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.

Convolution reverb in Rooms! is now free

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Comments

  • There is now a short documentation of the app extension:

    polaron.de/Rooms/AUv3.html

  • @RockySmalls said:

    it seems to work ok in Cubasis, once i found you have to go to ‘parameters’ rather than ‘files’ to download the voxengo and van saane IRs...
    only thing is it misses midi notes at the very beginning of a song/track .. which is quite common in cubasis so not necessarily a Rooms! fault.
    remarkably, other than that ‘first note’ prob, freezing seems to work aok without any of the cubasis ‘realtime’ or ‘au compatibility’ settings needed! this is quite unusual these days with new au’s , usually some teething probs...
    sounds great and a really much needed thing in au.. so despite the simplicity of the settings i would use it quite often, for design AND mixdown purposes.
    now it just needs an ‘open in’ or files app way to get wavs in.. the download zip from url is ok for dropbox etc.. but is a bit of a long way round..

    Thanks for the feedback. Yes, getting IRs into the app / the app extension is too complicated. I think I should at least put a short tutorial at the top of the support page.

    This is caused by the history of Rooms!. Furthermore, I always have to bear in mind that most people use the app just as a simple audio recorder. For the AUv3 project I thought about creating a new, specialised app, but then decided to first append it to Rooms! and use the infrastructure that is already there. Even then, it was quite some work. A more dedicated AUv3 convolution without all the ballast of Rooms! (and with more options to manipulate the sound) may come in the future.

  • @polaron_de Started beta testing yesterday, and it's great so far. I was able to import some IRs that I have, but is there a limit on how many files the AU can show?

    I think the zip I have had about 75. They appear in the standalone app but I'm not able to see them in AU. The folder doesn't expand. I can move individual IRs from that folder to another folder with less files and then that IR appears in the AU.

    Also, will there be a way to adjust other parameters in the AU itself?

    One other thing I noticed is that GUI is cut off from the bottom in AUM, so the Presets option is not visible.

    It's awesome to see a Convolution Reverb AU on iOS.

  • @auxmux said:
    @polaron_de Started beta testing yesterday, and it's great so far. I was able to import some IRs that I have, but is there a limit on how many files the AU can show?

    I think the zip I have had about 75. They appear in the standalone app but I'm not able to see them in AU. The folder doesn't expand. I can move individual IRs from that folder to another folder with less files and then that IR appears in the AU.

    Thanks for reporting. I am going to have a look at this.

    Also, will there be a way to adjust other parameters in the AU itself?

    Currently there are no other parameters. I thought about adding a max. callback time slider, but then decided to set it at the fixed value of 80% buffer duration.

    One other thing I noticed is that GUI is cut off from the bottom in AUM, so the Presets option is not visible.

    The audio unit view controller is using the view that it is given by the host. I think the host creates the preset button. GarageBand adds a preset button at the bottom left, below the audio unit view. Audiobus has a save button at the top right, above the audio unit view. Is there a bottom button in AUM with other audio units?

    I was made aware of another bug: When you load a preset, then the parameter values get loaded, but the impulse response does not. The cause is identified.

    So far, four crash reports came in, which I am still trying to make sense of. The crash logs should really show more details. I get the information that the app crashed because an object doesNotRecognizeSelector. But what selector?

    It's awesome to see a Convolution Reverb AU on iOS.

    I am sure there will be more in the future. AUv3 is not so bad, after all.

  • @auxmux said:
    @polaron_de Started beta testing yesterday, and it's great so far. I was able to import some IRs that I have, but is there a limit on how many files the AU can show?

    I think the zip I have had about 75. They appear in the standalone app but I'm not able to see them in AU. The folder doesn't expand. I can move individual IRs from that folder to another folder with less files and then that IR appears in the AU.

    I created a test set with 152 impulse responses. No problems here.

    In the audio unit view, do you see the count 75 at the right of the impulse response set name? Nothing happens when you tap the section header to expand the set? What device and iOS version is this?

