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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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MIDI Clock Slave iPad with AudioBus + AUM

Hi guys! I'm farely new on the iOS production side of things, I mainly use hardware to do music, but there are so many amazing apps and sequencers now for iOS that it would be a shame not to use it with my gear!

So finally AudioBus 3.4 supports slaving to MIDI Clock! I got a ERM Multiclock which make things snappy to DAW Grid :) As I am new on these things, and I've been using AUM for most of the time to jam ideas and record some stuff, can someone teach me how I can make AUM sync to my external MIDI Clock using AB + AUM ?

Thank You for your patience, I bet this question was asked many times (well now that we have the tools this might be helpful!)

Comments

  • In Audiobus

    1. Open Settings. Sync settings are in here.
    2. Setup Midi Clock. There are in and out options. Set in to your ERM.
    3. Enable Ableton Link. This is what AUM will follow.

    In AUM

    1. Tap the tempo indicator in the upper left corner. It will expose tempo/clock controls.
    2. Hit the 3 dots. This opens the Clock options.
    3. Enable Ableton Link.

    You can also turn on Link start/stop option in the Ableton Link Settings in each app that supports it. Dig into the settings for Link and flip the switch.

  • @athousanddetails said:
    Hi guys! I'm farely new on the iOS production side of things, I mainly use hardware to do music, but there are so many amazing apps and sequencers now for iOS that it would be a shame not to use it with my gear!

    So finally AudioBus 3.4 supports slaving to MIDI Clock! I got a ERM Multiclock which make things snappy to DAW Grid :) As I am new on these things, and I've been using AUM for most of the time to jam ideas and record some stuff, can someone teach me how I can make AUM sync to my external MIDI Clock using AB + AUM ?

    Thank You for your patience, I bet this question was asked many times (well now that we have the tools this might be helpful!)

    What @CracklePot suggested looks like an interesting workaround.
    If you want proper MIDI Clock slave support, you'll have to use apeMatrix instead of AUM.
    Slaving to MIDI Clock in AUM has been requested a number of times but I'm not sure if it will happen anytime soon.

  • Hi!

    @CracklePot thanks a lot for your tips! I will try it on tonight :)!

    @rs2000 Well as far as I understood, with AB3 now with sick MIDI Clock Slaving to external gear and Link between whatever app you want AUM will follow right? So apeMatrix or AB3 now should be the same... And from what I've been reading on the forum over here, AB+AUM combo seems to be very powerful... Any specific reason for you telling me to use apeMatrix instead of AB3 for Midi Clock Slaving?? Have you tried AB 3.4 ?

  • @athousanddetails
    You’re welcome.

    I have used this method to finally get Cubasis and AB/AUM to sync up without much fuss.
    I have noticed a little weirdness when I hit play in Cubasis, though. The first measure plays back inconsistently.

    Sometimes the Link apps sound like they are auto-adjusting tempo. Sometimes the Link apps don’t play back at all in the first measure, but start at measure two perfectly.
    Whatever the case, at the start of measure two everything seems sorted and synced up.
    It probably has something to do with how Link syncs at the bar in most cases. It may be Cubasis has midi clock bug, too. Not really sure.

    So be aware that it may not be perfect at first, but works pretty well past the first measure.
    You may get lucky with your ERM Multiclock, and get perfect sync from the start of playback, too. That would be cool.

  • @CracklePot said:
    @athousanddetails
    You’re welcome.

    I have used this method to finally get Cubasis and AB/AUM to sync up without much fuss.
    I have noticed a little weirdness when I hit play in Cubasis, though. The first measure plays back inconsistently.

    Sometimes the Link apps sound like they are auto-adjusting tempo. Sometimes the Link apps don’t play back at all in the first measure, but start at measure two perfectly.
    Whatever the case, at the start of measure two everything seems sorted and synced up.
    It probably has something to do with how Link syncs at the bar in most cases. It may be Cubasis has midi clock bug, too. Not really sure.

    So be aware that it may not be perfect at first, but works pretty well past the first measure.
    You may get lucky with your ERM Multiclock, and get perfect sync from the start of playback, too. That would be cool.

