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.

Fab Filter: Game Changer or Game Over

I have a sneaking suspicion that the Fab Filter app release is about to reset things for iOS music for some people.

How?

Reality.

Fab Filter programs as a controlled variable in the experiment of music making in iOS has highlighted some real deficiencies in the scheme of things.

I think the apps have given perspective on limitations as well as pricing and how that plays a roll in iOS music making today for some.

Please go to Jakob Haq latest video for reference before you respond.

What do you think?

If you disagree then don’t post.

Kidding.

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Comments

  • I truly don't understand the complaint.

  • As usual, I can't be bothered sitting through a video. Could you summarise please?

  • @ExAsperis99 said:
    I truly don't understand the complaint.

    Not a complaint.

    But a prerogative or point of reference.

    A. The way iTunes set up and IAP don’t allow for a realistic relationship in some ways of customers and companies. Or a way for companies to hide. Who knows?

    B. The structural music making issues identified regarding the fX limits and might I add the other discussion with the inability for a smart quick way for routing and midi assignments. Especially in regard to recall.

    More big picture I think the FF apps have drawn some parallels between iOS and computer music making on some levels.

  • this is not about music anymore, or is it?

  • Well, where I can see things going probably wouldn't make anyone happy either. So, you can't get a discount on the FF AUV3's for already owning the same plugins in AP because they don't have a way to know that. If they required that you register on their website website, they would know. SynthMaster Player already allows you to get some extra presets if you already own the desktop plugin by entering your registration code in the iOS app. What could follow is app licensing with this same approach.

    Until side-chaining is implemented in hosts, the Woodpresser approach could be used. Rather than having a whole second instance of the plugin though, a smaller pass-through plugin could be put on the track to send the levels to any other given plugin. I would think any indie developer could make a small AUV3 to do that.

  • @rtkeeling said:
    Well, where I can see things going probably wouldn't make anyone happy either. So, you can't get a discount on the FF AUV3's for already owning the same plugins in AP because they don't have a way to know that. If they required that you register on their website website, they would know. SynthMaster Player already allows you to get some extra presets if you already own the desktop plugin by entering your registration code in the iOS app. What could follow is app licensing with this same approach.

    Until side-chaining is implemented in hosts, the Woodpresser approach could be used. Rather than having a whole second instance of the plugin though, a smaller pass-through plugin could be put on the track to send the levels to any other given plugin. I would think any indie developer could make a small AUV3 to do that.

    Great post!

    Thank you

  • edited June 2019

    Right now Fab is leading the charge on iOS as the toppest of the top, top tier developers. Once we get hosts of that caliber, then not a problem.

    In the meantime I found a workaround just this morning that is 100% flawless... don't sidechain.

  • @dreamrobe said:
    this is not about music anymore, or is it?

    This thread.

    Specific song or sound?

    No.

    It is about the current real world status of iOS in each of prospective lives and perceptions.

    We have (as a community) been at this a while.

    I personally would love to ditch my Computer I lieu of an iPad or 2 with my hardware.

    It kind of occurred to me watching Jakob’s video after listening to the Sonic State show how iOS still isn’t where I would like it to be.

    I question without universal apps(MAC and IPAD) if my iOS device will do what I NEED IT TO DO in a consistent and non time consuming set up.

    The limitations the FF apps reveal pet Hakob is a structural deficiency.

    The same type that seems to hinder 1 touch midi learn.

    The same type that have AU requiring samples to be complex or convoluted in some way. AKA: File Management and Accessibility on iPads vs computer.

    I was interested in other people’s feelings.

    Or in particular to the BS reason for non honoring or working with original iOS customers by FF.

    All on the table.

    It is about diplomacy and dialogue and these seemed relevant .

    I do realize some things on here have a common denominator knee jerk aversion to questioning apps, companies, or developers. But, close minded online interactions are a modem near necessity I suppose.

