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.

Most Realistic Electric Guitar Sound

Guys, I’m an electric guitar player but I’ve only been playing guitar at church and hardly ever play or hook up to my iPad. So, for all guitar players out there, is there anything in IOS that gets really close to the real thing as far as sound is concerned?
I have GeoShred, SampleTank and Platinum Synth and a strat preset in AudioLayer but I’m still searching. I wonder if GeoShred will get better samples with the upcoming SWN thingy but who knows. What are your thoughts on this.

What do you use to simulate electric guitar sound?
  1. I only play the real electric15 votes
    1. I use samples
      13.33%
    2. I use Soundfonts
        6.67%
    3. I don’t play electric guitar
        0.00%
    4. I use my favorite app to simulate electric guitar
      33.33%
    5. Good luck can never simulate the real thing
      46.67%

Comments

  • I’ve never really got that close to a great guitar sound synthesised in any way, so to be honest my opinion is not to bother. By this I don’t mean don’t try to make guitar like sounds, I do that, but I make sure they are clearly synthesised sounds, they just fit desired role, without actually being guitar sounds.

    This is just my opinion though and in some situations a well played guitar emulation will do the job. If a professional guitar sound is required though, personally I think it would be worth hiring someone who can play well and knows how to create the sound you want.

    As for what’s available on iOS, I’m pretty sure that iOS still lags behind the sample libraries and instruments that reside on desktop for this purpose. Hope you find something that does the job you want and hope I didn’t come across as too negative :)

  • Well for chords Guitarism is the best sounding.

    OMGuitar and OMGuitar 12 ( string) are pretty good and have midi input.

    IFretless guitar plays notes and is passable.

    GeoShred is masterpiece of control but uses guitar modeling , not samples so doesn’t really hit ‘real’ guitar sounds.

    These all have amps and effects built in but are helped by running them through an amp sim like Tone Stack.

    The GarageBand guitars are great! Chords, scales notes ... I wish we could use them outside GB.

    There’s others bit these are the best imo. However just because you can play a guitar, don’t expect to be able to play these fluently [ I’m not sure that’s even possible to be honest ) It’s a bit of a fudge at best... but fun.

    Hope this helps

  • edited March 2020

    So far I’ve been getting some decent type of sound using my AudioLayer Stratocaster EXS24 sample i found free on the net. I don’t remember from where though. So it’s a clean sound then I’m applying effects to simulate the tone I’m after or to simulate my pedals i use live. So im setting AUM like this:
    Compressor- Pitch Shift (Qvox)- distortion -Amp Sim- Chorus- delay- Mod Delays- reverb

    I will try to post some audio samples and get some feedback. ❤️❤️

  • I had some success synthesizing a passable tone using sugarbytes unique run thru many nanostudio stock filters, it’s pretty close... I could post a track of it

  • That would be awesome!

    @Zetagy said:
    I had some success synthesizing a passable tone using sugarbytes unique run thru many nanostudio stock filters, it’s pretty close... I could post a track of it

  • @ltf3 said:
    However just because you can play a guitar, don’t expect to be able to play these fluently..

    Yup.. no matter the sound you're using, you should play it with a guitar brain to make it more acceptable to the ears.. this is not easy.. Doug from the soundtestroom actually understands this quite well and does some demos with guitaristic qualities..

    I recall @flo26 being extremely proficient at playing a piece of glass (iPad) too..

  • Jam Maestro sounds ok 🙃

  • wimwim
    edited March 2020

    Convincing a guitar player that a simulation is anywhere near the real thing is a tough road. I have a hard time liking any simulation on any platform unless it’s drenched in distortion or buried in a mix.

    The ones I find passable are Yonac Slide Guitar, and some of the presets in PureSynth Platinum.

    That’s not to say I don’t like most of the other apps like GeoShred, etc. But I never think of those as Guitar sounds, I think of them as synths.

    I’m much less of a Bass player, and I do find that I can enjoy simulated Bass sounds. If I was more of a Bass player I might feel differently.

    Special mention to Strng and Spectrum. Those don’t sound like guitar to me, but often I like them even better than guitar.

