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.

How to make a One Man Band Workstation with IOS Apps...

How to make a One Man Band Workstation with IOS apps?

As requested by several users interested in creating an IOS Arranger Style Workstation.

When making a “Song “ my usual basic bones of a song compose of:

  1. Drums
  2. Bass
  3. Synth Pads as the backing
  4. Melody or leads Synth

To be able to get this going to will need the following apps:

  1. AudioBus 3
  2. Navichord
  3. iBassist
  4. Lumbeats Drum Apps (Any will do).
  5. Any favorite Synths
  6. AUM

Many here might not be interested, but if there are times you feel completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of time it takes to create a Drum track, Bass Track, or even make everything sound cohesive and pro sounding, then you might be a little interested in this thread.

You might learn how you can get your “Song” creativity going instead of making endless loops which never go anywhere.

You might be able to, in a sense, just hit “Play” and let all the Virtual midi Musicians make music with you as you guide them all in realtime as to what “Chords” to play.

Is it perfect? Nope. Complete? Nope. I still believe more can be done but because of AudioBus 3, Lumbeats iBassist and all their Drum Apps, AUM and the sheer amount of Synth apps available, we are now so close to having an IOS Arranger Style Workstation that is solid and stable to Jam, Record and or compose in realtime!

Even better, we now also have the ability to record all the realtime playing via midi into amazing apps such as Xequence, Cubasis Photon,or the DAW of your choice.

As posted in another thread:

Here’s a short video clip of Navichord’s amazing Song Mode and realtime chord progression entry. All hosted in AudioBus 3.

Navichord’s channel one “Voice 1” is sending midi Bass chord data to iBassist via midi channel 1.

iBassist is in Live Midi-in Mode. Although iBassist’s Live Pads are loaded up, Navichord’s Song Mode allows me to free up my hands to switch Live Pads, although I’d prefer to do it via Midi program change, this is currently only a workaround.

Navichord is also sending the Midi chord progression data to Z3TA Synth via midi Channel 3 in AB3.

Navichord is also sending Lead Pad midi data via channel 4 to Addictive Synth Pro AU in AB3.

Drums are being handled by faithfull Rock Drummer!

Hope this short video reveals the amazing potential these apps have to create backing songs in a matter of minutes and not weeks.

I thank Dennis @Navichord for such an amazing app, And our dear Michael @Michael for AudioBus3 and @LuisMartinez for all his incredibly powerful apps! These are virtual musicians ready rock nonstop!

Also, please excuse the poor video arrangement as I’m not quite good at video editing and it was hard to align the music with video but hope it gets the message across.

Any comments are welcome.
Video Link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ea2igxl11te6ynl/AB3OMBPRESET-MM4C.mov?dl=0

AB3 preset to follow later.

Thanks for any and all ideas or input on how to make this setup even better.

Cheers,

«13

Comments

  • edited March 2019

    Here’s the AB3 One Man Band Preset:

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/imsmj9xomiugk3r/AB3 OMB PRESET-MM4C.txt?dl=0

    I used Z3TA as my backing Synth and Addictive Synth Pro AU as my lead synth but you can replace those with your own favorites.

    Cheers!

  • edited March 2019

    Hello everyone,

    In this particular video, I show how the apps in the AB3 One Man Band Preset are setup. So in the beginning of the video there’s no audio until everything is setup.

    I’m using Navichord’s Pads to make all the chord changes and playing the melody with Navichord’s keyboard all is done in a single pass in real-time!

    All was recorded in to AUM.

    For those interested in making a song real quick and lay down an idea super fast, this is a really good alternative. Especially when time is tight as it usually is.

    Imagine laying the basic structure of a song them going to AURIA, and basically add vocals, acoustic instruments and bam! Song creation simplicity. This is my workflow and it allows me time be more concentrated on the song rather than the apps.

    Any ideas, or comments welcomed.

    Video Link:

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/69luto41fu7fo66/AB3 OMB2-MM4C.mov?dl=0

    Cheers!

