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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Is BM3 worth it for just slicing and use as external sampler

It seems like BM3 development is close to dead BUT from what I have read it has a few features of interest to me. I am wondering if these features are stable enough to make it worthwhile.

My interest is for:

  • making loops with slice markers in them that can be used in BeatHawk and GarageBand and other apps that read Apple loops
  • using the dynamic slicing features
  • Using the BM3 sampler triggered from MIDI

I am not interested in the recording/mixing aspect of the app.

Is it worth it and stable for those features?

Comments

  • edited June 2019

    Works for me. Although I have not tested Apple loops much but the tiny bit I did seemed ok.

    The only bug in that list I know of for sure is this one...

    If you set more than 64 slices on a large wav and double tap one to play it back you get a crash.

  • ReSlice doesn't cover your slicing needs ? It's AU you can use it in whatever host you preffer directly ;)

  • @dendy said:
    ReSlice doesn't cover your slicing needs ? It's AU you can use it in whatever host you preffer directly ;)

    Reslice does not export loops with markers playable as sliced loops. As far as I know only BM3 and BM2 on iOS can do this.

  • edited June 2019

    Yes, BM3 is still very capable for all you mentioned, I was also exporting loops for Beathawk via it. It's a bit unstable in some edge cases, as mentioned above, but you may not even experience it.
    Still by far the best sample oriented app on iOS, it's a pity their developers seem to be abandoning it slowly 😞

  • @AudioGus said:
    Works for me. Although I have not tested Apple loops much but the tiny bit I did seemed ok.

    The only bug in that list I know of for sure is this one...

    If you set more than 64 slices on a large wav and double tap one to play it back you get a crash.

    I reported that crash’ looooong time ago and it likely happens because the slices do not start at midi note 0 so the sound engine gets ‘confused’ and bails... Ie. it’s t tries to trigger a non-existing midi note or something...

    I will not report any more BM3 bugs until we get an update if we ever get one LOL.

  • @Samu said:

    @AudioGus said:
    Works for me. Although I have not tested Apple loops much but the tiny bit I did seemed ok.

    The only bug in that list I know of for sure is this one...

    If you set more than 64 slices on a large wav and double tap one to play it back you get a crash.

    I reported that crash’ looooong time ago and it likely happens because the slices do not start at midi note 0 so the sound engine gets ‘confused’ and bails... Ie. it’s t tries to trigger a non-existing midi note or something...

    I will not report any more BM3 bugs until we get an update if we ever get one LOL.

    If I get it, it is with no expectation that they will fix anything. It seems like they aren't a terribly functional organization.

  • @espiegel123 said:
    It seems like BM3 development is close to dead BUT from what I have read it has a few features of interest to me. I am wondering if these features are stable enough to make it worthwhile.

    My interest is for:

    • making loops with slice markers in them that can be used in BeatHawk and GarageBand and other apps that read Apple loops

    Saving sliced audio as an Apple Audio Loop works as expected for me, though I don't use them very much. It's just the audio file (.aiff), no MIDI/Drummer clips. Importing and using the aiffs in Beathawk worked fine in my limited tests. I would use them more if Beathawk AU didn't drift, even with basic drum patterns just using 1-shot samples.

    • using the dynamic slicing features

    Takes <5 minutes to learn (auto-slice using Detect with its threshold parameter...it is very accurate but you can later manually edit slice-points, add or delete slices if required. Then there are multiple saving options including saving to an Apple Audio Loop aiff file, plus saving the slices across multiple BM3 Pads, or 1 multi-sample Layer on 1 Pad, multiple multi-sample Layers on 1 Pad...remember each Pad in a single Bank can have hundreds of key-mapped samples per Layer, and you can have multiple Layers, or you use the easy method of 1-Pad-for-each-sample. In that case each sample has it's own synthesis parameters, time-stretch, BPM settings, filter, FX, tons of modulation...).

    When saving the slices, there's an option to create a MIDI pattern with the source audio's groove (swing), which is amazing, though BM3 currently has no MIDI export. But applying that groovy MIDI pattern to another drum or instrument in BM3 is really inspiring for that 'human-feel or touch'. Plus of course you can create your own patterns from those slices. Or play a slice chromatically.

    • Using the BM3 sampler triggered from MIDI

    Well, currently MIDI Channels aren't saved with the Bank or Pads (bug). Focus Actions can be used for basic setups on 1 MIDI channel but sometimes they disappear on me.

    I am not interested in the recording/mixing aspect of the app.

    That's good, as the Audio Tracks are only reliable with imported wavs, since recording to them from a sample Bank or AU usually doesn't work. (Audio Tracks are different than the Banks I mentioned above which are used for samples and AUs). Plus automation of 3rd-party AUs needs some polishing from Intua. And basic track fader automation needs work too.

    Is it worth it and stable for those features?

    Like AudioGus said, very long samples with near max # of slices will crash it (though his sample is >3.5 minutes long so no Ableton-style full-song warping unless you cut it up finer before using slice-mode).

