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.

Of who here who is performing live – what are you doing for visuals?

If you perform live, no matter what scale, whether a cafe with one table with one customer, or whether it’s a stadium or festival, what are you doing for visuals?

Specifically, what’s the production process and technology?
What’s the authoring process – just running concurrently throwing something visual up there (where?), or with some kind of associated and synchronous meaning linking what’s happening with sound and with vision (like Kraftwerk do with Falk Grieffenhagen).

«13

Comments

  • edited January 2020

    Here is a lazy kind of effective trick.

    Download an old scifi video from archive.org. Make a drum loop at a specific bpm then in Lumafusion do an iOs screen capture while scrubbing the timeline back and forth while listening to the drum loop. Now jam along to it with a track at the same BPM and stuff will just sync up. Kinda

  • edited January 2020

    I'm very interested in seeing how this thread develops. If I could draw while performing (or at all 🙁), I would use Tagtool

  • edited January 2020

    In my last proper band it was all strobes and oil projectors, man.

    For the last year though I’ve wanted to do gigs with my electronic stuff, and that EboSuite feller has caught my eye. Running all my weird visuals through that via a projector, synced to the music, with maybe some Aphex Twin style live video thrown into the mix, might distract the audiences attention from the horrible racket I’m making.

  • @MonzoPro said:
    In my last proper band it was all strobes and oil projectors, man.

    For the last year though I’ve wanted to do gigs with my electronic stuff, and that EboSuite feller has caught my eye. Running all my weird visuals through that via a projector, synced to the music, with maybe some Aphex Twin style live video thrown into the mix, might distract the audiences attention from the horrible racket I’m making.

    I think this is perfect and then, with your current condition in mind, I would suggest a highly stylized whalebone corset...

  • @JohnnyGoodyear said:

    @MonzoPro said:
    In my last proper band it was all strobes and oil projectors, man.

    For the last year though I’ve wanted to do gigs with my electronic stuff, and that EboSuite feller has caught my eye. Running all my weird visuals through that via a projector, synced to the music, with maybe some Aphex Twin style live video thrown into the mix, might distract the audiences attention from the horrible racket I’m making.

    I think this is perfect and then, with your current condition in mind, I would suggest a highly stylized whalebone corset...

    🤣

  • edited January 2020

    @JohnnyGoodyear said:

    @MonzoPro said:
    In my last proper band it was all strobes and oil projectors, man.

    For the last year though I’ve wanted to do gigs with my electronic stuff, and that EboSuite feller has caught my eye. Running all my weird visuals through that via a projector, synced to the music, with maybe some Aphex Twin style live video thrown into the mix, might distract the audiences attention from the horrible racket I’m making.

    I think this is perfect and then, with your current condition in mind, I would suggest a highly stylized whalebone corset...

    You’re not too big for a slap, Goodyear!! For that you can carry me onto the stage, like a king!

  • edited January 2020

    Tremendm Labs on twitch creates live audio-synced visuals using iOS apps, retro video mixers, modular rack grear, circuit bent glitch boxes, oil & water liquid light visuals, all the trippy stuff.
    On the last show they were alpha blending two video sources using the b&w luma channel from an LZX Vidiot.

  • @mojozart said:
    I'm very interested in seeing how this thread develops. If I could draw while performing (or at all 🙁), I would use Tagtool

    Oh wow, cool, thanks for the tip!

  • @JohnnyGoodyear said:

    @MonzoPro said:
    In my last proper band it was all strobes and oil projectors, man.

    For the last year though I’ve wanted to do gigs with my electronic stuff, and that EboSuite feller has caught my eye. Running all my weird visuals through that via a projector, synced to the music, with maybe some Aphex Twin style live video thrown into the mix, might distract the audiences attention from the horrible racket I’m making.

    I think this is perfect and then, with your current condition in mind, I would suggest a highly stylized whalebone corset...

    Is this the condition you just dropped in to see what condition it’s in? Also, narwhal.

  • @Dr_M said:
    Tremendm Labs on twitch.
    They utilize a myriad of ways to create live audio-synced visuals. iOS, retro-tech, modular, glitch / data moshing, circuit bending, oil & water liquid light visuals, all the trippy stuff.
    On the last show they were alpha blending two video sources using the luma channel from an LZX Vidiot.

    This sounds very interesting.

  • I was following Craftwife on YouTube, they (+Kaseo) were up to some quite interesting stuff, which dived down a bit of a glitch rabbit warren in the end, but I’m not sure what they’re up to lately.