  • Thank you for documenting this particular use case.

    Korg, Yamaha, Roland and Casio sells thousands of these "Arranger Workstations" with subsequent Styles Packs.

    Windows/Mac Users have "Band in a Box" for this use case and they bleed the user into debt with dozens of add-ons at $79 or more a pop.

    Luis Martinez is the styles creator here. I'm still working through getting this configuration installed correctly. I had it working for 10 minutes and saved the AB3 and AUM configs but it never came back completely and I didn't figure out which setting I missed or if the sequence of app starts is critical to the results.

    I'll try your generously provided config file and see if I can get it working again.

    There's still a subtle line between what Navichord is doing and what iBassist can do without being fed Navichord's MIDI out that I don't fully understand. iBassist accepts MIDI controller chords in and has "progressions" but there's something Navichord is adding that makes it important if not essential for your performances. What is it? The ability to organize songs for quick recall? The splitting out of the bass/chord left hand from the live right hand melodies that bypass iBassist completely? Would a MIDI splitter before iBassist do that as well and send the upper split to the another App?

    I think I'll add a note in the FAQ thread that points the Arranger/One Man Band types towards this thread once we get all the user feedback worked out.

    It's interesting to consider that AUM is optional. I didn't get that. I was wondering what particular feature of AB3 makes it essential. I think it might be the MIDI behavior of Navichord
    using the AB3 MIDI features versus AUM's. I like to use it to make quick recordings in AUM of sessions and pass them up into SoundCloud via AudioShare to listen to critically while I walk.

    I should use this effort to finally dig into the essential details of AB3.

    I was wondering if the MIDIFlow Splitter became essential to your setup and secured AB3 in your work. Recently several new MIDI AU's have been release that do excellent MIDI Splits in AUM too. One of them uses region overlaps rather than a fixed point where the low notes stop and upper take over. The split is a blended overlapping range for notes turning the bass split down and the upper split up across a scale.

    Thanks again for making the video and config file.

  • I think about this all the time! I've been thinking of ways to also include gestrument pro! and Yamaha MMS (but its not real time)

    is anyone trying a similar desktop experiments?

  • @McD I just realized that I’m using AB3 beta. But not sure if that makes a difference. I’m going to download the AppStore version and load up my preset and see if it still works.

    Regarding AUM being optional, I meant for the purposes of getting a simple setup going with AB3, but it’s absolutely an essential app. I will remove the optional of my post because it is misleading and not fair for such an amazing Dev and app!

    Your question regarding what Navichord is doing is really that it is only sending your Bass note midi data to iBassist via midi channel 1.

    So iBassist is using that to determine what key your in at anytime and it continues to play the selected Bass pattern for as long as you stay in that particular key. It doesn’t auto generate any other nuances, but instead only the nuances that were premise within that Bass pattern. But the reason it sounds real is because iBassist was programmed to sound real, like a virtual Bassist!

    So Navichord is really just an amazing convenient app because it allows me to play the chords and melody tracks in realtime while the virtual musicians do their music! No external midi keyboard needed, so just my iPad and earphones!

    My next step is to try to record all the midi output of Navichord, iBassist, and Drummers to Cubasis.

    I had an even better setup earlier going where I was able to use the app SideCar to send midi program changes to both iBassist, and Rock Drummer and change patterns of both in realtime!!!!

    But, I couldn’t get Navichord to drive iBassist this way as enabling Live Midi In prevents you from sending midi program changes to both apps. Real bummer and I hope @LuisMartinez puts out an update for this.

    To me this is really huge because it would make the realtime One Man Band setup sound more realistic!

  • You should check out the "Chords" out capabilities in iBassist MIDI page as well. It can send out 2 chordal tracks on selectable MIDI channels (as well as a clone of the internal Bass track to another bass instrument like iFretless Bass for example.)

    The 2 chordal tracks provide on beat, off beat and other options to make some really clever accompaniments that can give a band some life with a rhythm guitar and keyboard sidemen.

