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.

So, I grabbed a Sensel Morph...

And here's my thoughts on it

«13456

Comments

  • Good review. It's not for everyone, but I love my Sensel Morph. One of the few pieces of gear that has stuck with me (for all the reasons you mention).

  • Good stuff.

    Love that you summed all your thoughts up in 5 mins.

  • NS2 is almost there in regards to MIDI control; shortcuts for 1) transport, 2) switching across channels and 3) switching across plugins in a channel would be great

  • Great video

  • I love my sensel morph. I also love my oxygen keyboard. between the two, I feel like that co era the whole range of midi control i need

  • Nice and succinct review, dig it. The Morph is my favorite controller for keys and drums, currently considering a second musician bundle. With two of them running together I could have 4 octaves of keys or 32 pads and 16 dials...even an orchestral percussion section I can play with sticks!
    One thing to note, when using drum sticks on the yellow overlay it’s tricky to control the velocity. There’s definitely some getting used to it, but it’s worth the effort for sure.

  • This looks the business. I’ll have to look into this because it seems like an amazing thing for use work NS2. Is it easy to configure for other DAWS, too?

  • @audio_DT said:
    This looks the business. I’ll have to look into this because it seems like an amazing thing for use work NS2. Is it easy to configure for other DAWS, too?

    Yes it’s very easy as long as u have a computer 💻

  • @ipadbeatmaking said:

    @audio_DT said:
    This looks the business. I’ll have to look into this because it seems like an amazing thing for use work NS2. Is it easy to configure for other DAWS, too?

    Yes it’s very easy as long as u have a computer 💻

    I have. So I can map it to work with NS2, AUM, Xequence 2 and Cubasis, so that when I plug it in I can use it mapped to those different apps?

  • edited October 2019

    @audio_DT said:

    @ipadbeatmaking said:

    @audio_DT said:
    This looks the business. I’ll have to look into this because it seems like an amazing thing for use work NS2. Is it easy to configure for other DAWS, too?

    Yes it’s very easy as long as u have a computer 💻

    I have. So I can map it to work with NS2, AUM, Xequence 2 and Cubasis, so that when I plug it in I can use it mapped to those different apps?

    Yes, they appear as various profiles on the desktop app, however, u will need to alternate between them on desktop I believe (when using the same overlay with different profiles). The good news is there’s nothing particularly special about my NS2 map other than I changed octave of the pads to line up with Slate and the transport to do other things since it’s useless in NS2. I think you’ll be fine with the standard map in all your apps.

  • @ipadbeatmaking said:

    @audio_DT said:

    @ipadbeatmaking said:

    @audio_DT said:
    This looks the business. I’ll have to look into this because it seems like an amazing thing for use work NS2. Is it easy to configure for other DAWS, too?

    Yes it’s very easy as long as u have a computer 💻

    I have. So I can map it to work with NS2, AUM, Xequence 2 and Cubasis, so that when I plug it in I can use it mapped to those different apps?

    Yes, they appear as various profiles on the desktop app, however, u will need to alternate between them on desktop I believe. The good news is there’s nothing particularly special about my NS2 map other than I changed octave of the pads to line up with Slate and the transport to do other things since it’s useless in NS2. I think you’ll be fine with the standard map in all your apps.

    Brilliant - thanks for that. Can you switch between various apps in NS2, e.g. I open Slate and Morph controls the sample pads, and then I open Troublemaker and Morph reverts to the pre-programmed mappings for that? Or do you have to use the desktop to switch between the apps at that point? Sorry for all the questions!

  • @audio_DT said:

    @ipadbeatmaking said:

    @audio_DT said:

    @ipadbeatmaking said:

    @audio_DT said:
    This looks the business. I’ll have to look into this because it seems like an amazing thing for use work NS2. Is it easy to configure for other DAWS, too?