    On treadmill so sorry in advance for boo boos

  • @rtkeeling said:
    Well, where I can see things going probably wouldn't make anyone happy either. So, you can't get a discount on the FF AUV3's for already owning the same plugins in AP because they don't have a way to know that. If they required that you register on their website website, they would know. SynthMaster Player already allows you to get some extra presets if you already own the desktop plugin by entering your registration code in the iOS app. What could follow is app licensing with this same approach.

    Until side-chaining is implemented in hosts, the Woodpresser approach could be used. Rather than having a whole second instance of the plugin though, a smaller pass-through plugin could be put on the track to send the levels to any other given plugin. I would think any indie developer could make a small AUV3 to do that.

    I was thinking an AU sender thing may be possible. If anyone could make it happen I would imagine Fab would have the most expertise / interest. I could see them just wanting hosts to up their game. Also, if anyone may have the crystal ball skinny on BIG things to come in the future on iOS as far as pro level audio etc etc it would probably be them and why invest time in a hack when (beep (I have no idea) is just around the corner. My hope I guess. Anyway, for just cutting a notch out of some bass from a kick I find the BM3 and NS2 sidechains are fine for now. Sure there are more advanced uses etc. It'll come with or without manufactured click baity drama. ;)

  • Orly.

    😉

  • @AudioGus said:
    In the meantime I found a workaround just this morning that is 100% flawless... don't sidechain.

    lol, yeah - exactly! I honestly have no idea why all the obsession with sidechaining. I guess it might be my complete disinterest in edm, but I find the "pump" that people are after to be a truly obnoxious and played-out effect. I hope it goes out of fashion soon.

  • @palm said:

    @AudioGus said:
    In the meantime I found a workaround just this morning that is 100% flawless... don't sidechain.

    lol, yeah - exactly! I honestly have no idea why all the obsession with sidechaining. I guess it might be my complete disinterest in edm, but I find the "pump" that people are after to be a truly obnoxious and played-out effect. I hope it goes out of fashion soon.

    Totally.
    Although in the future we'll want to be able to call up sidechaining and hi-hat triplets for that "2016 sound."

  • @AudioGus said:

    I could see them just wanting hosts to up their game. Also, if anyone may have the crystal ball skinny on BIG things to come in the future on iOS as far as pro level audio etc etc it would probably be them and why invest time in a hack when (beep (I have no idea) is just around the corner.

    Absolute truth here FF is “plugged in“ to the powers that be at Apple. Their investment in iOS is telling

  • In my opinion the release of Fabfilter AU plugins is a tremendous breakthrough for the IOS music platform. They just released some of their standard plugins and dramatically raised the bar on quality plugins, and also exposed something that IOS developers had ignored so far: the use of multiple audio input/output in the AUv3 standard.
    Now it’s time for our developers to catch up. A little bit of uncertainty for everybody? Yes, but this is great. We’re living very exciting moments.
    Welcome Fabfilter! Who’s next?

  • This evening I tried using Auria not Auria Pro (I bought both separately instead of upgrading Auria – don’t ask) and as I didn’t have Fabfilter Limiter Compressor or EQ installed in Auria, I tried using Kymatica AUFX apps. I forgot how much I really liked them. The problem is they can only be used once, so I didn’t go far with them, but if they were updated to be able to be used more than once in a session, I’d happily switch to them instead.

  • @RUST( i )K said:

    @dreamrobe said:
    this is not about music anymore, or is it?

    I was interested in other people’s feelings.

    Or in particular to the BS reason for non honoring or working with original iOS customers by FF.

    All on the table.

    It is about diplomacy and dialogue and these seemed relevant .

    I do realize some things on here have a common denominator knee jerk aversion to questioning apps, companies, or developers. But, close minded online interactions are a modem near necessity I suppose.

