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.

Sample grabbing app for live tweaking of longer ambient loops?

Hi all,
Advice sought: most of my stuff is solely IPad, mostly DAWless dark ambient achieved in AUM and mixed in Cubasis - heavily effected, slow soundscapes that are purely app based, and where sample manipulation does takes place it is slow time in wav editing via Hokusai etc.

Lately though I’ve got interested in grabbing live electro acoustic sounds (whacking a reverb tank, close miking objects being struck, etc) and warping these sounds to feed into the soundscapes. I’ve seen what can be accomplished with hardware like the Digitakt, and am wondering what, if any, apps can offer that real time grabbing and warping of discrete samples? I have Looperverse, still exploring it, and couldn’t get on with Loopy. My stuff is definitely not EDM but I do wonder if anything like the Akai MPC pro app, Grooverider, or Beathawk might be a solution? I’m looking for something that can quickly let me grab a sample, tweak, stretch, pitch or FX mess with it, and record the result into AUM and/or Cubasis. Suggestions?

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Comments

  • Borderlands Granular?

  • I like your style......Apesoft iDensity sounds right up your alley, also try Apesoft iPusaret and Spacecraft.

  • Field scaper maybe? I don’t have it but looks to be a good use for it.
    I wanna hear your music

  • Koala, along with the previous suggestions.

  • Samplr
    Moebius Labs
    Fieldscaper, Soundscaper and Synthscaper
    Actually all the Apesoft stuff

  • You and SpaceCraft should be friends.

  • Tardigrain is good, too.

  • edited October 2019

    Thanks all for the suggestions, I’ll check some of these out :) - I have Koala, and I like it a lot, definitely gets me some way there, in combining both the FX tweaking and the effortless capture of same in a preset/pad on the fly, without having to interrupt the flow much to explicitly save something , (just wished it was a bit more automatable). I haven’t tried much of the Apesoft stuff, but they look cool - fingers crossed for some Black Friday bargains, I think. @reasOne et al, anyone interested in the story so far can check out my Soundcloud page under my ‘Cthonicist’ moniker here: https://soundcloud.com/irena-svetlovska

  • LoopField can sample and warp stuff live.

  • My vote for spacecraft which is nice for mangling samples

    Cool stuff mate. If you have time and don’t mind you can let us into your workflow a bit?!? ;)

  • Fieldscaper all the way, if you want to warp and mangle recordings into the darker realms of ambient. Can operate in real-time or loop mode.

  • apesoft iDensity!

  • Also agree with iDensity, the latest update was really good.

  • edited October 2019

    @Svetlovska said:
    Hi all,
    Advice sought: most of my stuff is solely IPad, mostly DAWless dark ambient achieved in AUM and mixed in Cubasis - heavily effected, slow soundscapes that are purely app based, and where sample manipulation does takes place it is slow time in wav editing via Hokusai etc.

    Lately though I’ve got interested in grabbing live electro acoustic sounds (whacking a reverb tank, close miking objects being struck, etc) and warping these sounds to feed into the soundscapes. I’ve seen what can be accomplished with hardware like the Digitakt, and am wondering what, if any, apps can offer that real time grabbing and warping of discrete samples? I have Looperverse, still exploring it, and couldn’t get on with Loopy. My stuff is definitely not EDM but I do wonder if anything like the Akai MPC pro app, Grooverider, or Beathawk might be a solution? I’m looking for something that can quickly let me grab a sample, tweak, stretch, pitch or FX mess with it, and record the result into AUM and/or Cubasis. Suggestions?

    My first idea was Fieldscaper but the UI might be a bit overwhelming.
    My suggestions are Sampler (very flexible) and SpaceCraft.

    If you want to record live and warp the sounds into soundscapes (and your smacked reverb tank is all but a soundscape) then I cannot imagine a better app to do this.

    Samplr can also do granular "smearing" but SpaceCraft can sound much smoother.

  • Just get them all, these are so good apps:) Samplr is always a joy to play around with. Borderlands, too, and its visuals almost make it an art experience. Even if you don't end up using its results, it's worth having. Plus, there is a good update with Link coming "soon".

  • Another vote for Fieldscaper. It's got a decent learning curve, but once you're up and running it's just such a fun instrument in and of itself. Endless possibilities and I think will definitely do what you're asking for. Check the tutorials by @MarkH if you have the time.

    Excited to check your SoundCloud.

  • Spacecraft granular
    Tardigrain
    Idensity
    FieldScaper
    IPulsaret
    and of course Samplr

  • edited October 2019

    Thanks all, lots to consider there. @david_2017 don’t know if I would describe what I do as a ‘workflow‘ (ex drummer and non musician here, make your own jokes ;) ) but I’ve been on a vertical learning curve re this stuff since 4 months back when I posted my first effort to Soundcloud.

    Basically, I do everything in AUM, on my iPad 2018, using Cubasis only for a final mix down of the AUM channels as IAA outs (might be that the 4pockets multitrack saves me from having to leave AUM even for that...) I always start with something literally random (randomness is my guiding principle. Covers the ignorance ;) )

    I usually start with a noisemaker of some sort - it could be my electro acoustic Experiments with a little metal box of tricks I made out of an electric junction box faced with plywood, cheap as chips piezo pickups, bits of old spring, sandpaper and a home made lolly stick thumb piano attached, scraped, twanged, plucked, tapped and run through a cheap Zoom guitar multifx, and recorded as audio in to the iPad via my Zoom audio interface. Or it might be field recordings of waves on the beach near me, wind, bird cries, etc captured on my iPhone 6S using irig Lavaliers or a cheap Rode knockoff video shotgun mic, Airdropped to the iPad and possibly sliced up and effected with tools in Hokusai - it has an awesome Timestretch.