    Thanks,
    Markus

  • @polaron_de said:

    @RockySmalls said:

    it seems to work ok in Cubasis, once i found you have to go to ‘parameters’ rather than ‘files’ to download the voxengo and van saane IRs...
    only thing is it misses midi notes at the very beginning of a song/track .. which is quite common in cubasis so not necessarily a Rooms! fault.
    remarkably, other than that ‘first note’ prob, freezing seems to work aok without any of the cubasis ‘realtime’ or ‘au compatibility’ settings needed! this is quite unusual these days with new au’s , usually some teething probs...
    sounds great and a really much needed thing in au.. so despite the simplicity of the settings i would use it quite often, for design AND mixdown purposes.
    now it just needs an ‘open in’ or files app way to get wavs in.. the download zip from url is ok for dropbox etc.. but is a bit of a long way round..

    Thanks for the feedback. Yes, getting IRs into the app / the app extension is too complicated. I think I should at least put a short tutorial at the top of the support page.

    This is caused by the history of Rooms!. Furthermore, I always have to bear in mind that most people use the app just as a simple audio recorder. For the AUv3 project I thought about creating a new, specialised app, but then decided to first append it to Rooms! and use the infrastructure that is already there. Even then, it was quite some work. A more dedicated AUv3 convolution without all the ballast of Rooms! (and with more options to manipulate the sound) may come in the future.

    It just needs to support files, go to files, put your IRs in the Rooms folder, done, that would be the ideal solution, considering most peoples IR folders have a lot of IR, loading one at a time in to the app is painful.

  • Does the AU allow you to have very long reverbs? One of the convolution apps sounds great but maxes out at 11 seconds regardless of the IR length.

    Also, is there a pre-delay setting?

  • @polaron_de said:

    @auxmux said:
    @polaron_de Started beta testing yesterday, and it's great so far. I was able to import some IRs that I have, but is there a limit on how many files the AU can show?

    I think the zip I have had about 75. They appear in the standalone app but I'm not able to see them in AU. The folder doesn't expand. I can move individual IRs from that folder to another folder with less files and then that IR appears in the AU.

    I created a test set with 152 impulse responses. No problems here.

    In the audio unit view, do you see the count 75 at the right of the impulse response set name? Nothing happens when you tap the section header to expand the set? What device and iOS version is this?

    Thanks,
    Markus

    Odd, the folder I have doesn't show the count in the AU. Yes, nothing happens when I click to expand. I'm using iPad Pro 2016 with 12.2.

  • @espiegel123 said:
    Does the AU allow you to have very long reverbs? One of the convolution apps sounds great but maxes out at 11 seconds regardless of the IR length.

    just curious, how big cpu load you get with 11 sec long verb ? i got with 4 sec IR 55% on iPhone6

  • @dendy said:

    @espiegel123 said:
    Does the AU allow you to have very long reverbs? One of the convolution apps sounds great but maxes out at 11 seconds regardless of the IR length.

    just curious, how big cpu load you get with 11 sec long verb ? i got with 4 sec IR 55% on iPhone6

    In AltiSpace, I don't see a difference in CPU use related to the length. I don't have any super long IRS on my phone. But I see the same CPU use (around 50%) on an iPad 6 with AudioLayer (salamander piano) feeding AltiSpace in AUM whether the IR is super short or 4 seconds.

  • ah i mean cpu load of Rooms ... i noticed significant difference between 1s and 4s IRs on iPhone6, so i was curious how it is with super long IT in Rooms

  • @auxmux said:

    @polaron_de said:

    @auxmux said:
    @polaron_de Started beta testing yesterday, and it's great so far. I was able to import some IRs that I have, but is there a limit on how many files the AU can show?

    I think the zip I have had about 75. They appear in the standalone app but I'm not able to see them in AU. The folder doesn't expand. I can move individual IRs from that folder to another folder with less files and then that IR appears in the AU.

    I created a test set with 152 impulse responses. No problems here.

    In the audio unit view, do you see the count 75 at the right of the impulse response set name? Nothing happens when you tap the section header to expand the set? What device and iOS version is this?

    Thanks,
    Markus

    Odd, the folder I have doesn't show the count in the AU. Yes, nothing happens when I click to expand. I'm using iPad Pro 2016 with 12.2.

    Can it be that your zip file has an additional folder level, i.e. the IRs are not in the topmost folder?

