syncs to external MIDI clock and can share loop wave files to your DAW.

    Yea i thought of loopy(got it free ages ago, but preferred blocs for a looper), i might give it a shot, but would prefer a straight up daw where i csn also edit the audio. And yes, if ableton would be updated to mojave it would be an option. Havent tried how badly it bugs tho, i could give it a shot as well to see if its useable, but would prefer it on ios. Universal(and useable ui on the tiny iphone se) would be really nice, but not a must. And for this AU isnt a must either, so perhaps there is some simple audio daw that would fit the bill that im not aware of.

    My understanding is that Live actually works pretty well under Mojave. It might be worth confirming that over on the Ableton forum.

  • One idea is AB3 w/ Multiroute - into Blocs for quick slicing. Can export further to Live w/ Ableton Export and/or Launchpad app, and use the MIDI & Fx from AB3.

  • @syrupcore said:
    Have you reached out to Rim to see if you can sort out the Auria problems? Seems closest to your requirements.

    @ToMess, neither Cubasis or Auria can slave to midi clock, they can only be the master clock. Stagelight does listen to midi clock and start commands (I haven’t tested that though)
    Auria does support transport commands via the mackie protocol (which is common on many devices that have transport buttons) and this must be turned on in Auria settings.

  • @ToMess said:

    @mistercharlie said:
    How about recording straight into AUM? Use that to gather the loops, then drop them into your daw of choice. It can receive midi transport controls.

    I could, but i could also recprd directly to a daw and some trouble in not having to export the audio to daw for editing. Recording to aum works great for jam sessions and such, but its bit too simple for other stuff.

    It is a bit simple, but doing it this way means you can use your preferred DAW rather than picking one just because it does midi sync.

    Another idea may be to use a MIDI-Link syncing app, and record into a Link-enable DAW. Except iirc the only link-syncing DAW is Nanostudio 2, which doesn’t do audio tracks!

  • @wigglelights said:

    @syrupcore said:
    Have you reached out to Rim to see if you can sort out the Auria problems? Seems closest to your requirements.

    @ToMess, neither Cubasis or Auria can slave to midi clock, they can only be the master clock. Stagelight does listen to midi clock and start commands (I haven’t tested that though)
    Auria does support transport commands via the mackie protocol (which is common on many devices that have transport buttons) and this must be turned on in Auria settings.

    Bsp supports mackie, but nothing happens in auria :/

  • I personally would remove the

    AUM > DAW step

    entirely when you're recording.

    Having the DAW live-record various different tracks from AUM sounds like a time saver because you don’t have to then import the loops from AUM to the DAW afterwards. But actually, because of the current state of iOS DAWs it’s a massive extra complication in terms of set-up and start/stop triggering that it sounds like you really don’t need if you’re doing studio work.

    I don’t think AUM is too simple. AUM is one of the best apps out there for recording exact loops because it starts and stops recording on the bar. It also has great syncing options. It also gives you lots of options for recording single tracks or merging - or both.

    The whole recording session will be available as a whole set of perfect loops both in AUM or in AudioShare to bring into your DAW and arrange in there.

    Then you can pick whatever DAW works best for you.

  • edited January 2019

    @ToMess: It works in KORG Gadget!
    You can slave it via MIDI Clock to your BeatStep Pro and record audio from your audio interface connected to the iPad in beat-sync using Rosario or Zurich in Gadget.
    Make sure that if you switch Gadget back to internal sync, you adjust the BPM to the same value you had set on the BSP. Gadget won't time-stretch or re-pitch your audio.

    BTW, AUM cannot slave-sync to MIDI Clock, you'll need apeMatrix for that, although apeMatrix won't record exact n bar loops AFAIK.

  • @Matt_Fletcher_2000 said:
    I don’t think AUM is too simple. AUM is one of the best apps out there for recording exact loops because it starts and stops recording on the bar. It also has great syncing options. It also gives you lots of options for recording single tracks or merging - or both.

    How do you get AUM to stop recording on the bar? I've never managed that, I always have to trim in Audioshare afterwards.

  • @richardyot said:

    @Matt_Fletcher_2000 said:
    I don’t think AUM is too simple. AUM is one of the best apps out there for recording exact loops because it starts and stops recording on the bar. It also has great syncing options. It also gives you lots of options for recording single tracks or merging - or both.

    How do you get AUM to stop recording on the bar? I've never managed that, I always have to trim in Audioshare afterwards.

    It is related to the sync quantum setting. Take a look in the AUM manual. I didn't realize about this either till someone pointed it out.

  • edited January 2019

    @richardyot said:

    @Matt_Fletcher_2000 said:
    I don’t think AUM is too simple. AUM is one of the best apps out there for recording exact loops because it starts and stops recording on the bar. It also has great syncing options. It also gives you lots of options for recording single tracks or merging - or both.

    How do you get AUM to stop recording on the bar? I've never managed that, I always have to trim in Audioshare afterwards.