    The whole note sounds in the provided video using Navichord sound less interesting to my ears. If you send the whole chord output of Navichord into iBassist it will follow the Major, Minor, 7th chord selections of the Navichord input for the autogenerated chord tracks.

  • Thank you @Tones4Christ for taking the time to post this nifty AB3 preset, video, and explanation. I replaced Z3TA with Kasper due to the system date change requirement, pressed play in AB and everything kicked in except for Addictive Pro. I’ll look into it further as time permits

    Thanks again.

  • @RubenDari said:
    I think about this all the time! I've been thinking of ways to also include gestrument pro! and Yamaha MMS (but its not real time)

    is anyone trying a similar desktop experiments?

    I haven’t got gestrent pro and I’m only on the iPhone and iPad. A long time ago I was all desktop but dreamed of being able to create a setup so portable as the one I now have. This setup allows me to make music in the go, at lunch breaks or anytime! I’m thinking of using GeoShred for guitar leads and Guitarism for guitar rhythm tracks!

  • @McD gonna try your ideas! Thanks!

  • Just tried the AB3 version on the AppStore and preset worked like a charm!

    Also, wanna have unlimited drum style variations? Use iBassist’s create drums feature! Amazing!!!

    Just figured it out, unbelievable!

  • @Tones4Christ said:
    Here’s the AB3 One Man Band Preset:

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/imsmj9xomiugk3r/AB3 OMB PRESET-MM4C.txt?dl=0

    I used Z3TA as my backing Synth and Addictive Synth Pro AU as my lead synth but you can replace those with your own favorites.

    Cheers!

    You used Dropbox to share a Textfile that then contains a link to a AudioBus preset?!?
    Totally confused me.

    Here is the link directly:

    http://preset.audiob.us/ohTfKFYwsrySnsi

  • I think you might find gestrument mind blowing. (I'm just trying to understand it myself)

    @Tones4Christ said:

    @RubenDari said:
    I think about this all the time! I've been thinking of ways to also include gestrument pro! and Yamaha MMS (but its not real time)

    is anyone trying a similar desktop experiments?

    I haven’t got gestrent pro and I’m only on the iPhone and iPad. A long time ago I was all desktop but dreamed of being able to create a setup so portable as the one I now have. This setup allows me to make music in the go, at lunch breaks or anytime! I’m thinking of using GeoShred for guitar leads and Guitarism for guitar rhythm tracks!

  • So here we are almost 6 years later, and still no quallity arranger software for the ipad in sight?

  • @Bachus said:
    So here we are almost 6 years later, and still no quallity arranger software for the ipad in sight?

    We're actually only a few months later than the original post.

    I predict that quality arranger will arrive sometime this year.

  • I still didn’t find something useful but as I pointed in the other topic maybe worth a look Prime and Xmure.
    For algo bots I need to check iBassist (and the other Luis’ apps) but ATM I use Music Memos and my digitech trio+.
    About song arranging I also use GTL due it could manage song parts “groups” with 4 loops (and extra main group with 4 more) and adds the live looping mojo to the equation.

    Hope it helps someone.

  • There's also the free One Man Band app, which is meant to go with the OMB guitar but works with any controller. It's a bit of a work in progress, but worth checking out. (My OMB kit arrived yesterday, but there's a fair bit of soldering involved…)

  • @Masanga said:
    There's also the free One Man Band app, which is meant to go with the OMB guitar but works with any controller. It's a bit of a work in progress, but worth checking out. (My OMB kit arrived yesterday, but there's a fair bit of soldering involved…)

    Nice gadget. I didn't know they were going to release one Midi based... btw you made me remember another with similar name (in fact the same and the one I found when I searched in the iPhone) which maybe someone could get benefeit. There is a lite version for free...

