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 StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
AudioLayer or Chameleon for SynthJacker compatibly?
Does chameleon load synthjacker libraries well if they only have 16 samples?
Is audiolayer much better for this? Does it work well with synthjacker?
CPU efficiency is my top priority. I know AudioLayer is very RAM efficient but how does it do on CPU?
Comments
AudioLayer works great with SynthJacker. Once you get the naming scheme down, importing is a breeze.
Sorry, can't comment on the rest. I've never noticed excessive CPU use with AudioLayer, but can't compare it with Chameleon since I don't have it. I wouldn't go with Chameleon myself because of the limitations, but it seems that people like it (and I'm not fond of the AudioLayer UI at all).
Just a general note: SynthJacker outputs audio files that can be used anywhere. If the naming scheme fits your purpose, you’re good. Or, you can always rename the sample files. Some post-processing may be needed anyway, it’s not all effortless and automatic, just removes a lot of the grunt work.
SJ also produces an SFZ file that has a rudimentary mapping of those sample files to keys. You don’t have to use it, but if your target supports SFZ files, it may help you to create an instrument more quickly. You can also edit the SFZ file; it’s just text anyway, and the specs are out there on the web.
So it’s usually down to either file naming or SFZ description when you consider importing the files produced by SJ to the sample playback / sampler app of your choice. There are some options that were deliberately added to make it easy to import to certain apps, like AudioLayer and NanoStudio 2 / Obsidian. Check the SJ manual and various posts here and on the Blip Interactive forum for details.
In any case, hope you get a lot of mileage out of SynthJacker, and do reach out if you have trouble with it.
I'm very, very happy with how SynthJacker works with AudioLayer. In fact, it rescued that app from the abandoned folder into regular use. I really hate the twitchy AudioLayer interface for building instruments, but with auto mapping from Synthjacker, it's quite usable.
I kind of doubt many people will be up for editing SFZ files, easy though it is if you're technically inclined. Sadly, support for SFZ import is pretty inconsistent in the DAWs I've tried it in.
SynthJacker really shines with NS2/Obsidian as well.
Thanks @wim, that is really nice to hear. I find the AudioLayer UI a little unorthodox for my taste (but I’m a Human Interface Guidelines fanatic, so there); it gets the job done, but I don’t enjoy it.
SFZ is the format I have a love-hate relationship with: yes it’s simple, but for all the wrong reasons. It’s really a classic ”Not Invented Here”, made to avoid XML, but before JSON. It’s more flexible than SoundFont 2.0 in that you really can edit those descriptions, but like you said, not many will do that. I think there might still be life left in SF2, but it would need more support from DAWs, so chicken-and-egg there.
Sorry... just playing with the ABF echo chamber.
Chameleon is really easy to learn and does very little, IMHO. 16 samples MAX across all layers and zones.
So the sounds are thin and often cheesy or just have no sense of dynamic richness. But to trigger a package of drums for dance music... maybe that's the ideal tool: light weight and with some good FX controls. For me it's rarely ever needed.
AudioLayer is very hard to master and does almost anything. It's the Drambo of sample playback apps.
For some samples it's better than the $30+ apps I used to make the sample set in terms of sound and stability. (I'm looking at you CrudeBytes... AUv3 apps right at the edge of functionality).
NS2 is a much better set of tradeoffs for importing SynthJacker sound sets.
Only 3 layers possible BUT many tracks can be used in parallel in NS2.
AudioLayer can do 12 layers, for example, and maybe run the results in AUM but more likely it would just crash if the sample lengths are too long.
Tradeoffs that require a lot of research and to do the research you need to buy all 3.
That's my excuse: I'm an IOS researcher with a non-profit business model "501-3D" or a Non-prophet (sic) Music Foundation.
Ooh look... a new Amp Sim for "air guitar" visual input.
"You just look cool, strike a pose and "AirHead" predicts what you're hearing in your head and puts it in your ears. Total Magic. Runs in a playback mode on the Apple Watch".
Time to don the white lab coat and do some testing.
Thanks for this. I've been on the fence about Nanostudio, Audiolayer, and Beatmaker 3 and your post convinced me to stick to Nanostudio. I'm not trying to learn another completely new system, and I can still route audio to other apps via Audioshare/IAA.
So, I definitely need to get Synthjacker.
I neglected to position BeatMaker 3 in this conversation. It's got the best individual Sample launching
engine. You can play audio into it's tool and create slices and then trigger those slices with MIDI events.
This is another use of the lable Sampler (like the Akai Hardware Samplers).
Once you start considering sampling as a one shot sample player type of app then BM3, Samplr, Koala and Egoist.
WerkBench?
It's Egoist that I was trying to remember. It seems to get mentions for the Akai style sample
slicer/manipulator.
I wonder why some find AudioLayer complicated, I find the sample mapping editor better than any other on iOS, even sample mapping in Obsidian (although I love that synth) is a lot more finicky and time-consuming.
Add its disk streaming ability which is a must if you have large sample sets and even more if you plan to use multiple sampler instances but want to keep memory usage rather low.
I would even use it if all I want is make a drumkit from 8 samples because it's quite efficient.
Seems that AudioLayer was just updated, with SFZ import. I need to look into this to see if there’s anything SynthJacker should pick up in that department...
Schweet! It now also has the VSCO library incorporated.
It appears to be the freeware VCSL (SFZ) library that can be downloaded from:
https://vis.versilstudios.com/vcsl.html
They have a couple more Freeware Instruments in SFZ format. There are some useful
SFZ's at:
https://musical-artifacts.com/?order=created_at&page=2&q=sfz
Search by SFZ.
Synthjacker is on sale
https://appsliced.co/app?n=synthjacker&l=list
Very useful indeed. Thank you good sir. @McD
AudioLayer has been updated to Import SFZ instruments.
It handled ESX24 before this.
SynthJacker allowed us to import the sounds of the best Simplest products like BeatHawk,
iSymphonic, etc. SynthJacker is still vital for making NS2 instruments and importing into Auria Pro's Lyra sampler.