    On treadmill so sorry in advance for boo boos

    What gets me down more than anything on this forum are the nauseating displays of entitlement from some contributors. FabFilter themselves have said converting these apps to iOS was a lot of work, and yet they have been extraordinarily generous with their pricing. You can get the whole seven app pro bundle for less than one of the desktop equivalents, and for a huge £420 less than the equivalent desktop bundle. Sure, some people have already paid for them once in Auria. But, those people knew they were buying software that would only ever work in Auria, and have probably got their money’s worth out of them. Now FabFilter have put a lot of work into producing new versions of these apps that can be used in a plethora of hosts, should they not be paid for the extra work? I, for one, am extremely grateful and excited that FF have made such a commitment to the iOS platform. I pray for more desktop devs to make that same commitment. Listening to some here could put a lot of them off. We seem to want the big acts to turn up to our little party, but we seem to think they’re going to do it out of the kindness of their hearts.

    Anyway, late night rant over. Back to sleep everyone.

  • I think this is a "game over change" for several meanings of the word change.

    We can't usually change the world with revolt if it's something on offer. Just buy or not.

  • Ye iOS sucks we know. It's also really good.

  • edited June 2019

    iPad is life.

    I’ll never go back to needing all the physical hardware and bulk. Migrating my sounds to my BeatMaking host of choice (NS2) and these incredible (although sometimes buggy, unheard of on desktop, but unique) plug ins has made what was at first painful, now a producers dream. I’ve got my family time balanced since I don’t need to be stuck in a room, or a building, to be productive. I can sit on a couch, a car, the beach, the mall or anywhere else and make a beat easy.

    And when I need desktop class A/D D/A interfacing, I just plug in my duet 2 to the iPad, which also can be powered on a battery pack. I can then take my high end mics and preamps and record thru them direct with an internal SSD (thanks iPad) into Auria, and thanks to Fabfilter, I can literally mix it with desktop precision, and expectation. Fabfilter is taking bold leaps and pushing the seriousness and respect of iOS music making.

    A big part of getting desktop folks converting/adding iOS to their music making format (and bringing more moneys to programmers/companies, which in turn get us more apps developed) is familiarity. Fabfilter creates that. Plus, The Fabfilter is an absolute steal at its iOS price. I just imagine the kid who can now use birthday card money to get what used to take a full summer working, and get the Fabfilter bundle. It was a big purchase for me on desktop, one I wrestled with, and had me asking myself tough questions once my demo periods were up. ‘Do you really need it? Can another plug in get you to this point in the mix another way? Would you have made the mixing decisions you made without it?’ Now, while its expensive by iOS standards, is a drop in the bucket for someone remotely close to even a prosumer let alone a professional. It’s a great time to be a creative, the barriers are nearly gone!

    Having said that, we are in the infant stages and the growing will sometimes be painful (sidechain, Q3 recall for instance) but it’s growing fast. Apps are getting more stable, more efficient, sounding better, and becoming less abandoned. Also, the expectation of what those apps should do is growing, and the programmers are responding, so it’s no longer a ‘toy’, it’s beginning to get treated with the same level of attentiveness as desktop. Good times!

    Apple simply needs to get out of the way, and stop breaking things and lift weird limits (I’m talking to you AUv3), which they hopefully will.

    I’m grateful to Fabfilter for not ‘drip feeding’ us or playing subscription model games, and just releasing them all at once. Sucks to buy it on desktop, then in Auria and then have to buy it as AUv3 again, but I’m glad to be able to, whereas a week or so ago I couldn’t!

    The game has just begun.

  • @RUST( i )K good job on that treadmill. Lord knows we need to keep our asses in shape what with all this game-changing going on. But beer is essential.

  • Good post @RUST( i )K hopefully all this helps build iOS to be more capable..
    In the mean time it's iOS + ableton for me, plus I really like some of my desktop synths so I'm not really ready to ditch it yet, but regardless I hope to see iOS build up and work out these limitations the best it can over time

  • Apple is getting ready kids (who purchased old iDevices at toy prices) to start them as adults... from iPad Pro and iPhone X prices! :trollface:

    Now seriously, if you can afford 1k $ iDevice for music duties, you can pay 3X the regular app price (since cheapest iPad is 330$€ tier) or buy that app 3 times... seems legit...