    Yes it’s very easy as long as u have a computer 💻

    I have. So I can map it to work with NS2, AUM, Xequence 2 and Cubasis, so that when I plug it in I can use it mapped to those different apps?

    Yes, they appear as various profiles on the desktop app, however, u will need to alternate between them on desktop I believe. The good news is there’s nothing particularly special about my NS2 map other than I changed octave of the pads to line up with Slate and the transport to do other things since it’s useless in NS2. I think you’ll be fine with the standard map in all your apps.

    Brilliant - thanks for that. Can you switch between various apps in NS2, e.g. I open Slate and Morph controls the sample pads, and then I open Troublemaker and Morph reverts to the pre-programmed mappings for that? Or do you have to use the desktop to switch between the apps at that point? Sorry for all the questions!

    Ask as many as you’d like! I think this is a new frontier for iOS producers and there isn’t a lot of info out there so I’m happy to help! So to clarify: Lets imagine you have 5 profiles mapped to one overlay (the music production overlay in this case) U need to manually switch it on the desktop to each profile u want to use (i believe). I believe this is the case for any profiles mapped to the same overlay. U are only able to have 1 profile per overlay sent to the morph at a time, i believe. If you can map troublemaker to the same midi learn as u use for NS2 and dont use troublemaker with NS2 you’ll be able to use the same profile for both (hope that makes sense). The other desktop-less solution is to assign troublemaker controls to another overlay

  • Nice overview!

    Can you switch MIDI channels on the fly? If so, that'd a way to switch instruments in NS.

  • wimwim
    edited October 2019

    That is hands down the most well done video review I have ever watched, and believe me, I'm picky. Nice job @ipadbeatmaking!

  • @ipadbeatmaking said:

    And here's my thoughts on it

    Great video
    Not sure on product

  • edited October 2019

    There's also a "creator" overlay available, which allows you to make custom input maps with up to 96 individual hit boxes I believe (these can be various shapes, buttons, sliders, knobs, etc.).

    If you don't get that one, there is still an option to make the default surface (no overlay) act as either a bluetooth trackpad or a custom map. You can actually draw a template on paper and import a scanned/photographed copy into the desktop editor, then map buttons to line up with the drawing - that paper drawing can be placed on the Morph like you would with the other overlays (painter's tape is handy here).

    I've only scratched the surface of this workflow, but there are some users on the Sensel forums who've made hexagonal keyboards and other unique control maps. Imaginably, you could create a custom map which sends to a different MIDI channel than the others. I'm slowly working on a custom 8 x 8 pad grid with knobs and sliders to work with 64 pad banks in BM3 in my spare time.

    EDIT: Forgot to mention, if you use Photoshop or other digital painting desktop software the Morph can essentially serve as a Wacom input device. It won't recognize tilt, but the speed and pressure sensitivity can be adjusted to make a wooden pencil perform like a bluetooth stylus (I recommend using a sheet of card stock in between to avoid scratching the Morph).

    Considering the cost of admission is between $70 to $100 less than the Roli Seaboard this is by far the most economical way to get into MPE controllers without dedicating your budget to a musical device.

  • @3sleeves said:
    There's also a "creator" overlay available, which allows you to make custom input maps with up to 96 individual hit boxes I believe (these can be various shapes, buttons, sliders, knobs, etc.).

    Yes, i’ll be grabbing this at somepoint next week hopefully.

    If you don't get that one, there is still an option to make the default surface (no overlay) act as either a bluetooth trackpad or a custom map. You can actually draw a template on paper and import a scanned/photographed copy into the desktop editor, then map buttons to line up with the drawing - that paper drawing can be placed on the Morph like you would with the other overlays (painter's tape is handy here).

    Very cool!

    I've only scratched the surface of this workflow, but there are some users on the Sensel forums who've made hexagonal keyboards and other unique control maps. Imaginably, you could create a custom map which sends to a different MIDI channel than the others. I'm slowly working on a custom 8 x 8 pad grid with knobs and sliders to work with 64 pad banks in BM3 in my spare time.