  • @JamMaestro said:
    Jam Maestro sounds ok 🙃

    Good point! It does. :)

  • My favourite 'guitar-like synth' is the classic DX-7 run through a guitar amp (sim).
    It can sound stunningly real, if the synth wave is mostly clean, but not completely.
    Many patches have interesting attack variations (or are easy to tweak that way).

    But you just can't fake the physical string interaction - with your picking hand's variations of hitting the strings. As a player you don't think about it, but effectively vary dynamic and angle within milliseconds. Add to this the various damping techiques by both hands, sometimes performed simultanously.
    How many controllers can you handle on a surface within such timeframes ;)

    I'm a horribly guitarist according to common standards, but I really enjoy my tone and articulation - and don't wanna miss the instrument interaction.
    Btw this applies to acoustic guitars as well.

  • Actually none of the choices for me ;)
    I'm using pre-recorded, sliced guitar loops (mainly REX loops inside Stockholm in KORG Gadget). This gives me real performances and the option to change the riffs rhythmically and melodically to some extent.
    Even on desktop, getting a real-sounding performance isn't easy although Ilya Efimov and Amplesound libraries sound quite good, as well as the RealGuitar series.

  • edited March 2020

    I cut in to the track 1:30 to get to anything guitary, you’ll have to tell me if I came close to the mark-!
    Edit:don’t know if the browser supported the time jump, you might need to move the needle to 1:30 manually..

  • edited March 2020

    For bass Modo Bass from IK-Multimedia is wonderful. Hopefully an iOS version comes soon.
    Guitarism is really the best so far on iOS but i mainly use it for strumming and have a harder time to play melodic parts, riffs (i‘m no guitar player and so i prefer a keyboard layout).
    Otherwise modular synthesis got me the closest without samples or physical modeling :)
    So i wait for Drambo on iOS to create some guitar presets.

  • iShred was always my favorite

  • I have honestly found nothing that satisfies like just plugging in my guitar. The ifretless guitar app might, I do like their bass app. I’d try it out if it got updated as an audio unit. There’s too many nuances with a guitar like palm muting and pick scratching and where you’re strumming to truly be recreated convincingly enough in my opinion. Anything I’ve tried lacks the expression I can get out of a guitar

  • The inconsistencies of equal temperament as it relates to the guitar are also a big part of what we know and are familiar with. Even the best multi sampled guitar libraries that have every note perfectly in tune can sound ‘off’.

  • I think the poll needs another option: Mix it up.
    Mix samples, loops, romplers, synthesis, etc.
    btw, I wanted to buy SampleTank's American Guitar, but I got no space left for it on my device :lol:

  • @wim said:
    Special mention to Strng and Spectrum. Those don’t sound like guitar to me, but often I like them even better than guitar.

    And poor Caustic's almost always forgotten KSSynth

  • The controller is at least as important as the sound, with MPE near-essential for any kind of plausible expressiveness. I get least worst results with an Artiphon in tap mode simply playing the Artiphon app's acoustic guitar sound (which sounds absolutely dreadful on its own, but has been sampled well for MPE responsiveness) through Tonestack; the quality of the original sound isn't mission-critical if it's run through a nice crunchy distortion. But it only really works for solo lines. And acoustic, especially classical, guitar is pretty much a non-starter.

  • Cool vid! I can actually emulate the nylon string guitar sound really well with what we have on IOS. It’s the electric guitar sound that i really wish could get better. So far I’ve been able to get close to my tone. I understand that the strumming or style i have is not gonna be possible. Even with my Jamstik it’s hard cause sometimes not all strings get detected accurately. But for lead parts, I’m almost there specially with all the awesome effects and amp sims we currently have.

    I am unable to edit a poll once it’s set up.

    @royor said:

    @ltf3 said:
    However just because you can play a guitar, don’t expect to be able to play these fluently..

    Yup.. no matter the sound you're using, you should play it with a guitar brain to make it more acceptable to the ears.. this is not easy.. Doug from the soundtestroom actually understands this quite well and does some demos with guitaristic qualities..

    I recall @flo26 being extremely proficient at playing a piece of glass (iPad) too..

Sign In or Register to comment.