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.

DigiStix update 021320

2

Comments

  • how come there is a swing setting on Digistix but not on Digikeys?

  • Was I expecting too much by assuming that the default drum mapping would be GM and not "starting at C2"? Does this mean that every new kit I want to try out i have to remap every sample? (thats a real question not just complaining).

    I trigger it with an electronic drum set, so maybe an app more performanced based is in order...

    (I may be wrong on this, i frequently am, but if i have to do 20 min of setup work just to try out a kit i wont even bother)

  • @thumbslapper said:
    Was I expecting too much by assuming that the default drum mapping would be GM and not "starting at C2"? Does this mean that every new kit I want to try out i have to remap every sample? (thats a real question not just complaining).

    I trigger it with an electronic drum set, so maybe an app more performanced based is in order...

    (I may be wrong on this, i frequently am, but if i have to do 20 min of setup work just to try out a kit i wont even bother)

    You’re right. Setting up is boring and kills inspiration.

  • @jolico said:

    @thumbslapper said:
    Was I expecting too much by assuming that the default drum mapping would be GM and not "starting at C2"? Does this mean that every new kit I want to try out i have to remap every sample? (thats a real question not just complaining).

    I trigger it with an electronic drum set, so maybe an app more performanced based is in order...

    (I may be wrong on this, i frequently am, but if i have to do 20 min of setup work just to try out a kit i wont even bother)

    You’re right. Setting up is boring and kills inspiration.

    I never understood why the General Midi mapping standard wasn’t, well, standard...?

  • wimwim
    edited February 2020

    There are too many notes to map to too few sounds for most drum apps. This leads to too many arbitrary decisions. Low Floor Tom, Low Tom, Low-Mid Tom, etc, etc, etc.

    I set out to make a generic mapper between GM and my drum apps, and gave up in frustration. I can see why developers don’t use it.

    Stupid standard anyway. Who the heck decided where stuff like hi-hats in relation to snare, Tom, etc. would go? Blech.

  • @wim said:
    There are too many notes to map to too few sounds for most drum apps. This leads to too many arbitrary decisions. Low Floor Tom, Low Tom, Low-Mid Tom, etc, etc, etc.

    I set out to make a generic mapper between GM and my drum apps, and gave up in frustration. I can see why developers don’t use it.

    Stupid standard anyway. Who the heck decided where stuff like hi-hats in relation to snare, Tom, etc. would go? Blech.

    Why bother creating an app in the first place if this is so hard?

  • wimwim
    edited February 2020

    @jolico said:

    @wim said:
    There are too many notes to map to too few sounds for most drum apps. This leads to too many arbitrary decisions. Low Floor Tom, Low Tom, Low-Mid Tom, etc, etc, etc.

    I set out to make a generic mapper between GM and my drum apps, and gave up in frustration. I can see why developers don’t use it.

    Stupid standard anyway. Who the heck decided where stuff like hi-hats in relation to snare, Tom, etc. would go? Blech.

    Why bother creating an app in the first place if this is so hard?

    Sorry, I just don't understand your point.

    Whether or not a possibility of 128 possible different GM drum notes can meaningfully map to 8 or 16 drum sounds has nothing I can see to do with whether creating a drum app is worthwhile or not. I didn't say anything about the difficulty of creating drum apps. My comment was on the irrelevance of the GM standard to anything but static sound sources with a lot more sounds than the typical drum machine of today.

  • @wim said:

    @jolico said:

    @wim said:
    There are too many notes to map to too few sounds for most drum apps. This leads to too many arbitrary decisions. Low Floor Tom, Low Tom, Low-Mid Tom, etc, etc, etc.

    I set out to make a generic mapper between GM and my drum apps, and gave up in frustration. I can see why developers don’t use it.

    Stupid standard anyway. Who the heck decided where stuff like hi-hats in relation to snare, Tom, etc. would go? Blech.

    Why bother creating an app in the first place if this is so hard?

    Sorry, I just don't understand your point.

    Whether or not a possibility of 128 possible different GM drum notes can meaningfully map to 8 or 16 drum sounds has nothing I can see to do with whether creating a drum app is worthwhile or not. I didn't say anything about the difficulty of creating drum apps. My comment was on the irrelevance of the GM standard to anything but static sound sources with a lot more sounds than the typical drum machine of today.

    GM really has nothing to do with today's apps nor is it strictly tied to drum machines. It's history is somewhat interesting. See these:

    https://www.midi.org/specifications-old/item/gm-level-1-sound-set

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_MIDI

  • wimwim
    edited February 2020

    @anickt said:

    @wim said:

    @jolico said:

    @wim said:
    There are too many notes to map to too few sounds for most drum apps. This leads to too many arbitrary decisions. Low Floor Tom, Low Tom, Low-Mid Tom, etc, etc, etc.

