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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Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Is there an albeton Live-style setup for iPad?

Hi everyone, would love your advice:

Can anyone suggest what apps I would need to create a setup that allows me to do the following:

  1. Create MIDI loops / Arps, triggering AU3 / IAA apps
  2. Control of those apps, on the fly, as they loops are performed (Cutoff, LFOs etc)
  3. Performance functions to trigger loops / mix live as per Albeton / Maschine, etc.

The closest I've come so far is to run AUM, plus Rosetta Cells. I can live-tweak the synths, but I'm lacking the pattern / performance functions of other more dedicated live-loop based apps.

Launchpad looks good, but I don't think I can record Midi loops? Looks like it's Audio only. And maybe Beatmaker 3, but I'm not sure.

Any ideas?

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Comments

  • @jameslondon74 said:
    Hi everyone, would love your advice:

    Can anyone suggest what apps I would need to create a setup that allows me to do the following:

    1. Create MIDI loops / Arps, triggering AU3 / IAA apps
    2. Control of those apps, on the fly, as they loops are performed (Cutoff, LFOs etc)
    3. Performance functions to trigger loops / mix live as per Albeton / Maschine, etc.

    The closest I've come so far is to run AUM, plus Rosetta Cells. I can live-tweak the synths, but I'm lacking the pattern / performance functions of other more dedicated live-loop based apps.

    Launchpad looks good, but I don't think I can record Midi loops? Looks like it's Audio only. And maybe Beatmaker 3, but I'm not sure.

    Any ideas?

    If you want to record and trigger MIDI loops live with AUv3 and IAA support, I guess there's not much alternative to Modstep.

  • edited July 2019

    @rs2000 said:

    @jameslondon74 said:
    Hi everyone, would love your advice:

    Can anyone suggest what apps I would need to create a setup that allows me to do the following:

    1. Create MIDI loops / Arps, triggering AU3 / IAA apps
    2. Control of those apps, on the fly, as they loops are performed (Cutoff, LFOs etc)
    3. Performance functions to trigger loops / mix live as per Albeton / Maschine, etc.

    The closest I've come so far is to run AUM, plus Rosetta Cells. I can live-tweak the synths, but I'm lacking the pattern / performance functions of other more dedicated live-loop based apps.

    Launchpad looks good, but I don't think I can record Midi loops? Looks like it's Audio only. And maybe Beatmaker 3, but I'm not sure.

    Any ideas?

    If you want to record and trigger MIDI loops live with AUv3 and IAA support, I guess there's not much alternative to Modstep.

    Yep.
    And some modstep tips if you do go that way:
    I had heard about Modstep crashing but there were no other alternatives at the time I started trying to use iOS that had tempo changes (Gadget does now, but not the individual clip launching you want). I did a good bit of testing and narrowed down crashes to two things...
    1) Modstep gets crashy trying to host IAAs. Better to host them in Audiobus or AUM or just run standalone. Obviously that makes presets an issue if the apps don't respond to program changes. As an aside, I'd not get too invested in IAAs anyway as they have been 'deprecated' per Apple. They are going away...at some unspecified point in the future, maybe not for a while but still.
    2) Modstep gets crashy when your CPU overall is overloaded. Not surprising, but it also doesn't indicate any warning so it took me a bit to figure out.

    So switching to AU3 apps and not overloading the CPU, I won't say it never crashes, but it is now just between song changes especially to songs where I'm pushing the limits on #2. Takes a couple seconds to bring back up, so not a deal breaker.

  • edited July 2019

    Its really strange noone yet fully reproduced ableton like friendly enviroment on ios, giving that it proved so successful.
    Beatmaker is closest probably but with its major flaws like no midi export , and the lack of updates.

  • edited July 2019

    The closest to this that I've seen is actually GarageBand. Which is nice as it will cost you nothing to prove me wrong ;-)

    1. In Liveloops mode in GarageBand you can create MIDI loops via auv3 apps and it's array of internal stuff. And audio loops too.
    2. Yes you can control them on the fly. But only one at a time I think (I may be wrong here, not tried to do this with more than one). you can definitely only open one auv3 UI at a time though*
    3. Liveloops lets you record directly into the arrange/time line. You can launch any clip individually, like live, and also like live you can trigger an entire column at once. Loops are quantised, like live, so they launch at the right time. There are also rudimentary 'DJ-Style' filter, stutter, gate, tape stop, etc. FX with a nice multi-touch interface that can be recorded to the time line along with the performance. Unfortunately you can't edit the FX controller data, but you can chop, move, duplicate, crop, delete, etc. the region.