  • @polaron_de said:

    @auxmux said:

    @polaron_de said:

    @auxmux said:
    @polaron_de Started beta testing yesterday, and it's great so far. I was able to import some IRs that I have, but is there a limit on how many files the AU can show?

    I think the zip I have had about 75. They appear in the standalone app but I'm not able to see them in AU. The folder doesn't expand. I can move individual IRs from that folder to another folder with less files and then that IR appears in the AU.

    I created a test set with 152 impulse responses. No problems here.

    In the audio unit view, do you see the count 75 at the right of the impulse response set name? Nothing happens when you tap the section header to expand the set? What device and iOS version is this?

    Thanks,
    Markus

    Odd, the folder I have doesn't show the count in the AU. Yes, nothing happens when I click to expand. I'm using iPad Pro 2016 with 12.2.

    Can it be that your zip file has an additional folder level, i.e. the IRs are not in the topmost folder?

    Ah, I'll take a look, if that's the case.

  • @Turntablist said:

    @polaron_de said:

    @RockySmalls said:

    it seems to work ok in Cubasis, once i found you have to go to ‘parameters’ rather than ‘files’ to download the voxengo and van saane IRs...
    only thing is it misses midi notes at the very beginning of a song/track .. which is quite common in cubasis so not necessarily a Rooms! fault.
    remarkably, other than that ‘first note’ prob, freezing seems to work aok without any of the cubasis ‘realtime’ or ‘au compatibility’ settings needed! this is quite unusual these days with new au’s , usually some teething probs...
    sounds great and a really much needed thing in au.. so despite the simplicity of the settings i would use it quite often, for design AND mixdown purposes.
    now it just needs an ‘open in’ or files app way to get wavs in.. the download zip from url is ok for dropbox etc.. but is a bit of a long way round..

    Thanks for the feedback. Yes, getting IRs into the app / the app extension is too complicated. I think I should at least put a short tutorial at the top of the support page.

    This is caused by the history of Rooms!. Furthermore, I always have to bear in mind that most people use the app just as a simple audio recorder. For the AUv3 project I thought about creating a new, specialised app, but then decided to first append it to Rooms! and use the infrastructure that is already there. Even then, it was quite some work. A more dedicated AUv3 convolution without all the ballast of Rooms! (and with more options to manipulate the sound) may come in the future.

    It just needs to support files, go to files, put your IRs in the Rooms folder, done, that would be the ideal solution, considering most peoples IR folders have a lot of IR, loading one at a time in to the app is painful.

    The Files app can only access the documents folder of other apps (the folder that you see in iTunes). It cannot access the shared directory of the app group (the directory that is used by the containing app and the app extension). So the process of importing IRs needs two steps. I can think of two solutions, both not ideal: Some kind of automatic synchronisation (but this is anything from easy), or storing all IRs in iCloud drive (but not everyone wants to use the cloud).

    However, you do not need to transfer single files. Put them in a directory, zip it, transfer the zip file to Rooms!, in Rooms! do "Unpack to impulse responses". Beware: The app extension can currently only access the files in the topmost folder of the IR set. I am considering to change this.

    Concerning the Files app, there is another complication: Up to Rooms! 6.2, Rooms! was directly visible in the view "On my iPad/iPhone" of the Files app. Then iOS 12.4 broke something. The impact was that whenever you tapped a zip file in Rooms! 6.2 on iOS 12.4, the zip file was immediately opened in Rooms!. There was no way to get a content preview of the zip file in the Files app. I was forced to set the flag "Supports opening documents in place" to NO to suppress this behaviour. As a side effect, Rooms! 6.3 (and the 6.4 beta) is not visible in the view "On my i..." of the Files app, and you have to use the Share functionality to move a sound or zip file to Rooms!. I will change this back as soon as iOS 13 is out (which has a completely reworked Files app).

  • @polaron_de said:
    The Files app can only access the documents folder of other apps (the folder that you see in iTunes). It cannot access the shared directory of the app group (the directory that is used by the containing app and the app extension).

    Not sure what that means, all the DAWs now have a folder in files and can access it at will, is that not a perfect solution ?

