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.

Guitar Interfaces

What would you say is the best guitar interface to use?

I've got an iRig that suited me just me fine as I only used it for practicing. Now that Audiobus has stolen all my spare time and probably ruined my girlfriends life I need to upgrade.

When I record with the iRig my audio bleeds onto the other tracks and its driving me crazy

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Comments

  • I'm only a novice when it comes to hardware (I'm a software guy!), but you'll find all analog devices like the iRig that plug into the headphone port suffer from those bleedthrough issues.

    One popular digital device is the Apogee Jam, which plugs into the dock port.

  • Yeah I think I may invest in Apogee. I actually knew about the bleed before I bought the iRig but I didn't mind too much as it was for practice and recording ideas but now with the sounds on JamUp being so good, the doors opened by Audibus and the quality of all my other apps its time for a change

  • The peavey ampkit out performs its price. Definitely not as nice as dock connected interface but much better than the irig.

  • edited December 2012

    Apogee jam is by far the best for professional recordings imo
    You will see a vast improvement in sound quality if upgrading from irig

  • edited December 2012

    I've heard the griffin cable is much better than the iRig too. How is the crosstalk with the Peavey? I'm wondering if a headphone amplifier might be a workaround. Maybe not have as much bleed if I set my device really low and pump up the amp on my phones.

    I've been reading up on Apogee Jam and watched some videos of it in action and it does seem very good. I think I'll write a letter to Santa

  • The bleed isn't bad at all on the Peavey. It requires a battery which drives some sort of active circuitry magic to keep the crosstalk down. Might work similar to balanced audio where they're using the battery to flip the polarity of one of the signals to cancel the other out. Not sure but it works pretty well. I don't do a lot of high gain amp modelling though so...

  • Any interface that uses the headphone jack is gonna cause crosstalk problems, just depends on that degree.
    We've discussed these interfaces at length on Talkbass, and the general consensus is that the Jam is amazing, and the Art Dual USB Pre also works well (with the CCK).
    But the Jam is the way to go, and will be attached to my iPhone very soon.

  • I've always used an iPhone but I have the iPad mini now too. Am I right in thinking you can connect USB audio interfaces with the CCK?

  • Just discovered this the other day. iPad 2 + Apple CCK + Rocksmith cable works with Jamup and Amplitube, so presuming it'll work with other apps as well. Give it a shot and let me know how it works for you!

  • I just bought an apogee jam, and its fantastic

  • I've had the irig, the AmpLink (Peavey) , and I graduated to the Apogee Jam because of the same reasons mentioned previously. The irig was garbage to me ad I replaced it with the AmpLink after about two weeks. Eventually I realized that the bleed was killing me so I upgraded to the Jam. It's a huge leap in quality going from AmpLink to the Jam.

  • In general all of the devices that plug in to the iPhone headphone socket will give you poor isolation that will result in bleed across.
    I have the peavy amp link and even though it's "active" you are still limited by the iPhone headphone socket isolation which was never really designed for this purpose. If you have an iPad then get a CCK and any class complient USB audio interface will give you far superior isolation.
    I have the tascam iU2 which I find works ok on an iPhone 4s with the dock connector and is problem free using the USB on an iPad. The build quality isn't the best but you do get a dedicated guitar input which should provide better impedance matching than most of the line level inputs ( if you have effects pedals in your chain that are buffered then this becomes less important)
    I have had issues with the iU2 running GarageBand but it will work. Not something you would want to depend on for a paying gig though certainly good enough for home recording.

    Bottom line is if you want to play at anything louder than bedroom levels then avoid anything plugging into the headphone port as the physical limitations of all I devices will treat your audience to a symphony of feedback!

  • Well everything I know about has been said. Ampkit was updated today to support Ampkit Link HD, so that is something to look forward to.

  • I'm going to sticky this, since there's good info in here...

  • Wait, AmpKit Link HD? How'd I miss that one?!?

  • It's not out yet @RipTopaz but the latest update said in the update details that they added support for Ampkit Link HD. "Coming soon" I think it said.

  • Will the jam work through the cck? I'm going to pick one up and was wondering if the cck would work with it and my ipad mini or if I need to pick up the 30 pin to lightning adapter.

  • The Apogee Jam has a direct cable for the 30pin dock connector, I think you'll need the lightning adaptor.

  • Good point, may need a "digital audio in" for that to work

  • I'm using the Alesis IO Dock and it works great with my iPad 4. Although not a real portable option it's great for working while watching football or laying by the pool lol. I have even integrated into my Sonar recording rig in my studio for transferring backing tracks and song ideas. Also great for live gigs as well. Just got the AB along with jam up. I'll post later to let you all know how we'll that works in studio.

    Happy Holidays everyone !!!!!

  • @guitarplayer1: Have you noticed any added latency with the ioDock? A friend of mine has been using it with Audiobus and reported some weirdness...

  • Another rec for the Apogee Jam. I got the iRig initally but gave up after the Jam came out.

    The Apogee One will work, too, via the CCK, but only with a powered USB hub. The Apogee One includes a high quality condenser mic in the device + a very nice D/A converter.

  • The line6 mobile in works well. Have mine connected with a connection lead to avoid strain on the phone.
    The mobile pod that you download for free has some superb sounds. When line6 sort the audiobus/ACP function on the pod app it will be a superb tool.

  • Interested in the potential io dock issues with Audiobus.

    So, in a cage match, who would win, the apogee jam or the io dock? I know they do different things and the io dock has more features and potential, but is the apogee going to sound better for guitar than the io dock?

  • There's another alternative worth considering, which is where I eventually ended up. The Zoom B3 (bass) and G3 (guitar) are digital multi-effects pedals which do quite well as stand-alone all-in-one pedals. And they both have a class-compliant USB 2.0 interface, so you can connect to the iPad through the CCK and the pedal will show up as a stereo USB input. Works great in JamUp Pro, AmpliTube, MultitrackDAW, Auria, etc. Footprint is about the same size as an Alesis ioDock -- same top-down area as an iPad, 1.5-2" thick -- cost is a bit more ($200 vs. $170 for Alesis). But not a bad package if it can replace some other pedals for you and it plays well with the iPad.

    I started with an iRig and did not like it at all -- very noisy. I use the Zoom B3 for my bass all the time and recently have been noodling with it through Audiobus, which is great.

  • @JohnInBoston - is your G3/B3 reliable for extended periods of time as an audio io? My G3 shows up and will work for a few minutes but then crashes. Also worth noting that it requires a powered USB hub to function.

  • @CJ_Stout - I have both and for me the Apogee Jam has better soundquality than the io-dock. The dock has nice connectionpossibilities though, and charges my iPad in the meanwhile...

  • The io-dock doesn't work that well with Audiobus for the moment...

  • @Ringleader - I haven't had trouble with my B3 for long periods, but I also haven't put a ton of hours on this configuration. I don't recall any crashes or disconnects.

    It's fair comment that the B3/G3 configuration has to go through a powered hub, which is an annoyance. I have to run my MIDI keyboard through a hub as well, and fortunately one hub can handle and power both. I tend to chalk the need for a hub up to a failing of the iPad design, since both devices will happily hang off a laptop USB port without additional power. Makes the whole "mobile music" thing tough when you have to plug things in, but most of the time I'm in my basement studio, so it's not a big deal.

  • Vibes, very cool, thanks. I knew somebody out there would have both. Hell, I will likely end up with both at some point too, but I gotta start somewhere and a hundo for the jam is not unreasonable. I hope there will be a new incarnation of the io dock. The io mixer thing appears unimpressive thus far. Thanks, glad to be here!

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