    *Once you've recorded your performance you can switch to the standard timeline arrange mode and can further tweak synths, cut-off etc and overdub the controller performance. GarageBand is severely lacking in automation editing though but at least it can record it.

  • I'm hoping Atom becomes this. You can start and stop clips but right now it doesn't support midi cc automation.

  • edited July 2019

    Stagelight would be best option in the future, but it may actually work for what you describe if you don’t mind few issues:

    -No midi AU support (Rozeta)
    -External controller works only for the currently selected channel .

    I suggest give a try the free version with internal synths only , record/loop some tracks scenes and see if the workflow is ok with you :)

  • The problem is not really having enough power to do all that.

    Beatmaker 3 is probably most capable but it starts to choke with just one demanding synth app at sane latencies.

  • Amazing thanks everyone, I’ll check out Modstep, Stagelight and GarageBand.
    Without AU3 there’s no point because I need to use apps like Zeeon and Volt.
    I also want to use my Arturia Minilab Mk2.

  • BM3 is not a live performance app at all. It’s only what the name implies, a beat maker and the developers are even less reliable than Retronyms it seems. Speaking of which, IMPC Pro 2 can do the looping of scenes reliably well now, not that I use it but I had V1, and the learning curve on MPC is so much easier than BM3s convoluted and glitchy workflow.

    I can’t advise Modstep because while it’s well designed for the most part the UI has its quirks and building projects does cause terminal crashes.

    Don’t know about Stagelight but before spending any money I really do advise learning GarageBand. It can’t automate but for triggering loops it’s the most solid of all (completely stable) and the built in content grows larger each year.

  • I did an extensive research here but unfortunately, there is nothing really satisfactory.
    Yes, modstep is closest, but it has really terrible sequencing capabilities and no support for MIDI AU, which could otherwise solve a lot of problems.
    I am currently working on a Mozaic script for AKAI APC40 MKII controller that could be able to record and trigger loops via its pads, but still, we desperately miss a simple MIDI (ideally also audio) clip launcher app. It's a bit sad that developers focus on the same synths and effects we already have in 50 different shades, or a random MIDI generator, but no one accepts the challenge to provide a serious tool to quickly create full songs and also be able to perform it live.
    Unfortunately, it seems that the iOS market is currently only consisting of hobbyists who want to just tweak the knobs and generate random sounds for fun, not to do real music production. Or it's just the simple way to go for developers...

  • I found an instrument called the Deluge by Synthstrom. It looks amazing but costs about 800quid. I’m really looking for something like that.

    Garage band - I can’t seem to work out how to record a midi loop, allowing me to play with things like cutoff and freq while the loop plays.

  • edited July 2019

    @jameslondon74 said:
    I found an instrument called the Deluge by Synthstrom. It looks amazing but costs about 800quid. I’m really looking for something like that.

    Garage band - I can’t seem to work out how to record a midi loop, allowing me to play with things like cutoff and freq while the loop plays.

    You can do a lot of stuff the Deluge can do on iOS just not with one single app.

    After you record a midi part with garageband it automatically loops back and you can play the dials.

  • @Korakios said:
    Stagelight would be best option in the future, but it may actually work for what you describe if you don’t mind few issues:

    -No midi AU support (Rozeta)
    -External controller works only for the currently selected channel .

    I suggest give a try the free version with internal synths only , record/loop some tracks scenes and see if the workflow is ok with you :)

    This looks good. Before I spend £15 - this can send midi data to an au3 app, allowing me to tweak freq and cutoff, etc, live as it plays? I don’t mind one app at a time.

    Also - what on earth is the full blown £150 version!?

  • @jameslondon74
    No offense to anyone else here but it seems some folks either have not read your question or have not used some of these apps further than the basic settings page.