  • @TheDubbyLabby said:

    @Masanga said:
    There's also the free One Man Band app, which is meant to go with the OMB guitar but works with any controller. It's a bit of a work in progress, but worth checking out. (My OMB kit arrived yesterday, but there's a fair bit of soldering involved…)

    Nice gadget. I didn't know they were going to release one Midi based... btw you made me remember another with similar name (in fact the same and the one I found when I searched in the iPhone) which maybe someone could get benefeit. There is a lite version for free...

    I think you are referring to one man band amp by Jos Maas ( there is all another similar named companion app for OMB guitars .. which I believe the other post refers too )

    I think you recommended this app to me ( by Jos Maas) in some other post

    I really love it .. does its job .. simple plug and play ... you can even download your own sound fonts .. as mentioned there is a lite version

    Roland sound canvas is a perfect companion
    I was able to import all Yamaha psr 970 styles into it .. without much fuss

    Only painful bit of the app... no background audio
    However you can still route.. for example Bs16i, Roland sound canvas to you favorite synths

    Xmure has a superior sound module .. but styles are limited
    Also no preset recall with all settings saves

    Ibassist was too much work and I don’t trust Audiobus presets for live playing .. always a glitch or 2 while recalling them

  • @hisdudeness said:

    @TheDubbyLabby said:

    @Masanga said:
    There's also the free One Man Band app, which is meant to go with the OMB guitar but works with any controller. It's a bit of a work in progress, but worth checking out. (My OMB kit arrived yesterday, but there's a fair bit of soldering involved…)

    Nice gadget. I didn't know they were going to release one Midi based... btw you made me remember another with similar name (in fact the same and the one I found when I searched in the iPhone) which maybe someone could get benefeit. There is a lite version for free...

    I think you are referring to one man band amp by Jos Maas ( there is all another similar named companion app for OMB guitars .. which I believe the other post refers too )

    I think you recommended this app to me ( by Jos Maas) in some other post

    I really love it .. does its job .. simple plug and play ... you can even download your own sound fonts .. as mentioned there is a lite version

    Roland sound canvas is a perfect companion
    I was able to import all Yamaha psr 970 styles into it .. without much fuss

    Only painful bit of the app... no background audio
    However you can still route.. for example Bs16i, Roland sound canvas to you favorite synths

    Xmure has a superior sound module .. but styles are limited
    Also no preset recall with all settings saves

    Ibassist was too much work and I don’t trust Audiobus presets for live playing .. always a glitch or 2 while recalling them

    Yes I know there were two different... that's why I said...

    btw you made me remember another with similar name (in fact the same and the one I found when I searched in the iPhone) which maybe someone could get benefeit. There is a lite version for free...

    so thanks for bring them since I'm too lazy to search it :joy:

    I'm agree all of these have limitations. I'm trying OMB and seems so-so coded and not sure about background audio and so. It remembers to StageLight in UI so let's hope they also are similar delivering updates and improvements. I need to try it working but I'm not sure how it works neither ATM :sweat_smile:

    In the end I recommend Prime, JamTracks (or all of these I usually also forgot) due realtime arrangers are nichey and it's easy to work with full backing tracks in real life.
    People who usually needs this kind of tools are also gigging professionals whose don't care too much about cheat/no cheat in playing terms due they usually play or sing something over these backtracks...

    Someone knows a good web page or forum for backing tracks artists? I usually talk with looping, seasoned players or full experimental but I still not found a community for soloist with backing...

  • Great thread... put it on my favorites :lol: @Tones4Christ thanks for that... Gonna study your process later. I was doing something similar, but hitting some snags regarding midi connections :wink:

  • For anyone interested in the Original One Man Band app created by Jos Maas, I just saw it on the IOS AppStore!

    This app still needs background audio but I downloaded the lite version and it worked great with BS-16I and Roland Sound Canvas!

    It has a built in generic keyboard but it’s mostly currently designed to work with a connected keyboard controller.

    But for anyone wanting to make backing tracks in a flash this software along with the thousands of free midi style files online is essential!

    What’s interesting is that for $29.99 for the full version; although seems too expensive, it’s actually cheap considering the price of what you would pay for a Yamaha Tyros or any other Arranger Keyboard.