    It’s appealing to me but not actually the direction I want to go in. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the direction I want to go in. I know what it is though. When I was at art college in Worthing in the early 80s my thesis was on the visual interpretation of music. From that I got very interested in work by John Whitney and Len Lye. The John Whitney stuff is why I used to use VOSC in some of my own videos. However, those VOSC videos aren’t ‘part’ of the music at all, it’s simply alongside it, whereas to be true to what I want the visual has to be as much of a musical expression as the sound you hear. A visual expression, not of what the sound sounds like, or when it is happening, but what it means and why.

  • I’m wondering how small-scale it can be, and how preparation-light it can be, yet still convey what I want (ie, congruent synchronism of expression between sonic and visual, not auto, not random, not disconnected) and be called professional. In other words, minimal. No, that’s not the word. Cheap. That’s the word.

  • Way back in 1980 I created a Sound and Light show called “The Creation”. 3 performers, 3 slide projectors with 450 hand made slides all programmed to work in synch. It was quite a feat. The whole show was the story of the creation of the earth and used large squares of cardboard, a giant fine fish net and Chinese streamers. Light hit the squares inside the fish net to give the feeling of earth moving, the net also became plasma and the ocean. All created before we had
    PCs or Macs,
    ipads etc. It was fun. Would great if I could afford a projector I could create some super cool animations to go with my newly emerging electro show.

  • John Whitney



  • @Toastedghost said:
    Way back in 1980 I created a Sound and Light show called “The Creation”. 3 performers, 3 slide projectors with 450 hand made slides all programmed to work in synch. It was quite a feat. The whole show was the story of the creation of the earth and used large squares of cardboard, a giant fine fish net and Chinese streamers. Light hit the squares inside the fish net to give the feeling of earth moving, the net also became plasma and the ocean. All created before we had
    PCs or Macs,
    ipads etc. It was fun. Would great if I could afford a projector I could create some super cool animations to go with my newly emerging electro show.

    Sounds good.

    Is that the way these days? Projector? I suppose it depends on the scale of the performance. What I want is something that can be ‘played’ as if it were an instrument, only it gives visual output. Then I have the problem of where to put that visual information. If it’s a computer or video raster, then yes, a large screen or projector or something. But is that the only way?

  • Maybe I should draw a line and say that if I perform, it will be in VR or AR.

  • edited January 2020

    @u0421793
    Craftwife style is close to the visual generated by the ‘Critter & guitari ETC’.
    For visual gear automated by sound, its a good product. Never touched one, Ive ran the software on a pc tho. HDMI out, midi in (i believe), tactile knobs and buttons for on the fly changes, if needed. User updatable and shareable presets, etc...

    John Whitney videos remind me of MilkDrop...

    You can download MILKDROP onto a PC, run your audio to pc to trigger visual changes, run HDMI to projector, boom DONE.

    If you can find a ‘Milk Mist’ tho, snap it up. would cost more but its Milkdrop visuals ina stand alone box, worth every penny.

    Now to Speak to Len Lye, you prob would like the Tremendm Labs show on Twitch, their LZX VIDIOT usage appears reminiscent of that type of visual art. Those type of visuals are more easily created using analog modular video gear such as LZX Modules.

    @u0421793 said:

    @Dr_M said:
    Tremendm Labs on twitch.

    This sounds very interesting.

    It is.

  • I'm shocked that the intersection of music and visual media (photos, gif, video) hasn't been the sweet spot for iOS. I expected waaaayyyyy more innovation by now. The tools are all here, so accessible, so usable. Either I'm out of the loop on the latest innovation in apps or it hasn't happened.

  • edited January 2020

    @MonzoPro said:

    @JohnnyGoodyear said:

    @MonzoPro said:
    In my last proper band it was all strobes and oil projectors, man.

    For the last year though I’ve wanted to do gigs with my electronic stuff, and that EboSuite feller has caught my eye. Running all my weird visuals through that via a projector, synced to the music, with maybe some Aphex Twin style live video thrown into the mix, might distract the audiences attention from the horrible racket I’m making.

    I think this is perfect and then, with your current condition in mind, I would suggest a highly stylized whalebone corset...

    You’re not too big for a slap, Goodyear!! For that you can carry me onto the stage, like a king!

    A thousand apologies Effendi....! ....Goodyear wanders off to find his little-used one-man sedan chair thing muttering to himself all the while...

  • edited January 2020

    @lukesleepwalker said:
    I'm shocked that the intersection of music and visual media (photos, gif, video) hasn't been the sweet spot for iOS. I expected waaaayyyyy more innovation by now. The tools are all here, so accessible, so usable. Either I'm out of the loop on the latest innovation in apps or it hasn't happened.