    :trollface: ok I tried to be serious but in the end I can't. My late 2012 mac mini was cheaper than my iPad mini4...

  • Just a thought:

    If fabfilter were to release a free plugin that say functioned as a side chain sender it could also be loaded in Auria and give FF a mechanism for knowing which of their plugins are installed in Auria?

  • Fabfilter (or a third party) wouldn't be able to create a helper-app for this without also modifying their 'regular' plugin. Only a host can send audio directly into a plugin's secondary AUv3 input, so to do this 'tunnel-hack' they'd need to specifically build this into their apps (both the input and the output plugin).

    I expect they want to keep their plugins as uniform as possible across different platforms for maintenance purposes. I'm sure I would.

    You can't blame Apple for this one, because the AUv3 standard has had multi-in/multi-out built in right from the start in iOS9.

    I know people enjoy complaining and pointing fingers, but it's a simple market mechanism at work here: making this work is a lot of effort (for the plugins, but especially for the hosts). And in the absence of any plugins or hosts that work with this feature there's nothing out there to test with. So you'd be spending a ton of time building something that likely won't work, and which nobody can use anyway. It's as simple as that. :)

    For hosts this would probably entail doing a complete architecture change, and designing/implementing a completely new UI paradigm. User-friendly audio routing is not something you can retrofit into your UI by adding a button in an empty corner.

  • I would NOT be surprised at all if GarageBand turns out the be the first host that supports multi in/out AUv3's.
    GarageBand usually gets major updates when new iOS versions pop up so in due time we'll know...

  • @Samu said:
    I would NOT be surprised at all if GarageBand turns out the be the first host that supports multi in/out AUv3's.
    GarageBand usually gets major updates when new iOS versions pop up so in due time we'll know...

    Not saying it's impossible, but I would definitely be surprised because I don't see how they could do multi in/out without changing the entire UI concept (same thing with MIDI routing; it simply doesn't fit in their current UI concept). And most changes they implement add something to GB, but not change the existing concept.

  • @Samu said:
    I would NOT be surprised at all if GarageBand turns out the be the first host that supports multi in/out AUv3's.
    GarageBand usually gets major updates when new iOS versions pop up so in due time we'll know...

    Routing is always going to be the thing they hold out on.

  • @brambos said:

    @Samu said:
    I would NOT be surprised at all if GarageBand turns out the be the first host that supports multi in/out AUv3's.
    GarageBand usually gets major updates when new iOS versions pop up so in due time we'll know...

    Not saying it's impossible, but I would definitely be surprised because I don't see how they could do multi in/out without changing the entire UI concept (same thing with MIDI routing; it simply doesn't fit in their current UI concept). And most changes they implement add something to GB, but not change the existing concept.

    One way would be to add something similar to 'Environments' from Logic Pro X.
    This way those who need the functionality could dig deeper when needed while others could keep on using it as is.

    I mean all instruments & effects in GarageBand are already 'iOS Ports' of the existing instruments & effects in Logic Pro X but with limited UIs. So similar to Logic Pro X where the advanced features can be kept hidden similar approach could be done with GarageBand (ie. enable advanced features from the settings).

    But sure, I would not say no the a iLogic or GarageBand Pro.

    What triggers me is that in the reply from FabFilter they mention some developers working on it and that will surely get the speculations started... (Who are those 'some developers'?).

  • edited June 2019

    @Samu said:
    I would NOT be surprised at all if GarageBand turns out the be the first host that supports multi in/out AUv3's.
    GarageBand usually gets major updates when new iOS versions pop up so in due time we'll know...

    As I mentioned when FF first announced their plug ins, my first thought was that FF must know of an upcoming DAW that would make the most of the plug ins, as the only DAW with even close to desktop class audio editing on iOS today is Auria which already has FF plug-in availability.

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