    I know this is a niche market but I know a lot of musicians that hardly have time to make a full song; but OMB can at least get you song idea off your head and into a midi file in a flash and work on it in another midi sequencer or DAW later.

    I contacted the developer so hopefully he drops by here. I own the original OMB software but sadly haven’t used it as it was in my old xp pc; hopefully OMB IOS gets updated with the pro features as Background Audio and others as well.

  • Just tried the lite version and it work with KB-1 on iphone sending midi via midimittr app to iPad and was able to connect to OMB. Record the midi file and exported to Xequence 2! Opened up midi in X2 and all tracks were there! Amazing!

  • @Tones4Christ said:
    Just tried the lite version and it work with KB-1 on iphone sending midi via midimittr app to iPad and was able to connect to OMB. Record the midi file and exported to Xequence 2! Opened up midi in X2 and all tracks were there! Amazing!

    Great app.. I was able to load All Yamaha psr 970 style libraries into ... only painful bit .. no background audio .. it’s great you got the developer to respond .. never had such luck to any of my emails... I have Roland sound canvas only for this app

  • Awesome!

    You know, for what I need, I even think that I can live without Background Audio for now as it sends all the midi out channels playing to whatever app like Sound Canvas or Bs-16i and it will record the entire midi into its own built in midi recorder! I think this alone is amazing! Cause I can record my whole real-time play with drum fills, Bass Track, Pads, leads etc! All 16 midi tracks and play them all back once recorded into Xequence 2!

    Amazingly X2 separates all midi tracks and controller tracks into their own midi tracks! @SevenSystems I didn’t know you had added this into X2! So awesome and thanks for your amazing Xequence 2 app!

    @hisdudeness said:

    @Tones4Christ said:
    Just tried the lite version and it work with KB-1 on iphone sending midi via midimittr app to iPad and was able to connect to OMB. Record the midi file and exported to Xequence 2! Opened up midi in X2 and all tracks were there! Amazing!

    Great app.. I was able to load All Yamaha psr 970 style libraries into ... only painful bit .. no background audio .. it’s great you got the developer to respond .. never had such luck to any of my emails... I have Roland sound canvas only for this app

  • @Tones4Christ said:
    Awesome!

    Amazingly X2 separates all midi tracks and controller tracks into their own midi tracks! @SevenSystems I didn’t know you had added this into X2! So awesome and thanks for your amazing Xequence 2 app!

    You're welcome, interesting to see all the usage scenarios people come up with :)

  • @Tones4Christ said:
    Awesome!

    You know, for what I need, I even think that I can live without Background Audio for now as it sends all the midi out channels playing to whatever app like Sound Canvas or Bs-16i and it will record the entire midi into its own built in midi recorder! I think this alone is amazing! Cause I can record my whole real-time play with drum fills, Bass Track, Pads, leads etc! All 16 midi tracks and play them all back once recorded into Xequence 2!

    Amazingly X2 separates all midi tracks and controller tracks into their own midi tracks! @SevenSystems I didn’t know you had added this into X2! So awesome and thanks for your amazing Xequence 2 app!

    @hisdudeness said:

    @Tones4Christ said:
    Just tried the lite version and it work with KB-1 on iphone sending midi via midimittr app to iPad and was able to connect to OMB. Record the midi file and exported to Xequence 2! Opened up midi in X2 and all tracks were there! Amazing!

    Great app.. I was able to load All Yamaha psr 970 style libraries into ... only painful bit .. no background audio .. it’s great you got the developer to respond .. never had such luck to any of my emails... I have Roland sound canvas only for this app

    Very interesting....did not know x2 did that

    Maybe this could have been a use case for me X2 was on sale

  • Does anyone recommend any particular hardware vendors "Arranger Files" and have some links to locate them. Will I need to purchase the $30 instance to test them?

    I own BS-16i so I have a good General Midi target app.