    Edited / removed. Since confirmed by espiegel123 above.

  • @rs2000 said:

    BTW, AUM cannot slave-sync to MIDI Clock, you'll need apeMatrix for that, although apeMatrix won't record exact n bar loops AFAIK.

    Is that right? I didn’t know that.

    That’s a shame. Works a treat with link.

    A work around might be the Midi-Link sync app.

  • @Matt_Fletcher_2000 said:
    A work around might be the Midi-Link sync app.

    Try it and you'll see why translating MIDI clock + Status to LINK is no replacement for MIDI clock support in the app. When apeMatrix was released, I was quite happy to see bidirectional MIDI Clock support. It's very useful when you work with hardware or desktop DAWs that can only send but not receive MIDI Clock.

  • @ToMess said:

    @wigglelights said:

    @syrupcore said:
    Have you reached out to Rim to see if you can sort out the Auria problems? Seems closest to your requirements.

    @ToMess, neither Cubasis or Auria can slave to midi clock, they can only be the master clock. Stagelight does listen to midi clock and start commands (I haven’t tested that though)
    Auria does support transport commands via the mackie protocol (which is common on many devices that have transport buttons) and this must be turned on in Auria settings.

    Bsp supports mackie, but nothing happens in auria :/

    Hate to say, but no idea what a bsp is.... there were a topic or two over on the Auria forum in the past about Auria not getting along with certain hardware; it sounded like some hardware implements mackie hui differently, and Rim had stated he did it “by the book”,,,,

    See the pic below, and maybe try different setting to see if you get a response, but make sure Recieve Remote is on for your interface

  • @Matt_Fletcher_2000 said:
    I personally would remove the

    AUM > DAW step

    entirely when you're recording.

    Having the DAW live-record various different tracks from AUM sounds like a time saver because you don’t have to then import the loops from AUM to the DAW afterwards. But actually, because of the current state of iOS DAWs it’s a massive extra complication in terms of set-up and start/stop triggering that it sounds like you really don’t need if you’re doing studio work.

    I don’t think AUM is too simple. AUM is one of the best apps out there for recording exact loops because it starts and stops recording on the bar. It also has great syncing options. It also gives you lots of options for recording single tracks or merging - or both.

    The whole recording session will be available as a whole set of perfect loops both in AUM or in AudioShare to bring into your DAW and arrange in there.

    Then you can pick whatever DAW works best for you.

    Seconding this - for all the great features Cubasis and Auria have, loop recording just isn’t there the way it is on desktop DAWs. But there are some great apps, be it AUM, Loopy, BM3, etc, that are really great at it. And whether it’s using AudioShare or the Files app, getting loops into a linear daw may be easier than using it off the bat.
    I will say it does look like Stagelight could be a match for what you want - it does have this loop builder screen/concept going. I don’t think they have really implemented all the iOS specific features as yet (as it’s a port from Win/Mac) but they do seem to be serious about getting it there.....

  • I’ve dug into AUM again, and it only sends its MIDI clock out. It doesn’t receive it. It’s supposed to receive MMC commands, but that doesn’t help with syncing to the bpm of the incoming audio.

    Which means that it’s not a simple way to record loops after all, unless I’m doing it wrong.

  • @mistercharlie said:
    I’ve dug into AUM again, and it only sends its MIDI clock out. It doesn’t receive it. It’s supposed to receive MMC commands, but that doesn’t help with syncing to the bpm of the incoming audio.

    Which means that it’s not a simple way to record loops after all, unless I’m doing it wrong.

    The two options that work for me are KORG Gadget (using Rosario or Zurich) and Loopy HD, both follow MIDI Clock and record any number of bars in-sync. Loopy HD can share recorded loops with other apps (note that some devices under certain iOS versions currently won't export, @Michael is currently looking into it).

  • @rs2000 Would you disable Link in Loopy in this case? Or use it as a way to sync other apps to the incoming MIDI clock?

  • Loopy and Gadget are the only MIDI Slave enabled recorders I think....
    Out of interest, why do you need to slave to MIDI clock rather than have the DAW as the master clock ? BSP should start playing when it receives the clock from the DAW so no need to try and press play in both ?

  • @AndyPlankton said:
    Loopy and Gadget are the only MIDI Slave enabled recorders I think....
    Out of interest, why do you need to slave to MIDI clock rather than have the DAW as the master clock ? BSP should start playing when it receives the clock from the DAW so no need to try and press play in both ?

    It totally depends on your setup. When I work with hardware, I'm naturally using the hardware transport controls so the iOS apps will have to follow.
    If you want your DAW to be the master and BSP the slave, that's fine, you can do it with any DAW supporting MIDI Clock send (except Cubasis, it currently has a bug that makes it send the wrong MIDI Clock messages, Steinberg already know about it).