    Answering your question, the closest to Live is Beatmaker3 and Modstep. Modstep is quite deep and has better midi implementation... kinda... mostly. Both can launch clips and scenes and control IAA/AUv3. In BM3 you can launch scenes from the pads (Arturia ML2) or do some crazy improv through clip changes and the launch screen... your preference.
    You can do much more improv with pattern / clip changes than with any other app. They are not perfect, not a total ALive replicant, but pretty good.

    I'm now usually using BM3 to trigger lanes in AUM. The BM3 scenes are controlled from my MiniLab2. AUM lanes allow me to control... EVERYTHING ELSE, ANYWHERE ELSE. PLUS, since the ML2 can have each rotary or pad assigned to a different midi chan, you can really get unnecessarily deep-custom if you want.

    So in conclusion ModStep or BM3...
    I would prefer BM3 w/AUM for now. Check some of my ig posts where it may not be always obvious that either BM3 or AUM is in the bg.

  • Thanks. Here is a most basic example, I would want to:
    Channel 1 - kick drum via Ruismaker noir
    Channel 2 - bass arp via Zeeon
    Channel 3 - arp 2 - via sunrizer which I am tweaking live via Arturia minilab

    All 3 channels will have multiple loops that I can switch between on the fly.

    Looks like stagelight will work. Also like the look of modstep but everyone says it crashes a lot.
    Why would I need to run BM3 inside AUM?

  • edited July 2019

    @jameslondon74 said:
    Amazing thanks everyone, I’ll check out Modstep, Stagelight and GarageBand.
    Without AU3 there’s no point because I need to use apps like Zeeon and Volt.
    I also want to use my Arturia Minilab Mk2.

    Another angle is to use Genome the rock solid midi sequencer, which is clip launch based, with midi learn and assignable cc, all of which is available for live play.

    Host your AU synths in a DAW (I use MTS) or set up using standalone if available.

    Also has a cool play surface where you can glitch up your clips live...

    At one point the dev added on/board synth and drum synth and fx which are very fine extras but not really the point, which is grown up live midi madnesses

    These are older demos, (iPad, the first! way way before AUv3) but they’ll give you an idea

    Tim Webb from Discchord

    This one is the dev:

    And DPuzzle with the on-board synths and drum synth stuff

    Worth a look if you have a minute

  • Yeah that looks cool.

    Playing around with BM3 I think I might have found my solution. But I’ll keep looking...

  • Modstep's buggy reputation I think is the product of it being too ambitious, I think. The IAA bugginess was beyond its control, and it's a beautiful workflow if you don't mind hosting in AUM/AB.

    But I do think it has the reputation of being the gold standard on iOS for sequencing hardware.

  • Hosting in AUM? do you mean running it on a track? Why would that improve things?

  • Genome looks ooooooold.

  • @jameslondon74 said:
    Genome looks ooooooold.

    Yep the GUI is early iOS music style-
    If you can get past that it’s still around because it just works

  • edited July 2019

    BM3 can’t record a performance.

    I get it that everybody likes to rag on GarageBand but it’s the only one that can actually do what’s asked in one app (plus plugins ;-). Mostly.

    It’s not perfect but it can do it.

    It can clip launch individual cells and columns.

    It can have MIDI/auv3 cells.

    It can have audio cells. But Unless you are using Apple loops it doesn’t automatically warp/timestretch the audio which is a bit crap.

    I use BlocsWave to bulk prepare loops
    If they’re not all the same bpm. This makes it a doddle to load up liveloops from the files app. But the OP didn’t ask for audio so it’s moot. ;-)

    It can record the performance.

    Its biggest drawback is that you can’t edit the controller/automation. But you can record the controllers live, both in cells and in the timeline once you’ve recorded the performance.

    It’s also a bit of a pain to get stems out of GarageBand as it’s not a one step process but it can be done.

    And unlike BM3 there’s a chance of doing all this without it crashing.

    Up until about 2 updates ago BM3 was a good app. From my perspective it is now broken. The last update was a pretty big regression. I also find its UI/UX quite unpleasant to use. But that’s very subjective.

  • @klownshed said:

    Up until about 2 updates ago BM3 was a good app. From my perspective it is now broken. The last update was a pretty big regression.

    What did you lose?

  • @jameslondon74 said:
    Hosting in AUM? do you mean running it on a track? Why would that improve things?