    I downloaded the Lite instance and was able to connect the 2 together and test the default styles
    using a MIDI controller foe the keyboard. So, I'm eager to see if there are some great styles worth checking into. Sending those styles into Xequence 2 also looks like a great project to add to my To Do list
    because being able to auto-generate new music based upon chord progressions is a great labor saving approach to make music that approaches the efforts of serious musicians that actually do the hard work of notating every instrumental part. Better yet generating "Band" arrangements on the fly is useful to
    take an iPad and create I've music that appears to be a custom backing track when it's actually an "enhanced" live performance that can change the arrangement in realtime. Something like the Loop DJ's do but based upon Keyboard skills and not mastering rows of PAD's which requires a lot of memorization like learning yet another instrument. I just want an easy path to results and this looks like it might be a cool use of the iPad to avoid hiring extra bandmates and still working. I heard 2 singers last night and they just had a setlist of backing tracks and played a couple instrumental solos and some hand drums. No dedicated instrumentalists were involved. The singing was first class and the audience didn't feel like it was a karaoke experience because on sat at a keyboard and the other behind some congas.

    I asked and they explained that they contracted with a keyboard player to produce their backing tracks.
    With OMB a singer that can read chord charts could create live tracks and have the ability to extend the music for repeated sections if the dance floor had a late entry like it did last night.

    Anyway, the musicians that use these types of tools probably don't hang here but IOS is very close to being the ideal tool to replace expensive hardware arranger products that suffer from complex user interfaces and limited access to styles. The "500 Pound Gorilla" in this space is "Band in a Box" and hopefully they will ship an IOS product soon. Students of Jazz Improvisation almost universally use BiaB
    to drive the RealBook's tunes to be able to work. iReal Pro supports MIDi generation of those chord charts but the sounds are 3rd rate and it doesn't generate realtime MIDI.

  • @McD said:
    Does anyone recommend any particular hardware vendors "Arranger Files" and have some links to locate them. Will I need to purchase the $30 instance to test them?

    I own BS-16i so I have a good General Midi target app.

    I downloaded the Lite instance and was able to connect the 2 together and test the default styles
    using a MIDI controller foe the keyboard. So, I'm eager to see if there are some great styles worth checking into. Sending those styles into Xequence 2 also looks like a great project to add to my To Do list
    because being able to auto-generate new music based upon chord progressions is a great labor saving approach to make music that approaches the efforts of serious musicians that actually do the hard work of notating every instrumental part. Better yet generating "Band" arrangements on the fly is useful to
    take an iPad and create I've music that appears to be a custom backing track when it's actually an "enhanced" live performance that can change the arrangement in realtime. Something like the Loop DJ's do but based upon Keyboard skills and not mastering rows of PAD's which requires a lot of memorization like learning yet another instrument. I just want an easy path to results and this looks like it might be a cool use of the iPad to avoid hiring extra bandmates and still working. I heard 2 singers last night and they just had a setlist of backing tracks and played a couple instrumental solos and some hand drums. No dedicated instrumentalists were involved. The singing was first class and the audience didn't feel like it was a karaoke experience because on sat at a keyboard and the other behind some congas.

    I asked and they explained that they contracted with a keyboard player to produce their backing tracks.
    With OMB a singer that can read chord charts could create live tracks and have the ability to extend the music for repeated sections if the dance floor had a late entry like it did last night.

    Anyway, the musicians that use these types of tools probably don't hang here but IOS is very close to being the ideal tool to replace expensive hardware arranger products that suffer from complex user interfaces and limited access to styles. The "500 Pound Gorilla" in this space is "Band in a Box" and hopefully they will ship an IOS product soon. Students of Jazz Improvisation almost universally use BiaB
    to drive the RealBook's tunes to be able to work. iReal Pro supports MIDi generation of those chord charts but the sounds are 3rd rate and it doesn't generate realtime MIDI.

    https://psrtutorial.com/sty/yamaha/psr-s970.html

    Lots of styles files available ...you can unzip and test them in OMB lite version ...

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