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.

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AudioLayer by VirSyn - The mobile Sampling Solution for iOS

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Comments

  • McDMcD
    edited March 2019

    @espiegel123 said:
    Any chance that you could share the EXS file that works (just the exs file and not the samples) that works?

    Sure. This is the modified "Yamaha C7" ESX file. Put it next to the folder of "Yamaha C7" samples called "Samples" in the AudioLayer iCloud "Import" folder.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/81wa5lwjranz3a8/Yamaha C7 v2.exs?dl=0

  • @McD said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    Any chance that you could share the EXS file that works (just the exs file and not the samples) that works?

    Sure. This is the modified "Yamaha C7" ESX file. Put it next to the folder of "Yamaha C7" samples called "Samples" in the AudioLayer iCloud "Import" folder.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/nzgfug38hzvaw4x/Yamaha C7.exs?dl=0

    Thanks!

  • I wonder if relative vs absolute paths in the source EXS makes a difference. I remember needing to massage file paths in some sfz files for them to work in Auria Pro

  • There's nothing I've encountered that works as well as Translator Pro. This link details all the available translation formats.

    http://www.chickensys.com/products2/translator/formats.html

    But you can purchase a cheaper version of Translator Pro which will only convert to one sampler format and an EXS24 version is available.

    The cost of this version is $80

    https://samplerzone.com/collections/translator/products/translator-6-special-edition?variant=30244608907

    Still a lot of cheddar, but if you want something with ongoing support and something that manages most of the grunt work, Translator Pro is a wise investment.

  • @McD said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    Any chance that you could share the EXS file that works (just the exs file and not the samples) that works?

    Sure. This is the modified "Yamaha C7" ESX file. Put it next to the folder of "Yamaha C7" samples called "Samples" in the AudioLayer iCloud "Import" folder.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/nzgfug38hzvaw4x/Yamaha C7.exs?dl=0

    Interesting, if kept crashing on import and I noticed that it was grabbing samples from the parallel folder that had Baldwin upright samples.

    I succeeded in getting it to load be deleting all trace of the Baldwin Instrument...which required using Files to delete the recently deleted items folder.

    The Yamaha C7 Instrument doesn't seem to have an envelope on the notes. So, every struck note is playing the entire sample (as if one is holding down a sustain pedal). Do you get the same result?

    Btw, I am using local rather than cloud storage method. But I don't think that is relevant here.

  • @espiegel123 said:
    The Yamaha C7 Instrument doesn't seem to have an envelope on the notes. So, every struck note is playing the entire sample (as if one is holding down a sustain pedal). Do you get the same result?

    Sorry. It looks like I posted the old ESX file. I'll fix it now and post "Yamaha C7 v2.esx" and delete the wrong one.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/81wa5lwjranz3a8/Yamaha C7 v2.exs?dl=0

  • @espiegel123 said:

    @Audiojunkie said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    @Lithalean : you mention being able to translate sfz files to other formats. What are the available tools for converting sfz files to EXS24?

    Thanks

    I can answer that one for you! :smile: There are several, but the two that have tried to remain up to day are:

    ChickenSys' Translator Pro 6.x (which I personally own)
    Awave Studio

    I believe ChickenSys does the best job. Also, there are others such as CDXtract, Extreme Sample Converter, etc, but they are more outdated.

    EDIT: I didn't read your post well. I was thinking you were asking about sample instrument converters in general, rather than Specifically SFZ to EXS24. Not all of the applications that I mentioned above (especially the older ones) are able to do that conversion.

    Are there any inexpensive apps that convert SFZ to EXS? Translator looks nice but at $149 is more expensive than makes sense for me personally since I am only likely to convert a few instruments.

    Unfortunately, no. What I did is sign up to their news letter so that I could be informed as to when they were having a sale (they rarely have sales). I found out that winter is usually when they have sales, around Black Friday or Christmas. I ended up paying about $80 for my copy, so it's worth it to wait. :smile:

  • @jonmoore said:
    There's nothing I've encountered that works as well as Translator Pro. This link details all the available translation formats.

    http://www.chickensys.com/products2/translator/formats.html

    But you can purchase a cheaper version of Translator Pro which will only convert to one sampler format and an EXS24 version is available.