    It could also be that in order to slave to MIDI clock the slave needs to receive a few 'ticks' in order to know what the tempo is....the way to avoid it is to have a blank bar or 2 at the start of the track and this is used to allow the slave to calculate the current tempo before any playback starts.

  • @athousanddetails said:
    Hi!

    @CracklePot thanks a lot for your tips! I will try it on tonight :)!

    @rs2000 Well as far as I understood, with AB3 now with sick MIDI Clock Slaving to external gear and Link between whatever app you want AUM will follow right? So apeMatrix or AB3 now should be the same... And from what I've been reading on the forum over here, AB+AUM combo seems to be very powerful... Any specific reason for you telling me to use apeMatrix instead of AB3 for Midi Clock Slaving?? Have you tried AB 3.4 ?

    If the setup shown by @CracklePot works for you then that's perfectly fine.
    I was talking about apeMatrix replacing AUM, not AB3, to have a more flexible synced setup in which any host is able to follow MIDI Clock without depending on the other.

  • @AndyPlankton
    That is exactly what I did to deal with this. I slid the Cubasis tracks to start on measure 2, and left the first measure empty.

  • @AndyPlankton said:
    It could also be that in order to slave to MIDI clock the slave needs to receive a few 'ticks' in order to know what the tempo is....the way to avoid it is to have a blank bar or 2 at the start of the track and this is used to allow the slave to calculate the current tempo before any playback starts.

    That should not be the case except when working with audio tracks on the sync receiver.
    Cubasis does have a clock sync bug but it's related to sync output whenever looped playback is enabled - it will simply send the wrong number of clock ticks at each iteration, and Steinberg are aware of the bug since more than a year.
    Sending clock during strictly linear playback should work properly.

  • @rs2000 said:

    @AndyPlankton said:
    It could also be that in order to slave to MIDI clock the slave needs to receive a few 'ticks' in order to know what the tempo is....the way to avoid it is to have a blank bar or 2 at the start of the track and this is used to allow the slave to calculate the current tempo before any playback starts.

    That should not be the case except when working with audio tracks on the sync receiver.
    Cubasis does have a clock sync bug but it's related to sync output whenever looped playback is enabled - it will simply send the wrong number of clock ticks at each iteration, and Steinberg are aware of the bug since more than a year.
    Sending clock during strictly linear playback should work properly.

    It seems that Link doesn’t sync from the press of play button instantly. I see it delay the start of playback until the next bar division if you press play in Cubasis when Link is mid-cycle.
    Cubasis starts up immediately, but Link often does not. It waits for the next bar of a continuously running Link clock.

  • @CracklePot said:

    @rs2000 said:

    @AndyPlankton said:
    It could also be that in order to slave to MIDI clock the slave needs to receive a few 'ticks' in order to know what the tempo is....the way to avoid it is to have a blank bar or 2 at the start of the track and this is used to allow the slave to calculate the current tempo before any playback starts.

    That should not be the case except when working with audio tracks on the sync receiver.
    Cubasis does have a clock sync bug but it's related to sync output whenever looped playback is enabled - it will simply send the wrong number of clock ticks at each iteration, and Steinberg are aware of the bug since more than a year.
    Sending clock during strictly linear playback should work properly.

    It seems that Link doesn’t sync from the press of play button instantly. I see it delay the start of playback until the next bar division if you press play in Cubasis when Link is mid-cycle.
    Cubasis starts up immediately, but Link often does not. It waits for the next bar of a continuously running Link clock.

    I have noticed that a lot of apps wait a measure to start playing when using link. My understanding is that (unlike IAA), link is not sample accurate and doesn't have absolute time position. So, apps often wait for the next measure boundary to start when syncing to link.

    This post might be of interest (not sure if link's updates have addressed these)

    https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/comment/205610/#Comment_205610

  • @CracklePot said:

    @rs2000 said:

    @AndyPlankton said:
    It could also be that in order to slave to MIDI clock the slave needs to receive a few 'ticks' in order to know what the tempo is....the way to avoid it is to have a blank bar or 2 at the start of the track and this is used to allow the slave to calculate the current tempo before any playback starts.