    I set out to make a generic mapper between GM and my drum apps, and gave up in frustration. I can see why developers don’t use it.

    Stupid standard anyway. Who the heck decided where stuff like hi-hats in relation to snare, Tom, etc. would go? Blech.

    Why bother creating an app in the first place if this is so hard?

    Sorry, I just don't understand your point.

    Whether or not a possibility of 128 possible different GM drum notes can meaningfully map to 8 or 16 drum sounds has nothing I can see to do with whether creating a drum app is worthwhile or not. I didn't say anything about the difficulty of creating drum apps. My comment was on the irrelevance of the GM standard to anything but static sound sources with a lot more sounds than the typical drum machine of today.

    GM really has nothing to do with today's apps nor is it strictly tied to drum machines. It's history is somewhat interesting. See these:

    https://www.midi.org/specifications-old/item/gm-level-1-sound-set

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_MIDI

    Right. That's my point. Though I think they're referring just to the GM Drum map portion of the GM standard.

    It was designed for static sound sets with one sound for every mapping (or at least a substantial subset). Most apps have just a few sounds, and each "pad" can be any sound at all. Play any GM Drum loop into even the most fully featured drum app, such as Drum Perfect Pro, which does support GM Mapping, and nine times out of ten there will be some parts missing or mapped to sounds that don't work well for it.

    I shouldn't have said it's a stupid standard. I should have said it's an obsolete standard with no meaningful standard to take it's place.

    Apps seem to be settling into either "chromatic starting from C-something", "white-keys starting from C-something", or ... Bram's "black keys starting from c-something" (which I like in some ways and not in others). There's also the less common "each pad is a separate midi channel" standard.

    We're stuck with either remapping in apps if they allow it, or remapping with a filter like mfxConvert or other. That's just the way it is. I don't especially like tuning my guitar either, but I don't find it a creativity killer. No wait ... I'd have to have some creativity to kill for that to happen. :D

  • I for one would simply like the ability to save MIDI maps separate from a song or kit. This way I can set up a universal note map for say, Rozeta, and every kit would automagically work.

  • The point of having the drum types in specific places is to be able to use your old and new drum sequences on various hardware or apps without remapping.

  • @thumbslapper said:
    Was I expecting too much by assuming that the default drum mapping would be GM and not "starting at C2"? Does this mean that every new kit I want to try out i have to remap every sample? (that's a real question not just complaining).

    I trigger it with an electronic drum set, so maybe an app more performanced based is in order...

    (I may be wrong on this, i frequently am, but if i have to do 20 min of setup work just to try out a kit i wont even bother)

    Your options are long press each pad and choose your prefered midi note and save it as a preset in Digikeys, or in your app or midi controller make a preset for the notes already existing for each pad.

    Either way you only have to do the work once.

  • @jolico said:
    The point of having the drum types in specific places is to be able to use your old and new drum sequences on various hardware or apps without remapping.

    good luck with that.

  • wimwim
    edited February 2020

    @Daveypoo said:
    I for one would simply like the ability to save MIDI maps separate from a song or kit. This way I can set up a universal note map for say, Rozeta, and every kit would automagically work.

    I started an ambitious scripting project to do that. It got so tedious trying to make meaningful maps that I couldn't stand working on it any more after awhile.

    The combinations multiply quickly, and every one is a pain. Think of just Gadget, with London, Gladstone, Recife, Abu Dhabi, etc, all with differences, and all flexible as to which pad plays which sound.

    A library would be nice though, but I've given up on the idea of making one.

  • @wim When I was using Beathawk regularly I set up the default mapping to be for Ruismaker/Rozeta. It was great - most things worked immediately, and over time I set up maps in other programs to this same standard.

    Since DigiStix doesn't allow saving of MIDI maps, it sort of throws all this previous work out the window. I can work around it most of the time, but it would be a simple feature add that would save me a lot of extra legwork.

  • @Daveypoo said:
    @wim When I was using Beathawk regularly I set up the default mapping to be for Ruismaker/Rozeta. It was great - most things worked immediately, and over time I set up maps in other programs to this same standard.

    Since DigiStix doesn't allow saving of MIDI maps, it sort of throws all this previous work out the window. I can work around it most of the time, but it would be a simple feature add that would save me a lot of extra legwork.

    Yes, that would be a real benefit.

  • edited February 2020

    @Daveypoo said:
    @wim When I was using Beathawk regularly I set up the default mapping to be for Ruismaker/Rozeta. It was great - most things worked immediately, and over time I set up maps in other programs to this same standard.

    Since DigiStix doesn't allow saving of MIDI maps, it sort of throws all this previous work out the window. I can work around it most of the time, but it would be a simple feature add that would save me a lot of extra legwork.