    And with complex sessions, it does occasionally crash with no warning. Hours of work lost if you don't remember to save constantly. I have almost zero issues when using loops under 5mb and 0-64 slices. But I still save religiously. And I almost have a good idea which AUs give BM3 a hard time.

    It is pretty damn powerful, plus it's actually a lot of fun (and easy) on the iPad. I wish more people used the sample slicer. Not to mention a ton of other tricks that are rarely discussed.

    Was listening to Beck, BoC, and J-Dilla last night - it's great for that sort of thing.

    I typed all that quickly (and went way OT), so if you require a more concise (or legible) explanation, then let me know. :mrgreen:

  • My major issue with purchasing bm3 now is that it may or may not ever be updated. I wouldn’t want to pay that much for an app like that.

  • edited June 2019

    I don’t know where you guys are getting this info from. Yes there’s an internal issue at Intua but they never said they won’t update the app ever, just because Mathieu is no longer involved in the development doesn’t mean no updates, he’s still part of Intua and is still around. BM2 is still in the store and was updated even after BM3 came out. I have confirmation from both Mathieu and Vincent that the app will be updated and supported.

    Now, I’m not asking anyone to buy the app to use for a certain feature, wait until things calm down and make a decision.

    As is for sampling/slicing, there’s no other app like it. It’s has the best sampler out there in iOS land. Just a couple bugs to fix and maybe a couple key updates and this app will be golden.

    That is all.

  • edited June 2019

    @hansjbs said:
    I don’t know where you guys are getting this info from. Yes there’s an internal issue at Intua but they never said they won’t update the app ever, just because Mathieu is no longer involved in the development doesn’t mean no updates, he’s still part of Intua and is still around. BM2 is still in the store and was updated even after BM3 came out. I have confirmation from both Mathieu and Vincent that the app will be updated and supported.

    Now, I’m not asking anyone to buy the app to use for a certain feature, wait until things calm down and make a decision.

    As is for sampling/slicing, there’s no other app like it. It’s has the best sampler out there in iOS land. Just a couple bugs to fix and maybe a couple key updates and this app will be golden.

    That is all.

    True believer...
    In current pace "couple key updates" would take 2-3 years... while Apple and the world haven't stopped... They haven't delivered on their initial promises and with iPadOS on the horizon it's likely they never will...
    If there would be blacklist on AppStore they would definitely get my vote...
    I think it's time to move on and apparently most did

  • edited June 2019

    BM3 is a bit unstable in my experience. Last time I used it you couldn't monitor external audio input when recording which stop me using it.

  • @espiegel123 said:

    @Samu said:

    @AudioGus said:
    Works for me. Although I have not tested Apple loops much but the tiny bit I did seemed ok.

    The only bug in that list I know of for sure is this one...

    If you set more than 64 slices on a large wav and double tap one to play it back you get a crash.

    I reported that crash’ looooong time ago and it likely happens because the slices do not start at midi note 0 so the sound engine gets ‘confused’ and bails... Ie. it’s t tries to trigger a non-existing midi note or something...

    I will not report any more BM3 bugs until we get an update if we ever get one LOL.

    If I get it, it is with no expectation that they will fix anything. It seems like they aren't a terribly functional organization.

    At least, that was my impression directly at BM3 release, as they did not publish the latest and better beta, but some other version. And they never explained anything. But we will see what's going to happen.

  • It’ll do all the stuff you want, but be sure to save often because I get crashes on the regular. Also, the last update REMOVED crucial features so Be careful updating if a new version does ever pop up.

  • @hansjbs said:
    I don’t know where you guys are getting this info from. Yes there’s an internal issue at Intua but they never said they won’t update the app ever, just because Mathieu is no longer involved in the development doesn’t mean no updates, he’s still part of Intua and is still around. BM2 is still in the store and was updated even after BM3 came out. I have confirmation from both Mathieu and Vincent that the app will be updated and supported.

    Now, I’m not asking anyone to buy the app to use for a certain feature, wait until things calm down and make a decision.

    As is for sampling/slicing, there’s no other app like it. It’s has the best sampler out there in iOS land. Just a couple bugs to fix and maybe a couple key updates and this app will be golden.

    That is all.

    True that this panic is only based on Mathieu officially stating he's not involved in the development, though he's still part of Intua. But let's be honest, the situation was and still is very weird - a lot of promises for features and fixes that should have been in the "next update" or "soon" but often it's over 2 years since then... Maybe some of them were true for 3.1 that was in beta testing, but this version was never rolled out. Given a lot of time has passed since then and they had another update with different features since then (and introducing new unfortunate bugs), it's really questionable, what happened to that 3.1. But I understand it's hard to always react on users wishes, moanings, crazy ideas... Probably they got tired of it and just decided to focus on the development itself.

    But still it's important to mention, that if you get to know the actions and plugins that cause crashes, it's still IMO the best DAW on iOS, if you like (re)sampling and using samples in general. Nothing is perfect, this is the price for an app packed with a lot of unique and clever features.