    I also like Sampletoy for preliminary mangling, as it allows for very instinctual Multitouch Resampling weirdness and is far from a toy. I then use the AUM File Player like an old school tape loop for the resulting Audioshared wav, running it often as a loop but not synced, pitched up or down, usually with reverb (TB1, Eventide Black Hole, and the excellent, free Zero Reverb) and sometimes other effects to chop up the sound, like Perforator and Replicant. I let that run and find it usually suggests what it needs next.

    If I’m using more conventional instrument apps, random still rules. (This is because I don’t know chords, basically) Generate a sequence with Autony, tweak with Cality, run it to something like the BS-16I Running the Muse Score soundfont grand piano, or the Audiokit Synth One, or both, using combinations of MidiFILTr-PG to thin the note stream, Mozaic patches created by people a lot cleverer than me (Midi Marbles is a favourite) various arp apps and Rozeta Scaler to keep it all honest.

    My, ahem, ‘aesthetic’, such as it is follows Hainbach’s dictum, ‘half speed is the best speed’, and I’m usually aiming for something that sounds like the soundtrack to the bits between the gory bits in a horror movie. Basically, if it could be background noise for a Lovecraft radio play, I’m happy.

    Often I’ll re record an AUM channel groaning under the weight of effect apps and use it as a fresh loop, maybe alongside the original, maybe on it’s own, and on and on until, at around 6 to 8 AUM channels, something sounds complete. Then I just run it out to Cubasis to capture it for posterity, minimal mixing and mastering involved. (FAC Bandit & Maxima).

    I have a lot (you might say too many) apps, with an emphasis on ones which use randomness, or generate weird noises, and enjoy using them in different combinations in AUM, just to see what develops. Ultimately my (non) method is a lot like jazz if only in one sense - it is created on the fly, in the moment, and every finished product is a one off, because I never know how I got to it, and could never recreate it the same way a second time. Randomness rules! :)

  • You could also consider adding Enso. Half speed is best speed.
    (+reverse)

  • @Svetlovska said:
    Thanks all for the suggestions, I’ll check some of these out :) - I have Koala, and I like it a lot, definitely gets me some way there, in combining both the FX tweaking and the effortless capture of same in a preset/pad on the fly, without having to interrupt the flow much to explicitly save something , (just wished it was a bit more automatable). I haven’t tried much of the Apesoft stuff, but they look cool - fingers crossed for some Black Friday bargains, I think. @reasOne et al, anyone interested in the story so far can check out my Soundcloud page under my ‘Cthonicist’ moniker here: https://soundcloud.com/irena-svetlovska

    Checked out your soundcloud....AWESOME!!
    I enjoy creating similar sound textures.
    BRAVO to you!
    I foresee you being a huge Apesoft fan.

  • @Svetlovska said:
    I have a lot (you might say too many) apps, with an emphasis on ones which use randomness, or generate weird noises, and enjoy using them in different combinations in AUM, just to see what develops. Ultimately my (non) method is a lot like jazz if only in one sense - it is created on the fly, in the moment, and every finished product is a one off, because I never know how I got to it, and could never recreate it the same way a second time. Randomness rules! :)

    Good story and nice insight to how you see upon music creation. However, no one in here will ever tell you that you have too many apps, of any type. :D

  • edited October 2019

    @bleep . Yup, I’ve got Enso, I like it, albeit I find it a bit crashy if you open more than one instance, or start tweaking it too much, which is a shame. I guess my dream interface would be something like the Ableton clip launcher, I tried Modstep, couldn’t get on with it, Blocs wave and Launchkey can do it, but it is such a faff to pull the samples into them in the first place, creativity killer. Koala is probably the closest to the ideal of - Set up some audio in, knob twiddle live, bam, it’s sampled and assigned to a pad you can launch it from/tweak further/etc or just ignore and keep twiddling... That’s why I was wondering whether what I really need is a fast sample capture/replayer like the Akai MPC appears to be

  • edited October 2019

    @hibjshop : thank you! (Blushing now.) @hellquist : :)

  • Def spacecraft

  • Look into GliderVerb as well. It has some similarities to Spacecraft and is currently free.

  • @Samflash3 Just downloaded and tried GliderVerb, very interesting. Thanks for the tip!

  • FieldScaper is hard to learn to have full control, but it also comes with a ton of presets that do strange and interesting things to your audio.
    So don’t be put off by the initial confusion and learning curve. You can use the presets out of the box and go a long way.

  • @Svetlovska said:
    Thanks all for the suggestions, I’ll check some of these out :) - I have Koala, and I like it a lot, definitely gets me some way there, in combining both the FX tweaking and the effortless capture of same in a preset/pad on the fly, without having to interrupt the flow much to explicitly save something , (just wished it was a bit more automatable). I haven’t tried much of the Apesoft stuff, but they look cool - fingers crossed for some Black Friday bargains, I think. @reasOne et al, anyone interested in the story so far can check out my Soundcloud page under my ‘Cthonicist’ moniker here: https://soundcloud.com/irena-svetlovska

    This is some very choice stuff, @Svetlovska - kudos! I find myself on a not-dissimilar crash course in iOS music making over the last several months. Also in the ambient/drone vein, so it's cool to check out the fruits of someone else's labor and peep such a detailed explanation of their process.

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