    The cost of this version is $80

    https://samplerzone.com/collections/translator/products/translator-6-special-edition?variant=30244608907

    Still a lot of cheddar, but if you want something with ongoing support and something that manages most of the grunt work, Translator Pro is a wise investment.

    Ah! I forgot about that option! During Black Friday / Christmas sales, that version drops to about $45. Very doable at that point. :smile:

  • Would someone with translator be kind enough to translate the sfz files for Salamander and Slender(skinny?) Salamander to EXS24 format and make the exs files (just the exs and not the samples) available to the community?

  • @McD said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    The Yamaha C7 Instrument doesn't seem to have an envelope on the notes. So, every struck note is playing the entire sample (as if one is holding down a sustain pedal). Do you get the same result?

    Sorry. It looks like I posted the old ESX file. I'll fix it now and post "Yamaha C7 v2.esx" and delete the wrong one.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/81wa5lwjranz3a8/Yamaha C7 v2.exs?dl=0

    Tx!

  • @espiegel123 said:
    Would someone with translator be kind enough to translate the sfz files for Salamander and Slender(skinny?) Salamander to EXS24 format and make the exs files (just the exs and not the samples) available to the community?

    I'd be happy to do it if you could point me to the files I need and if you aren't in too big of a rush. :smile:

  • @Audiojunkie said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    Would someone with translator be kind enough to translate the sfz files for Salamander and Slender(skinny?) Salamander to EXS24 format and make the exs files (just the exs and not the samples) available to the community?

    I'd be happy to do it if you could point me to the files I need and if you aren't in too big of a rush. :smile:

    Thanks.

    The 44khz/16-bit version of the full Salamander is here:
    http://freepats.zenvoid.org/Piano/SalamanderGrandPianoV3_44.1khz16bit.tar.bz2

    The 48kHz/24-bit version is here:
    http://freepats.zenvoid.org/Piano/SalamanderGrandPianoV3_48khz24bit.tar.bz2

    Slender Salamander is here (44k/16-bit):
    https://musical-artifacts.com/artifacts/534

    Thanks!

  • @McD : I am running into problems due to AudioLayer's problem of searching in its private hidden trash bin and finding filename matches. So, I decided to peek into the EXS file with a text editor -- and I think I see part of the reason that AudioLayer is looking far and wide for the file and not in the sample folder that has the same parent as the EXS.

    The EXS file seems to refer to this path for each sample's parent: "C:\users\Lithalean\Desktop\Yamaha C7\Yamaha C7 Samples\"

    Does the app that you used to edit the file allow you to globally change the path name for the samples?

    I think what is going on is something like this, when AudioLayer tries to import an EXS file, it tries to find the samples where the EXS file says they should be... and then if it can't find them, it starts searching for the file by name (ignoring the path) in various places it knows about. (Maybe an exhaustive search of its private storage space /private/var/Containers/Data/blah blah blah)

    I am wondering if changing the file paths to be relative paths rather than the hardcoded paths inherited from Lithalean's translation would solve the import problems.

    I ran into something like this when I put the Sonatina orchestra files into Auria Pro. The person that had shared the files had used hard-coded Windows file paths. Changing the paths to relative paths fixed it. I could do that because sfz uses plain text files. I have some misgivings about my hacking the EXS file since I understand nothing of its format.

    I wonder if this is also the source of other crashes people have.

  • @McD: Thanks again for posting that conversion. I finally got it to load. I had to use iMazing to access AudioLayer's hidden trash folder -- since it was finding files in the trash whose names matched.

    @VirSyn : it appears that when one is using local storage with AudioLayer that if you delete sample folders using AudioLayer's local sample storage browser, the samples stay in AudioLayer's trash folder. There were 1 gigabytes of samples there that I deleted the other day. It seems like those files should have been truly deleted earlier, and AudioLayer shouldn't be looking in its trash to find samples.

  • @espiegel123 said:

    @Audiojunkie said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    Would someone with translator be kind enough to translate the sfz files for Salamander and Slender(skinny?) Salamander to EXS24 format and make the exs files (just the exs and not the samples) available to the community?

    I'd be happy to do it if you could point me to the files I need and if you aren't in too big of a rush. :smile:

    Thanks.