  • @polaron_de said:

    ... or storing all IRs in iCloud drive (but not everyone wants to use the cloud).

    While iCloud stands for Apple's online service, it's also the location where you find your local NAS storage (if it supports Apple's conventions).
    Not an immediately obvious location scheme, but once experienced it's easy to handle.
    Myself using a Synology device, but others here reported the same about SSDs with WiFi features.

  • @Turntablist said:

    @polaron_de said:
    The Files app can only access the documents folder of other apps (the folder that you see in iTunes). It cannot access the shared directory of the app group (the directory that is used by the containing app and the app extension).

    Not sure what that means, all the DAWs now have a folder in files and can access it at will, is that not a perfect solution ?

    It would be if that folder could be accessed by an app extension. Another perfect solution would be if the Files app could access app group folders. It is up to Apple to make this possible.

  • There is now a second beta (version 6.4 (0.91)). Impulse responses in nested subdirectories should now work in the audio unit. The top level directory is the impulse response set. All impulse response files in this directory and its subdirectories are shown in the corresponding section of the table view. Still, Rooms! is not designed to edit such hierarchies. If you copy or move an IR in Rooms!, it will always be placed within the top subdirectory.

    Handling of IRs in presets should work, too.

    Another bug is fixed, which incidentally I was made aware of today: No more ducking of other apps' sound by Rooms!.

  • edited August 2019

    Cool @polaron_de! The recursive directory update resolved the issue I was having.

    It would be awesome modulate the wet/dry, xtransform, and reflection parameters, are AU parameters on the horizon?

  • @auxmux said:
    Cool @polaron_de! The recursive directory update resolved the issue I was having.

    It would be awesome modulate the wet/dry, xtransform, and reflection parameters

    Can you describe how that could look like? I can put it on the list for the next version.

    A continuous automatic change of wet/dry would be no problem.

    A change of the other parameters does currently require a reload of the IR. For the temporal reflection I could easily do without that. The x^t transform needs a costly power operation, but it should be doable, too.

    are AU parameters on the horizon?

    These are in fact AU parameters. My understanding is that a host app can (but does not need to) offer a GUI for changing these parameters. I don't see this feature in Audiobus or GarageBand. Do you have a host that offers parameter editing for other audio units, but not for the Rooms! AUv3? Maybe there is something missing in my implementation.

  • Great results when I eventually got the IRs into the AU plugin (The beta) but I find the user interface near unfathomable, really hard to work out what to do when you start up with nothing in place.

  • @Jocphone said:
    Great results when I eventually got the IRs into the AU plugin (The beta) but I find the user interface near unfathomable, really hard to work out what to do when you start up with nothing in place.

    Your complaint is justified. The least I can do is to write some additional notes for the support page.

    Unfortunately it is not possible for the app extension to open a web page. It is not even possible for an app extension to open its containing app. Instead, Rooms! 6.4 will get this automatism: When you open Rooms! within 10 seconds after the last activity of the audio unit, then Rooms! will automatically switch to the IR library view. I can do this via a time stamp on a file in the shared folder.

  • @polaron_de said:

    @Jocphone said:
    Great results when I eventually got the IRs into the AU plugin (The beta) but I find the user interface near unfathomable, really hard to work out what to do when you start up with nothing in place.

    Your complaint is justified. The least I can do is to write some additional notes for the support page.

    Unfortunately it is not possible for the app extension to open a web page. It is not even possible for an app extension to open its containing app. Instead, Rooms! 6.4 will get this automatism: When you open Rooms! within 10 seconds after the last activity of the audio unit, then Rooms! will automatically switch to the IR library view. I can do this via a time stamp on a file in the shared folder.

    Your other option might be to request the help of someone from the forum in improving the UI.

    I don't remember who it was but I one helpful user created some great looking user interfaces for another developer a few months back.

    There are many talented people on this forum and I know many have been asking for an AUv3 convolution reverb so maybe someone could step in to help you with rationalising the UI?

  • @polaron_de said:

    @auxmux said:
    Cool @polaron_de! The recursive directory update resolved the issue I was having.

    It would be awesome modulate the wet/dry, xtransform, and reflection parameters

    Can you describe how that could look like? I can put it on the list for the next version.