    Do you mean to say, that if I change the MIDI notes for each pad (by long pressing on each pad) in Digistix and save it, that I can't then use that as a template for re importing/choosing samples and then resaving that as a kit with it's user assigned MIDI still intact?

  • @Wim In ‚Remap Multi-Channel Drums‘ i have presets for mapping from multi channel midi to 24 drum app presets using a single knob. One can interactively then tweak the settings - whenever a mapping is changed, the new note is send out to play the current drum. Maybe the preset list together with a function to label the preset dial knob might be of some help for your script.

  • @_ki said:
    @Wim In ‚Remap Multi-Channel Drums‘ i have presets for mapping from multi channel midi to 24 drum app presets using a single knob. One can interactively then tweak the settings - whenever a mapping is changed, the new note is send out to play the current drum. Maybe the preset list together with a function to label the preset dial knob might be of some help for your script.

    Thanks, yeh, your script is excellent. I'm not going to pursue any script for drum mapping. It's just too fruitless IMO. I'm just sticking with mfxConvert mappings saved as presets as I need them.

  • @audiblevideo said:

    @Daveypoo said:
    @wim When I was using Beathawk regularly I set up the default mapping to be for Ruismaker/Rozeta. It was great - most things worked immediately, and over time I set up maps in other programs to this same standard.

    Since DigiStix doesn't allow saving of MIDI maps, it sort of throws all this previous work out the window. I can work around it most of the time, but it would be a simple feature add that would save me a lot of extra legwork.

    Do you mean to say, that if I change the MIDI notes for each pad (by long pressing on each pad) in Digistix and save it, that I can't then use that as a template for re importing/choosing samples and then resaving that as a kit with it's user assigned MIDI still intact?

    This. I wouldn't mind doing the work once and then loading the template every time, or even better have a "Use GM Midi Mapping" option (along with options for Roland, Yamaha, basically all the work that Wim is talking about).

  • @thumbslapper said:

    @audiblevideo said:

    @Daveypoo said:
    @wim When I was using Beathawk regularly I set up the default mapping to be for Ruismaker/Rozeta. It was great - most things worked immediately, and over time I set up maps in other programs to this same standard.

    Since DigiStix doesn't allow saving of MIDI maps, it sort of throws all this previous work out the window. I can work around it most of the time, but it would be a simple feature add that would save me a lot of extra legwork.

    Do you mean to say, that if I change the MIDI notes for each pad (by long pressing on each pad) in Digistix and save it, that I can't then use that as a template for re importing/choosing samples and then resaving that as a kit with it's user assigned MIDI still intact?

    This. I wouldn't mind doing the work once and then loading the template every time, or even better have a "Use GM Midi Mapping" option (along with options for Roland, Yamaha, basically all the work that Wim is talking about).

    You can make a template. You just have to use two banks. One with the template and one to copy the template into so you can re-name it since there’s no Save As.

  • Whats the best way to report a possible bug? I have a song that doesn't loop even though loop song is enabled.

    By the way I love Digistix!

  • wimwim
    edited March 2021

    @NimboStratus said:
    Whats the best way to report a possible bug? I have a song that doesn't loop even though loop song is enabled.

    Email: support @ 4pockets.com
    Or, I've heard his other social media accounts sometimes work as well.

  • wimwim
    edited March 2021

    You might want to dig in a bit here as well though. Maybe someone can spot what is wrong if you post a screenshot or two, or a video showing the problem occurring.

  • edited March 2021

    So have three patterns and song mode enabled. But as you can see it’s gone beyond the song parts

    I thought after 3 lots of pattern 3 it would go back to the beginning

    I need to tell it the song has just 3 parts somehow

  • @wim said:

    @0tolerance4silence said:
    Seems like timing of a sequencer isn't important. 😐

    If you haven't reported it directly to him then it's worth doing so. He only occasionally stops by the forum, but does respond to (most) bug reports and some feature requests when made directly.

    support @ 4pockets.com

    Yes, Paul is usually quite responsive. He responded directly to me when I made suggestions previously.

  • wimwim
    edited March 2021

    Have you tried tapping slot 4 and hitting "Delete". Probably you have an "empty" pattern in slot 4.

    If you tap on a song slot that is an Empty pattern, none of the "Available patterns" will have the slight background color difference and you won't get a popup asking telling you there's nothing loaded in that pattern.

    Not very good UI design there. There should be a more clear indication that a pattern song slot is empty as opposed to not having been added to the song.

  • I haven't really used Digistix since I bought it and didn't use it; folks having fun? Worth a revisit? I am sucker for song modes...

  • Yup deffo clear across all other parts. Will email tomorrow but yeah would be nice if rhe blank parts were grey or something

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