    The 44khz/16-bit version of the full Salamander is here:
    http://freepats.zenvoid.org/Piano/SalamanderGrandPianoV3_44.1khz16bit.tar.bz2

    The 48kHz/24-bit version is here:
    http://freepats.zenvoid.org/Piano/SalamanderGrandPianoV3_48khz24bit.tar.bz2

    Slender Salamander is here (44k/16-bit):
    https://musical-artifacts.com/artifacts/534

    Thanks!

    Are those the original versions, or versions that can be loaded in AudioLayer?

  • @tja : those are the original versions. Audiojunkie said that he would look into converting the sfzs if I gave the links.

  • @espiegel123 said:
    @tja : those are the original versions. Audiojunkie said that he would look into converting the sfzs if I gave the links.

    Many thanks, I lost the overview...

  • @espiegel123 said:
    @Lithalean : you mention being able to translate sfz files to other formats. What are the available tools for converting sfz files to EXS24?

    @tja said:

    @tja : those are the original versions. Audiojunkie said that he would look into converting the sfzs if I gave the links.

    Awave Studio. It even comes with a free trial. It's only for windows, but if you're on a mac, then you can use porting kit (wine) to run it. (I have a video of this on my channel).

    https://www.fmjsoft.com/awavestudio.html#main

    ^If you do the mac route, then everything is contained within a wrapper, and therefore you can simply delete the wrapper after trial. Then repeat process. (Buy if you like it)

    Note:
    Awave studio downsamples 24bit to 16bit. It also saves the .EXS's audio samples as .aif (windows for .aiff)
    At this point you can either:
    1.) Convert your 24bit .wavs to 24bit .aifs
    2.) Use logic to change the .exs to look for .wavs and then replace the 16bit .aif samples with 24bit .wav
    3.) Keep the lower quality 16bit .aifs and call it good.

    .WAV:
    Waveform Audio File Format - Is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format from 1991.

    .AIF / .AIFF
    Audio Interchange File Format - Was developed by Apple Inc. in 1988.

  • @Lithalean said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    @Lithalean : you mention being able to translate sfz files to other formats. What are the available tools for converting sfz files to EXS24?

    @tja said:

    @tja : those are the original versions. Audiojunkie said that he would look into converting the sfzs if I gave the links.

    Awave Studio. It even comes with a free trial. It's only for windows, but if you're on a mac, then you can use porting kit (wine) to run it. (I have a video of this on my channel).

    https://www.fmjsoft.com/awavestudio.html#main

    ^If you do the mac route, then everything is contained within a wrapper, and therefore you can simply delete the wrapper after trial. Then repeat process. (Buy if you like it)

    Note:
    Awave studio downsamples 24bit to 16bit. It also saves the .EXS's audio samples as .aif (windows for .aiff)
    At this point you can either:
    1.) Convert your 24bit .wavs to 24bit .aifs
    2.) Use logic to change the .exs to look for .wavs and then replace the 16bit .aif samples with 24bit .wav
    3.) Keep the lower quality 16bit .aifs and call it good.

    .WAV:
    Waveform Audio File Format - Is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format from 1991.

    .AIF / .AIFF
    Audio Interchange File Format - Was developed by Apple Inc. in 1988.

    Thanks for the tip. I just did a quick test converting Salamander and Slender Salamander. The full Salamander converted well except for one layer that has release noise and imported fine into AudioLayer. I had to try twice because it crashed the first time. Slender Salamander had some weirdness in the resulting layers but that could be a flaw in the sfz.

    More later. I’ll share the EXS when I get things a little more ironed out.

  • @espiegel123 said:

    @Audiojunkie said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    Would someone with translator be kind enough to translate the sfz files for Salamander and Slender(skinny?) Salamander to EXS24 format and make the exs files (just the exs and not the samples) available to the community?

    I'd be happy to do it if you could point me to the files I need and if you aren't in too big of a rush. :smile:

    Thanks.

    The 44khz/16-bit version of the full Salamander is here:
    http://freepats.zenvoid.org/Piano/SalamanderGrandPianoV3_44.1khz16bit.tar.bz2

    The 48kHz/24-bit version is here:
    http://freepats.zenvoid.org/Piano/SalamanderGrandPianoV3_48khz24bit.tar.bz2

    Slender Salamander is here (44k/16-bit):
    https://musical-artifacts.com/artifacts/534

    Thanks!