    A continuous automatic change of wet/dry would be no problem.

    A change of the other parameters does currently require a reload of the IR. For the temporal reflection I could easily do without that. The x^t transform needs a costly power operation, but it should be doable, too.

    are AU parameters on the horizon?

    These are in fact AU parameters. My understanding is that a host app can (but does not need to) offer a GUI for changing these parameters. I don't see this feature in Audiobus or GarageBand. Do you have a host that offers parameter editing for other audio units, but not for the Rooms! AUv3? Maybe there is something missing in my implementation.

    Yes, I'm just thinking of these as AU parameters. I didn't see wet/dry exposed in AUM as a mappable parameter. Is it working in other hosts?

  • @auxmux said:

    @polaron_de said:

    @auxmux said:
    Cool @polaron_de! The recursive directory update resolved the issue I was having.

    It would be awesome modulate the wet/dry, xtransform, and reflection parameters

    Can you describe how that could look like? I can put it on the list for the next version.

    A continuous automatic change of wet/dry would be no problem.

    A change of the other parameters does currently require a reload of the IR. For the temporal reflection I could easily do without that. The x^t transform needs a costly power operation, but it should be doable, too.

    are AU parameters on the horizon?

    These are in fact AU parameters. My understanding is that a host app can (but does not need to) offer a GUI for changing these parameters. I don't see this feature in Audiobus or GarageBand. Do you have a host that offers parameter editing for other audio units, but not for the Rooms! AUv3? Maybe there is something missing in my implementation.

    Yes, I'm just thinking of these as AU parameters. I didn't see wet/dry exposed in AUM as a mappable parameter. Is it working in other hosts?

    I wonder if the dev forgot to mark the params as public. Many hosts ignore the public/private flag (which they should).

  • @espiegel123 said:

    I wonder if the dev forgot to mark the params as public. Many hosts ignore the public/private flag (which they should).

    I discovered the flags kAudioUnitParameterFlag_IsReadable and kAudioUnitParameterFlag_IsWritable. When I set these, then GarageBand shows an additional icon at the bottom right:

    Tapping this icon opens a control view:

    This does not give any advantage, as you first must open the audio unit's view controller, but other hosts may do better and offer an independent access to this control view. However, I don't see how it would be possible to present the selection of IRs in this way.

  • @polaron_de said:

    @espiegel123 said:

    I wonder if the dev forgot to mark the params as public. Many hosts ignore the public/private flag (which they should).

    I discovered the flags kAudioUnitParameterFlag_IsReadable and kAudioUnitParameterFlag_IsWritable. When I set these, then GarageBand shows an additional icon at the bottom right:

    Tapping this icon opens a control view:

    This does not give any advantage, as you first must open the audio unit's view controller, but other hosts may do better and offer an independent access to this control view. However, I don't see how it would be possible to present the selection of IRs in this way.

    Does it affect whether they are exposed in AUM?

  • @polaron_de If you are able to push an update with this, happy to test if this is working in AUM.

  • I need to make a third beta version and hope this will be tested with many hosts. ;) Give me some more time.

    In GarageBand as host on iOS 12.4 I observed two problems with the host's control view:

    • Changes of the Channel Mode are not forwarded to the audio unit. Maybe this is my fault, I am still searching. However, it works with GarageBand on iOS 10.3.3. I could force the host to use a slider instead of a drop down. Then it works on iOS 12.4, but that would be ugly.

    • Dry - Wet works fine and smoothly.

    • The other two sliders ought not send continuous events, as a change of these values triggers a reload of the IR. In the audio unit view controller I achieved this by configuring the sliders accordingly. In the host's control view I cannot configure the behaviour of the sliders. I tried parameter options like kAudioUnitParameterFlag_NonRealTime, to no avail. These things are still really poorly documented. At https://developer.apple.com/documentation/audiotoolbox/audiounitparameteroptions/kaudiounitparameterflag_nonrealtime?language=objc for example there is no explanation at all of this flag.

  • The drop down bug is there even with Apple's audio units. Try AUNewPitch in GarageBand. It forgets the value of the parameter "peak locking" (drop down) when you close the control view, but it remembers the other parameter values (sliders).

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