    Apple hasnt figured out how to make a dongle that they can sell to provide that service, lol.

    The hdmi and vga dongles dont have audio too, youd have to double-dongle the ipad if thats a thing that a/v dongles would do...
    (Off to check...)

    Video is processor hungry already, a good pc has trouble running audio and video at the same time as well.
    Anyone ever tried to run Resolume and Ableton at the same time on a pc?
    (Let alone some other power hungry DAW).
    Audio already has inherent latency, video too would make it worse.

    You can stream the video wireless to an hdmi dongle but thats spotty and prone to drop-outs and will just add more processing.

  • edited January 2020

    @Dr_M said:
    Anyone ever tried to run Resolume and Ableton at the same time on a pc?

    Definitely not recommended if your Live or Resolume sets are processing intensive. I've used both live quite extensively and both are demanding real-time apps, but never at the same time in a critical live scenario, though I have played with it to test it out. Best to run on separate computers and link across a network. If you have Resolume 6 or later, Ableton Link is built in, so best to sync with Live that way if you want to control Resolume using Ableton.

    But since Resolume is GPU rendered, and Live is running on CPU, you might get away with it, depending on what you're doing.

  • edited January 2020

    @craftycurate
    Thats my point! Thanks for helping clarify.
    I think an ipad would have trouble generating visuals and generating audio at the same time bc a pc with more ram couldnt do it either with ‘PRO’ software.

    In our stable setup theres a separate laptop for Ableton, and Resolume, and OBS.
    Computers and tablets really like to do one thing. You can then use NDI over wifi to realtime send video from one pc to another. Very stable that way, and cheap. Video interfaces are pricey. Most pc have hdmi out, but not hdmi in.

  • Thx @Dr_M. I guess I hadn't thought of technical limitations because I do lots of things with photos and video on my iOS devices and I do lots of musical things on the same devices. I hadn't, however, done the two simultaneously.

  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • Also if your screen sharing a visual app, when you switch to an audio app generally the video output switches to whatever music app your using. I dont think ive found a ‘background’ visual app that maintains control of the video output, yet. 🤞

  • edited January 2020

    @Max23 said:

    @MonzoPro said:
    In my last proper band it was all strobes and oil projectors, man.

    Fuck yeah.

    That’s beautiful. The oil projectors we had were proper old 60’s ones, never that good though.

    @JohnnyGoodyear said:

    @MonzoPro said:

    @JohnnyGoodyear said:

    @MonzoPro said:
    In my last proper band it was all strobes and oil projectors, man.

    For the last year though I’ve wanted to do gigs with my electronic stuff, and that EboSuite feller has caught my eye. Running all my weird visuals through that via a projector, synced to the music, with maybe some Aphex Twin style live video thrown into the mix, might distract the audiences attention from the horrible racket I’m making.

    I think this is perfect and then, with your current condition in mind, I would suggest a highly stylized whalebone corset...

    You’re not too big for a slap, Goodyear!! For that you can carry me onto the stage, like a king!

    A thousand apologies Effendi....! ....Goodyear wanders off to find his little-used one-man sedan chair thing muttering to himself all the while...

    Aside from video the example above, I actually think a bit of dressing up and stage play can be a good thing. An old man standing in front of a laptop, while behind him some of his drawings are projected onto a screen isn’t going to make a great night out for most. Sedan chairs, gorilla costumes, dry ice, dancers in frog outfits, attacking the laptop with daggers, audience participation....that’ll liven things up.

    Obviously I’ll go with the laptop and drawings just to annoy people though. Contrary hairy Mary inflicting his bad back vibes on the three people who bothered to turn up.

  • Last time I made something live with visuals was a realtime man drawing recorded by realtime webcam into resolume with applied fx also realtime (but it could be preset in advance to get midi or other inputs to keep music and visuals synced). Was very cool for improvised set (none of them known about that possibility before I explain them building it at the same moment...) and music was also improvised (live looping) with zero rhythm (we were building landscapes of far away planets). It was a living and open space so anyone entering the art gallery could join the audio side bring its own abduction experiences...

    If I should make something nowadays I will go the mac route with some max8 (as is being discussed in the takete topic) or premade clips per song. Maybe as bits in Resolume to build Live Cinema show but nothing fancy, just enough to explain a history or move feelings.
    I suppose it could be done with Takete o the usual vjing apps.

    Surely I will explore the cheap and dirty old svideo tools (Rolands or Sony) from the past to make something lofi. I love retrosound and graphics...

Sign In or Register to comment.