    Update: I’m downloading the files now... 🙂

  • Here's the first one. Copy all of the samples from the original file into the "Samples" subfolder. Please let me know if it works or not. :smile:

  • Here's the first one. Copy all of the samples from the original file into the "Samples" subfolder. Please let me know if it works or not. :smile:

  • Here's the first one. Copy all of the samples from the original file into the "Samples" subfolder. Please let me know if it works or not. :smile:

    EDIT: The forum would not let me save the file attachment. It gave the error: "You are not allowed to upload files to this category. Does anyone have any idea what category I can upload files to?

  • Thanks for doing this. I am curious how the hammer noise and harmonics layers were handled. Very curious how the Translator and Awave Studio (that I am running in demo mode) compare.

    I am currently stumped by Ivy in 162. I think I'll need help from someone who understands sfz files. It looks like each note has a pedal on/pedal off sample and each note and velocity is its own region. No layers. It might make the most sense for me to rename the samples and import the samples with auto-mapping.

    I am unsure as to whether the difference in pedal on/off samples will be worth the effort to deal with.

  • @espiegel123 said:

    Thanks for doing this. I am curious how the hammer noise and harmonics layers were handled. Very curious how the Translator and Awave Studio (that I am running in demo mode) compare.

    I am currently stumped by Ivy in 162. I think I'll need help from someone who understands sfz files. It looks like each note has a pedal on/pedal off sample and each note and velocity is its own region. No layers. It might make the most sense for me to rename the samples and import the samples with auto-mapping.

    I am unsure as to whether the difference in pedal on/off samples will be worth the effort to deal with.

    I haven’t tested them. I just converted them, packaged them, and uploaded them. I’m limited with time and figured it would be better to at least get them converted and available, and then let you guys test and determine the nuances. 🙂

    My next project is the non-slender versions of Salamander. 🙂

  • I have just been reading through the sfz documentation and now understand the Ivy in 162 instrument enough to make a better stab at a conversion than my first.

    Now on to understanding the Salamander sfz better to understand how the hammer and harmonics layers are supposed to work.

    It'll probably take me a few days to find the time to experiment. With Ivy, it looks like some care will be needed to adjust the volume adjustment for each layer. I may want some feedback before doing that as to whether the sample set is worth tweaking (i.e. does it really seem better than Salamander).

  • I think "162" is worth understanding but I know it's a huge undertaking. I found it to have a "Close" recording and an "Ambient" recording. I would concentrate on the close recording because adding more "room" to an AU instrument is trivial so mixing in the "ambient" recording seems like wasted resources to me. I'd start with just the notes and let the pedal extras slide as a follow-on. I personally could careless for those extra clunking gimmicks.
    When people hear them they are typically eager to mix them down to "off". But someone must care are the extra little realism as a player but it's not musical to me.

    I set up "Synthjacker" using my PreSonus AudioBus interface with audio and MIDI loopbacks and made a great piano clone from an AU App today with 4 layers. Using the loopback approach (like and external synth is a sense... sunthjacker midi goes to PreSonus and out it's midi port out and back through the MIDI IN into the iPad and into an App which sends sound out to the PreSonus Audio Out's which are cabled back to it's IN's and back into the iPad for the SynthJacker recording). Getting the knob/gain settings right for a good sound is trick but this means I can make AL instruments from older IAA Apps, too, like Animoog or D1.

  • @McD ; after I have full Salamander ported, I'll do a quick version of Ivy . I think that well done pedal noise is a nice option to have but it needs to be at a pretty subliminal level. Real solo pianos have this noises and some of my favorite musicians use it to good effect.

    My initial impression is that Salamander is more satisfying but maybe that will change.

  • edited April 2019

    @VirSyn

    Apologizes if this has been covered. I use the visual user interface a lot for adjusting velocity breaks in multilayer acoustic drum kit sample set builds (single note widths). I do this within my DAW to suit the source midi performance. Would it be of interest to enough users to increase the zoom level as well as repair what I think may be a bug in preventing adjusting a velocity segment that is within about twenty increments from the top (127)?

    The naming scheme for importation is great but if that UI would zoom in more, on-the-fly adjustments would be much easier to accomplish. Avoiding the delete X is also difficult (no undo).

    Also, cut, paste, and undo, would go far to decrease profanity.

    Thanks for a great app!

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