  • @legsmechanical said:
    It’ll do all the stuff you want, but be sure to save often because I get crashes on the regular. Also, the last update REMOVED crucial features so Be careful updating if a new version does ever pop up.

    The crashes are the worst, it seems to autosave a lot which is good for recovery but kinda hard to find the project lol and I bet it eats up a lot of storage, haven't really looked into that I need to tho

  • BM3 is abandoned . Difficult to admit ,especially for those who bought it for 50€ .
    Wasted money .... life goes on ....

    Back to the subject:
    @espiegel123 , beside crashing on long samples , BM3 has a buggy transient sensitivity, meaning it creates too many slices on the lowest sensitivity.
    As for midi , the only way to use BM3 is using the macros . Everything else disappears on different projects , even when loading a different sample the pad mappings are gone .

    Honestly don’t buy it :(

  • @skrat said:

    @hansjbs said:
    I don’t know where you guys are getting this info from. Yes there’s an internal issue at Intua but they never said they won’t update the app ever, just because Mathieu is no longer involved in the development doesn’t mean no updates, he’s still part of Intua and is still around. BM2 is still in the store and was updated even after BM3 came out. I have confirmation from both Mathieu and Vincent that the app will be updated and supported.

    Now, I’m not asking anyone to buy the app to use for a certain feature, wait until things calm down and make a decision.

    As is for sampling/slicing, there’s no other app like it. It’s has the best sampler out there in iOS land. Just a couple bugs to fix and maybe a couple key updates and this app will be golden.

    That is all.

    True that this panic is only based on Mathieu officially stating he's not involved in the development, though he's still part of Intua. But let's be honest, the situation was and still is very weird - a lot of promises for features and fixes that should have been in the "next update" or "soon" but often it's over 2 years since then... Maybe some of them were true for 3.1 that was in beta testing, but this version was never rolled out. Given a lot of time has passed since then and they had another update with different features since then (and introducing new unfortunate bugs), it's really questionable, what happened to that 3.1. But I understand it's hard to always react on users wishes, moanings, crazy ideas... Probably they got tired of it and just decided to focus on the development itself.

    But still it's important to mention, that if you get to know the actions and plugins that cause crashes, it's still IMO the best DAW on iOS, if you like (re)sampling and using samples in general. Nothing is perfect, this is the price for an app packed with a lot of unique and clever features.

    True but I think the issue with the 3.1 update was a disagreement.I'm just speculating.

  • @recccp said:

    @hansjbs said:
    I don’t know where you guys are getting this info from. Yes there’s an internal issue at Intua but they never said they won’t update the app ever, just because Mathieu is no longer involved in the development doesn’t mean no updates, he’s still part of Intua and is still around. BM2 is still in the store and was updated even after BM3 came out. I have confirmation from both Mathieu and Vincent that the app will be updated and supported.

    Now, I’m not asking anyone to buy the app to use for a certain feature, wait until things calm down and make a decision.

    As is for sampling/slicing, there’s no other app like it. It’s has the best sampler out there in iOS land. Just a couple bugs to fix and maybe a couple key updates and this app will be golden.

    That is all.

    True believer...
    In current pace "couple key updates" would take 2-3 years... while Apple and the world haven't stopped... They haven't delivered on their initial promises and with iPadOS on the horizon it's likely they never will...
    If there would be blacklist on AppStore they would definitely get my vote...
    I think it's time to move on and apparently most did

    Nothing on ios right now fits my workflow better than BM3. So yeah i gotta believe LOL

  • I just deleted it after reading this thread and looking at the awful organising system it has on my iPad. I'll reinstall it from time to time to chop something maybe, but most likely not

  • edited June 2019

    I crash once every hour or two but aside from that it works much better for me now. It did get more stable as of the last release and yes some features I didn’t use (au midi recording and something about audio monitoring?) were apparently removed. Something tells me this was not a coincidence. I just took it as a case of sever the limb to save the body. Maybe just being too nice. ;)

    Anyway, nothing else on iOS lets me load up large wavs files and dig in selecting ranges, non destructive editing etc etc which is my meat and heroin.

  • @reasOne said:
    awful organising system it has on my iPad.

    Do you mean the file system? I think it is fantastic.

  • @AudioGus said:

    @reasOne said:
    awful organising system it has on my iPad.

    Do you mean the file system? I think it is fantastic.

    The core FileManager is good but the sound-browser with banks, search, tags etc. is totally messed up.
    So when I spend time with BM3 I load the samples directly from the FileManager...

  • @Samu said:

    @AudioGus said:

    @reasOne said:
    awful organising system it has on my iPad.

    Do you mean the file system? I think it is fantastic.

    The core FileManager is good but the sound-browser with banks, search, tags etc. is totally messed up.
    So when I spend time with BM3 I load the samples directly from the FileManager...

    oh yah, banks, search, tags. pftt, I don't even bookmark websites.

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