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.

Change the length of the loop directly from AudioBus mini Menu'

edited December 2012 in Feature Wishlists

Please....(I say please, before) ....any time I go to Loopy only for change the length of the loop, if you make this option on the AudiobuS miniMenu' I think it's more better for me (and I think for all users)...

Comments

  • edited December 2012

    That's an interesting suggestion. The multiplier and divisor buttons options would be enough, wouldn't they? Would you need an indicator for how many bars it records?

  • I think the control panel is an interesting design challenge, in terms of giving users the functionality they need while not overwhelming them with too many icons.

    Maybe there could be a settings option buried in the main audiobus menu, where we could pick from default and advanced controls for each app? You know how the apps have the blue arrows next to them when you first go to select them? Could be options in there - a default basic configuration for that app's side panel and opportunities to customise it.

  • That's not a bad idea, Michael - Or, maybe something equivalent to the "Edit Toolbar" functionality in OS X, right in the connection panel. Maybe you hold your finger on the app icon in the connection panel and it expands while a callout appears with all the triggers the app provides. You can use the triggers directly from there, or drag back and forth between there and the connection panel strip beneath the app icon...

  • Yeah, personally i would like to have a lot of functionality available from the control panel, you could just have it expand when needed.

  • I really like that idea, Michael. It's obvious from Loopy and Audiobus that you're really hot on UI design, and this is one of Audiobus's greatest strengths IMO. It's a complex program that, to the ordinary user, looks simple because of its design.

    So, what you need to figure out now is how to iterate on the feature set without taking anything away from the existing user-friendly design.

  • Keeping things simple is a key part of Audiobus' rulingocity. A different idea would be for Audiobus to say to devs "You get three buttons. If you want to expose more functionality, make the third button a 'more' button."

    'More' would be a + or ... icon or whatever. It could either open the additional options inline (vertically) or open as a horizontal flyout. The edge of the flyout would look exactly like the tab made available when the Audiobus control panel is hidden. That way the 'open/close' UX is consistent. I'd prefer a flyout whatever that's worth. I'd even love for the buttons in that flyout to be 'tap it and the flyout goes away' but I'm sure that'll be a problem for some use cases.

    I had a good time playing with glitchbreaks via audiobus last night but man, that's a lot of space on the control panel! I'd like to see that curtailed in an elegant way before too many more apps get on the bus.

    2 cents.

  • Loving this discussion. It's like someone else is doing the protoyping for you...

  • The Edit Toolbar idea sounds great. I agree with the simplicity philosophy. However, while you and I may only need 2 buttons we may not agree which two they should be!

  • @syrupcore, you're totally right with constraining the UI and not letting it become button soup – that's something I live by.

    At the same time, I think @miguelmarcos is right too - the problem with having a static set of buttons, plus a flyout, is that it won't work for everyone. That won't matter in some circumstances – and often, designing for 90% of people while neglecting the 10% who do things differently is actually the smart choice – but in some circumstances I think this could be awkward to the point of making it worth solving.

    Taking Loopy as an example, say one user (User A) tends to use count-in/out, and another (User B) prefers to just punch in/out and let Loopy quantize afterwards (or they use a foot pedal). User A is going to want to have easy access to the record button, and the X/÷ buttons, plus a length indicator/rotating position marker. User B doesn't care so much about the X/÷, but they might want a clear-and-rerecord button for when they make punch in/out errors, and maybe an overdub button.

    Neither users are going to want to have to tap twice (once on "more", then again on the actual button) to access these controls – they'll want them right there on the panel. The flyout's more of a last resort, in that case.

    So if there was a way to start with a sensible default set for the 90% of people for whom that works, but a way for the advanced 10% to lay the controls out to fit the way they work, that would solve it for everyone.

  • edited December 2012

    Hi first post here, great app btw ;)
    just wanted to chime in with my ideas, specifically on Loopy.
    Couldn't all the functionality be achieved with one button?

    1. grey with red outline - inactive but a number shows the looplength
    2. green - recording incoming, numbers show count in.
    3. red - recording, numbers show which loop part is recording

    swipe up and down - change looplength

    doubletap - undo last recording

  • @michael With you. Just sharing an alternative. I'd much rather have the three buttons I want (that night) over a 'more' button. Plus, I love configuring things because I'm a hopeless nerd. I use vim all day.

    For what it's worth, Nanostudio's song and piano roll screens essentially use 'more' buttons in the form of a footer menu with items that fly up. I might be Nanostudio biased but as opposed to being bothered by them I think most users consider it the best midi editor on ios.

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