    Please share your overlays creations when you complete them!

    Considering the cost of admission is between $70 to $100 less than the Roli Seaboard this is by far the most economical way to get into MPE controllers without dedicating your budget to a musical device.

    I agree. Best value By a mile. Its not even close.

  • @syrupcore said:
    Nice overview!

    Can you switch MIDI channels on the fly? If so, that'd a way to switch instruments in NS.

    If you want to use MPE, you need all 16 channels, right?

  • @ipadbeatmaking Excellent videos and sound products. I usually wish videos didn't have
    background music but your choice of music changed my mind... nice hypnotic groove that let me focus on the content without feeling distracted by my brain following the music.

    I'm sure that's also the power of a good groove for hip hop too. Make something that pulls you in and then hand the mic to the featured artist.

    NOTE: I'm really old and tuned out for 20 years of pop culture but I'm always interested in learning new perspectives.

  • @ipadbeatmaking said:

    @audio_DT said:

    @ipadbeatmaking said:

    @audio_DT said:

    @ipadbeatmaking said:

    @audio_DT said:
    This looks the business. I’ll have to look into this because it seems like an amazing thing for use work NS2. Is it easy to configure for other DAWS, too?

    Yes it’s very easy as long as u have a computer 💻

    I have. So I can map it to work with NS2, AUM, Xequence 2 and Cubasis, so that when I plug it in I can use it mapped to those different apps?

    Yes, they appear as various profiles on the desktop app, however, u will need to alternate between them on desktop I believe. The good news is there’s nothing particularly special about my NS2 map other than I changed octave of the pads to line up with Slate and the transport to do other things since it’s useless in NS2. I think you’ll be fine with the standard map in all your apps.

    Brilliant - thanks for that. Can you switch between various apps in NS2, e.g. I open Slate and Morph controls the sample pads, and then I open Troublemaker and Morph reverts to the pre-programmed mappings for that? Or do you have to use the desktop to switch between the apps at that point? Sorry for all the questions!

    Ask as many as you’d like! I think this is a new frontier for iOS producers and there isn’t a lot of info out there so I’m happy to help! So to clarify: Lets imagine you have 5 profiles mapped to one overlay (the music production overlay in this case) U need to manually switch it on the desktop to each profile u want to use (i believe). I believe this is the case for any profiles mapped to the same overlay. U are only able to have 1 profile per overlay sent to the morph at a time, i believe. If you can map troublemaker to the same midi learn as u use for NS2 and dont use troublemaker with NS2 you’ll be able to use the same profile for both (hope that makes sense). The other desktop-less solution is to assign troublemaker controls to another overlay

    Yes, got you - thanks for your patience! So you’re saying that if I use the NS2 midi map (the 8 knobs, say), I can use that for any instrument I have connected to that in NS2? If so, that would work for me.

  • @jipumarino said:

    @syrupcore said:
    Nice overview!

    Can you switch MIDI channels on the fly? If so, that'd a way to switch instruments in NS.

    If you want to use MPE, you need all 16 channels, right?

    Think for MPE you need a channel per voice so if you only need 4-voice of polyphony (including release times, etc) you should be able to get away with 4 MIDI channels.

  • I got my Sensel Morph used on eBay for less than $200 (with three overlays) so good deals are out there if you are patient. The Bluetooth connection works OK in some cases, but I found that I got some stuck notes when there was a lot of MIDI data flowing at one time (ie, MPE stuff). I understand from their support staff that they've updated their firmware to address some of these things, but I haven't had time to update my hardware to test it. Regardless, it works flawlessly with a USB cable. Their support team works HARD so I don't doubt that they have either licked the BT issues or will soon.