    That should not be the case except when working with audio tracks on the sync receiver.
    Cubasis does have a clock sync bug but it's related to sync output whenever looped playback is enabled - it will simply send the wrong number of clock ticks at each iteration, and Steinberg are aware of the bug since more than a year.
    Sending clock during strictly linear playback should work properly.

    It seems that Link doesn’t sync from the press of play button instantly. I see it delay the start of playback until the next bar division if you press play in Cubasis when Link is mid-cycle.
    Cubasis starts up immediately, but Link often does not. It waits for the next bar of a continuously running Link clock.

    This is by design! "Classic" LINK is meant to work this way, that's why MIDI clock is often the preferable choice at least when some hardware is involved.
    LINK has been developed to allow for arbitrary device joining and leaving over wireless LAN, adapting to tempo changes that can be initiated by any LINK member. This makes syncing of multiple devices very easy. But it's not a replacement for other sync options.
    In a live setup you usually don't want WiFi/LAN or delayed sync start so MIDI clock is the better choice.
    The downside is that out of all iOS apps that officially support syncing to MIDI Clock, less than one third of them work well and without delays or issues.

  • @espiegel123
    Thanks for that link! Great stuff in there, and being discussed by devs, too.

    @rs2000. Thanks for your input, too.
    I was hoping the new AB midi clock features would help this situation, but it is pretty much the same as my old method using MidiLinkSync. I am going to explore turning Link off and mapping start buttons in AB to a midi controller, and try using IAA sync when possible, and also try using mostly AU apps.

  • @rs2000 said:

    @athousanddetails said:
    Hi!

    @CracklePot thanks a lot for your tips! I will try it on tonight :)!

    @rs2000 Well as far as I understood, with AB3 now with sick MIDI Clock Slaving to external gear and Link between whatever app you want AUM will follow right? So apeMatrix or AB3 now should be the same... And from what I've been reading on the forum over here, AB+AUM combo seems to be very powerful... Any specific reason for you telling me to use apeMatrix instead of AB3 for Midi Clock Slaving?? Have you tried AB 3.4 ?

    If the setup shown by @CracklePot works for you then that's perfectly fine.
    I was talking about apeMatrix replacing AUM, not AB3, to have a more flexible synced setup in which any host is able to follow MIDI Clock without depending on the other.

    Well something to try then... Thing is AB3 is cheaper than apeMatrix... and I'm getting more and more apps just because :P when they do the same stuff... but if it's the only way to have things correctly synced...
    @rs2000 what is your experience with apeMatrix slaved to external gear?

    @AndyPlankton yeah, ERM works like that... 1 bar is just setting clock and only after it sends Play to the devices :)

  • @athousanddetails said:
    @rs2000 what is your experience with apeMatrix slaved to external gear?

    It works well enough as long as you don't have tempo changes from external gear.
    With tempo changes, Gadget, GR-16, Genome, Modstep and Stroke Machine run much tighter.

  • You don’t necessarily need Link. AB’s own start/stop sync works for apps that it “hosts”. Try putting AUM in an AB output slot, and leave Link off.

    I’ll try it later, too.

  • edited May 2019

    @mistercharlie said:
    You don’t necessarily need Link. AB’s own start/stop sync works for apps that it “hosts”. Try putting AUM in an AB output slot, and leave Link off.

    I’ll try it later, too.

    This will only syncs transport, beat will not be synced and there will be some offset after a while, if not from start.

    @CracklePot About first bar midi clock to Link issues, @Michael still investigate for this. There is exactly the same behavior with Midi Link Sync app. It’s certainly annoying and perhaps a limitation by midi clock/Link design, but not such of an issue when looping stuff. When using a timeline in a DAW, it’s still possible to leave a blank bar at beginning of arrangement. While recording, usually DAW bar pre-count is enough to stabilize, and you can add a blank bar here too if needed.

    I really love the way Audiobus manage that sync feature, I use it in combo with GarageBand to sync some Rozeta or Blocswave stuff and that works perfectly in a great workflow, there is not a lot to setup and it’s faster to use than Midi Link Sync with tighter sync too.

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