  • @AndyPlankton said:
    Loopy and Gadget are the only MIDI Slave enabled recorders I think....
    Out of interest, why do you need to slave to MIDI clock rather than have the DAW as the master clock ? BSP should start playing when it receives the clock from the DAW so no need to try and press play in both ?

    For me I’m using an octatrack as master, so I want to use its controls.

  • @rs2000 said:

    @AndyPlankton said:
    Loopy and Gadget are the only MIDI Slave enabled recorders I think....
    Out of interest, why do you need to slave to MIDI clock rather than have the DAW as the master clock ? BSP should start playing when it receives the clock from the DAW so no need to try and press play in both ?

    It totally depends on your setup. When I work with hardware, I'm naturally using the hardware transport controls so the iOS apps will have to follow.
    If you want your DAW to be the master and BSP the slave, that's fine, you can do it with any DAW supporting MIDI Clock send (except Cubasis, it currently has a bug that makes it send the wrong MIDI Clock messages, Steinberg already know about it).

    @mistercharlie said:

    @AndyPlankton said:
    Loopy and Gadget are the only MIDI Slave enabled recorders I think....
    Out of interest, why do you need to slave to MIDI clock rather than have the DAW as the master clock ? BSP should start playing when it receives the clock from the DAW so no need to try and press play in both ?

    For me I’m using an octatrack as master, so I want to use its controls.

    Yeah I get why some of us want it to slave, I wan tto slave so I can control tempo and transport from Circuit, I was asking @ToMess as they may not be fussy as to which way round it is :)

    Cubasis clock issue is only when looping in Cubasis, if you play linear in Cubasis (and let the hardware loop) then there is no problem.

  • @AndyPlankton said:

    @rs2000 said:

    @AndyPlankton said:
    Loopy and Gadget are the only MIDI Slave enabled recorders I think....
    Out of interest, why do you need to slave to MIDI clock rather than have the DAW as the master clock ? BSP should start playing when it receives the clock from the DAW so no need to try and press play in both ?

    It totally depends on your setup. When I work with hardware, I'm naturally using the hardware transport controls so the iOS apps will have to follow.
    If you want your DAW to be the master and BSP the slave, that's fine, you can do it with any DAW supporting MIDI Clock send (except Cubasis, it currently has a bug that makes it send the wrong MIDI Clock messages, Steinberg already know about it).

    @mistercharlie said:

    @AndyPlankton said:
    Loopy and Gadget are the only MIDI Slave enabled recorders I think....
    Out of interest, why do you need to slave to MIDI clock rather than have the DAW as the master clock ? BSP should start playing when it receives the clock from the DAW so no need to try and press play in both ?

    For me I’m using an octatrack as master, so I want to use its controls.

    Yeah I get why some of us want it to slave, I wan tto slave so I can control tempo and transport from Circuit, I was asking @ToMess as they may not be fussy as to which way round it is :)

    Cubasis clock issue is only when looping in Cubasis, if you play linear in Cubasis (and let the hardware loop) then there is no problem.

    That's right, and I always loop the section that I'm recording. Looping is my thing ;)

  • @wigglelights said:

    @ToMess said:

    @wigglelights said:

    @syrupcore said:
    Have you reached out to Rim to see if you can sort out the Auria problems? Seems closest to your requirements.

    @ToMess, neither Cubasis or Auria can slave to midi clock, they can only be the master clock. Stagelight does listen to midi clock and start commands (I haven’t tested that though)
    Auria does support transport commands via the mackie protocol (which is common on many devices that have transport buttons) and this must be turned on in Auria settings.

    Bsp supports mackie, but nothing happens in auria :/

    Hate to say, but no idea what a bsp is.... there were a topic or two over on the Auria forum in the past about Auria not getting along with certain hardware; it sounded like some hardware implements mackie hui differently, and Rim had stated he did it “by the book”,,,,

    See the pic below, and maybe try different setting to see if you get a response, but make sure Recieve Remote is on for your interface

    Actually it started working now for no apparent reason. And that remote doesent need to be on(and even cant be on if set up properly), only the receive MTC needs to be turned on for this. BSP is beatstep pro.

    Auria does seem the be the shit for this type of stuff. Sadly it didnt take too long for it to crash :/ Hopefully it wont be doing that more, or im going to have to skip this seemingly perfect setup as well.

  • @rs2000 said:
    @ToMess: It works in KORG Gadget!
    You can slave it via MIDI Clock to your BeatStep Pro and record audio from your audio interface connected to the iPad in beat-sync using Rosario or Zurich in Gadget.
    Make sure that if you switch Gadget back to internal sync, you adjust the BPM to the same value you had set on the BSP. Gadget won't time-stretch or re-pitch your audio.

    BTW, AUM cannot slave-sync to MIDI Clock, you'll need apeMatrix for that, although apeMatrix won't record exact n bar loops AFAIK.

    I didnt ask for a recorder, but a daw. Gadget would be horrible for this sort of setup, have it and definitely wont be using it for this xD

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