  • @ipadbeatmaking said: U are only able to have 1 profile per overlay sent to the morph at a time, i believe. If you can map troublemaker to the same midi learn as u use for NS2 and dont use troublemaker with NS2 you’ll be able to use the same profile for both (hope that makes sense). The other desktop-less solution is to assign troublemaker controls to another overlay

    ...this counts for all overlays, except the latest Buchla Thunder overlay. The Buchla stores different setups onto the sensel, which are then choosable without a PC, just from the overlay itself, while jamming.
    Great stuff!

  • @animal said:

    @ipadbeatmaking said: U are only able to have 1 profile per overlay sent to the morph at a time, i believe. If you can map troublemaker to the same midi learn as u use for NS2 and dont use troublemaker with NS2 you’ll be able to use the same profile for both (hope that makes sense). The other desktop-less solution is to assign troublemaker controls to another overlay

    ...this counts for all overlays, except the latest Buchla Thunder overlay. The Buchla stores different setups onto the sensel, which are then choosable without a PC, just from the overlay itself, while jamming.
    Great stuff!

    I did not know that, very nice stuff!

  • @syrupcore said:

    @jipumarino said:

    @syrupcore said:
    Nice overview!

    Can you switch MIDI channels on the fly? If so, that'd a way to switch instruments in NS.

    If you want to use MPE, you need all 16 channels, right?

    Think for MPE you need a channel per voice so if you only need 4-voice of polyphony (including release times, etc) you should be able to get away with 4 MIDI channels.

    Ah interesting! Do you know if NS2 just works in that case, if the synth AU supports MPE?

  • @ipadbeatmaking so glad i got this, i would recommend this for anyone taking this mobile game serious. Wow!!!

  • @ipadbeatmaking thank you, now i have again GAS ... damn .. my wallet cries :-D

    :+1: video

  • @dendy said:
    @ipadbeatmaking thank you, now i have again GAS ... damn .. my wallet cries :-D

    :+1: video

    Thanks for the feedback. You won’t regret grabbing it, it’s great.

    What would make it better is if the play, stop, and record buttons worked on it inside NS2 😉. Can we please please please get hardware transport control bumped up to higher on the list...I know he listens to u 😂

  • edited October 2019

    @jipumarino said:

    @syrupcore said:

    @jipumarino said:

    @syrupcore said:
    Nice overview!

    Can you switch MIDI channels on the fly? If so, that'd a way to switch instruments in NS.

    If you want to use MPE, you need all 16 channels, right?

    Think for MPE you need a channel per voice so if you only need 4-voice of polyphony (including release times, etc) you should be able to get away with 4 MIDI channels.

    Ah interesting! Do you know if NS2 just works in that case, if the synth AU supports MPE?

    I’m gonna take a leap here and say that NS2 won’t support mpe. Neither will BM3. They’ll support unique pitch bending that kinda simulates it when using an mpe capable device but it isn’t actually mpe. Only ones (DAW) I know of are Cubasis, GarageBand, and maybe ZenBeats (formally Stagelight) never used ZenBeats so I can’t verify.

  • @ipadbeatmaking said:

    @jipumarino said:

    @syrupcore said:

    @jipumarino said:

    @syrupcore said:
    Nice overview!

    Can you switch MIDI channels on the fly? If so, that'd a way to switch instruments in NS.

    If you want to use MPE, you need all 16 channels, right?

    Think for MPE you need a channel per voice so if you only need 4-voice of polyphony (including release times, etc) you should be able to get away with 4 MIDI channels.

    Ah interesting! Do you know if NS2 just works in that case, if the synth AU supports MPE?

    I’m gonna take a leap here and say that NS2 won’t support mpe. Neither will BM3. They’ll support unique pitch bending that kinda simulates it when using an mpe capable device but it isn’t actually mpe. Only ones (DAW) I know of are Cubasis, GarageBand, and maybe ZenBeats (formally Stagelight) never used ZenBeats so I can’t verify.

    I guess I can just try connecting KB-1 standalone to Volt or one of the Spectrums hosted in NS and see how things go :)

Sign In or Register to comment.