    You host the IAA (or AU) in AUM and just send and receive midi in Modstep. Hosting IAA apps in Modstep leads to lost of hangs and restarts.

    The other quirky thing in Modstep that people have a problem with: No undo. It autosaves, and you can revert to previous versions easily, but it is a little panic-inducing.

  • Garage band seems fun, but I need midi only, no audio. I am having trouble working out how to record a midi loop that I can send to an AU3 and fiddle with (freq etc) while it plays back.

  • edited July 2019

    @jameslondon74 said:
    Thanks. Here is a most basic example, I would want to:
    Channel 1 - kick drum via Ruismaker noir
    Channel 2 - bass arp via Zeeon
    Channel 3 - arp 2 - via sunrizer which I am tweaking live via Arturia minilab

    All 3 channels will have multiple loops that I can switch between on the fly.

    Looks like stagelight will work. Also like the look of modstep but everyone says it crashes a lot.
    Why would I need to run BM3 inside AUM?

    Ok, now I get it....Nope StageLight won’t cut since it doesn’t have “empty midi clips” and can’t route a clip to multiple instruments (someone correct me if I am wrong)

    I would personally avoid BM3 unless you see an update and hear feedback from the developers (if any)

    I’ll check Modstep again , but I think that if you host AUs on other host to avoid crashing, it would be a little confusing assign AU parameter (such as a filter) to a midi CC

    Edit: Any KRFT hardcore user here ? Maybe it can be used as a Clip launcher/recorder/looper ?

  • @Korakios said:

    @jameslondon74 said:
    Thanks. Here is a most basic example, I would want to:
    Channel 1 - kick drum via Ruismaker noir
    Channel 2 - bass arp via Zeeon
    Channel 3 - arp 2 - via sunrizer which I am tweaking live via Arturia minilab

    All 3 channels will have multiple loops that I can switch between on the fly.

    Looks like stagelight will work. Also like the look of modstep but everyone says it crashes a lot.
    Why would I need to run BM3 inside AUM?

    Ok, now I get it....Nope StageLight won’t cut since it doesn’t have “empty midi clips” and can’t route a clip to multiple instruments (someone correct me if I am wrong)

    I would personally avoid BM3 unless you see an update and hear feedback from the developers (if any)

    I’ll check Modstep again , but I think that if you host AUs on other host to avoid crashing, it would be a little confusing assign AU parameter (such as a filter) to a midi CC

    Modstep hosts AU just fine.

  • edited July 2019

    @Korakios said:

    @jameslondon74 said:
    Thanks. Here is a most basic example, I would want to:
    Channel 1 - kick drum via Ruismaker noir
    Channel 2 - bass arp via Zeeon
    Channel 3 - arp 2 - via sunrizer which I am tweaking live via Arturia minilab

    All 3 channels will have multiple loops that I can switch between on the fly.

    Looks like stagelight will work. Also like the look of modstep but everyone says it crashes a lot.
    Why would I need to run BM3 inside AUM?

    Ok, now I get it....Nope StageLight won’t cut since it doesn’t have “empty midi clips” and can’t route a clip to multiple instruments (someone correct me if I am wrong)

    I would personally avoid BM3 unless you see an update and hear feedback from the developers (if any)

    I’ll check Modstep again , but I think that if you host AUs on other host to avoid crashing, it would be a little confusing assign AU parameter (such as a filter) to a midi CC

    Edit: Any KRFT hardcore user here ? Maybe it can be used as a Clip launcher/recorder/looper ?

    I love KRFT but would not say it could be used as a live Clip launcher/recorder/looper. It is a fantastic tool for sketching with midi though. Pairs like a dream with NS2.

  • Interesting. I actually had BM3 anyway, but never really took to it. But it’s failed me: I created two channels, with one channel containing two loops. I was controlling the cutoff on the other track. But every time I hit the screen to change from loop 1 to loop 2, BM3 changed mid channels so I was stopped from controlling the cutoff.

    No good.

    So... if I use modstep, please explain to me this hosting method?

    I run my synths/drums in AUM, but where do I put modstep?

  • I actually thought stagelight worked pretty well, but I can’t use the following features in the free version:
    1 AU3 app
    2 I can’t even hear an instrument when I try and record it. Drums work just fine. Anyone here use stagelight?

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