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.

Have you taken the Blocs Wave pill yet?

  1. Record as audio in any loop length you desire with any of your favorite synths or sound modules AU or otherwise with ableton link as well using Audiobus
  2. Avoid endlesss tweaking of unnecessary crap because a. Audio b. No option except bare essentials: faders, 3 band eq, panning.
  3. No need to pre plan or pre arrange ideas or even think about anything at all: everything can be sliced and triggered quantized or unquantized after the fact. Tempo changed etc.
  4. literally just load up synths, press record, fill up the slots. “Jump mode” style scene changes keep everything in sync for later recording your performance out to Audioshare for the final track.
  5. Launchpad export for the truly adventurous.

After years of using all the cool daws and sequencers, I can’t help but swallow the cold hard truth that this method has led to the quickest creation of quality tracks for me. Usually I’ll put the master into Grand Finale or run it through Magic Deatheye or something. How bout it folks?

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Comments

  • edited May 2020

    Totally agree. I love BlocsWave.

    I load loops I make in all the other apps into it and put them all back together in the wrong order.

    I love how instant it is. It’s my favourite way of jamming arrangement ideas and coming up with new songs at the moment.

    I often end up smashing together two different tunes or taking the melody from another song. Only trouble is I end up having the same bits in lots of songs :-)

    I frequently export to launchpad to just jam Arrangements with. .

    I usually export the stems for use in logic to finish things off.

    I also use it for bulk-timesretching loops.

    It’s great at taking loops recorded at any tempo or key and then spitting out everything at the new key and tempo.

    48 loops stretched and pitched with one click. :-)

  • edited May 2020

    Blocs is not only great for quick recordings but also for building a very large library of properly tagged loops. Quick inspiration by rolling the dice and efficient storage when importing all loops as m4a files.
    Plus rather good time stretching.

  • @klownshed said:
    Totally agree. I love BlocsWave.

    I load loops I make in all the other apps into it and put them all back together in the wrong order.

    I love how instant it is. It’s my favourite way of jamming arrangement ideas and coming up with new songs at the moment.

    I often end up smashing together two different tunes or taking the melody from another song. Only trouble is I end up having the same bits in lots of songs :-)

    I frequently export to launchpad to just jam Arrangements with. .

    I usually export the stems for use in logic to finish things off.

    I also use it for bulk-timesretching loops.

    It’s great at taking loops recorded at any tempo or key and then spitting out everything at the new key and tempo.

    48 loops stretched and pitched with one click. :-)

    Now you’ve given me more ideas!

  • edited May 2020

    Love BlocsWave!

    So easy to get seamless loops using the Audiobus side panel to fill up the squares. Just have to load it in an effect slot first.

  • Totally on board with this kind of method as well. I can’t reliably use any other workflow - it’s just a real fun way to go about things and not too many connection headaches required... you are straight in about it. Neither of them Audio Units either 🤗 .. but who cares about that... well quite a few as it turns out. Mind you it would be good if they were.

    I couldn’t be without Blocs Wave 👍 I’ve even learned to live without any user filing. It’s been good value though, very cheap (was it maybe even free?) and a few quid for the pro upgrade. I’ve never bought a pack for it 😛 I use all my own. The fact that it sends the whole lot off to Launchpad all beautifully tailored is just the icing on the cake. Let’s not forget about the other family member - Groovebox- which I do have a lot of sound packs for- it has supplied the above with a fair amount of content. Happy days!

  • Yep I am a Ampify fan girl myself. Use all 3 of their iOS apps and love them all but Blocs holds that very special flame in iOS musicmaking for me~my best stuff comes outta there!

  • edited May 2020

    @robosardine said:
    Neither of them Audio Units either 🤗 .. but who cares about that... well quite a few as it turns out. Mind you it would be good if they were.

    I am a huge fan of Auv3. Its a game changer for iOS no doubt. I never buy synths or fx that aren’t Auv3.

    But Blocs is one of the few apps I have that I don’t want Auv3 in. I don’t need or want any more complexity. It’s genius is it’s simplicity and friction-less UI.

    Luckily it would seem that Ampify have a very focussed and clear vision for their apps.

    And I love the fact that they are so well designed for iOS. They are simple but capable of being hugely inspiring.

    Brilliant.

    there are plenty of other hosts that excel in complexity. There’s no shortage of apps to let you take your BW stems and tinker to your hearts content.

  • edited May 2020

    I'm pretty new to the Bloc(s) party. I was an early adopter of all things Ampify (what were they called before?).
    Found much fun matching Blocs up with his sibling Groove Box: I like having sequenceable drum and synth to Link with audioclip craziness, live or for later stems export.

    cool to see all the other ways to play from y'all

    also whats very nice, all the things we talk about doing can be done on the phones...

  • I like this thread much better than that other one about leaving iOS for desktop again.
    🤙🏻

  • It's my main app for building instrumentals. The only true competition it has now is Garageband>Logic due Live Loops and mixing (I never get Ableton as true DAW, it's awful as workflow). I work mainly with audio even now I have iBassist and some drummers but I will export audio and midi probably from these into Garage/Blocs.

    Alternative to Launchpad is GTL. Full midi support plus looping and intelligent song part workflow (or my rc505 for hardware focus and some nice fx, ready to use faders etc)

    BlocsWave and Logic Remote are the two actual reasons to keep with me the iPad.

  • Thinking I migh get back into the Ampify stuff for a bit. It could be fun to just spend the weekend pumping out a big stream of sketches using Blocs and Groovebox into the desktop daw for audio chopping and see how far I get. The immediacy and flow you can get into is pretty sweet. Mmm, now Groovebox has automation and that new synth... yah just may be time.

  • Good to hear from all you Blocs lovers! Speaking of AUs, I went to record Sunrizer into Blocs today, and because it’s an AU, the damn keyboard configuration options were blocked off the screen in Audiobus, maximizing and removing Audiobus keys didn’t work. I play on the touchscreen so I need that built in sunrizer keyboard. Any ideas?

  • I think the beauty is in its simplicity. I'm too old for complex apps. With BW it's really easy to come up with things you never thought would work together.

    I wish they add the ability to pitch each loop independently in addition to being locked down to the key though.

  • I just never bonded with Blocs as much as Groovebox, and I'm normally someone who likes building up songs from audio loops initially. If I was someone who wanted to record lots of other synths to layer and such I could see it for sure, but as a standalone app I just could never get in the flow.

    Huge fan of Groovebox though, it's by far my most used app the last 2-3 years.

  • Do you use a lot of BW soundpacks?
    (question directed to no one in particular)

  • Wow, just realized I hadn’t really used Blocs or Groovebox much since I got my iPad Pro. Being able to run them at the same time now along with Audiobus, AUM and AU fx etc is pretty darn sweet.

  • @CracklePot said:
    Do you use a lot of BW soundpacks?
    (question directed to no one in particular)

    Yes plus importing my own stuff from AUM/Audioshare & other apps that I made stems in. I import everything I make into BW.

  • Also great for recording midi-synced loops from hardware.

  • @Artj said:
    I think the beauty is in its simplicity. I'm too old for complex apps. With BW it's really easy to come up with things you never thought would work together.

    I wish they add the ability to pitch each loop independently in addition to being locked down to the key though.

    I suppose realtime but you can detune by editing the setup at user tab so export whatever into new to get all the properties and fool the app tunning to get more range...

  • edited May 2020

    @CracklePot said:
    Do you use a lot of BW soundpacks?
    (question directed to no one in particular)

    I was and probably will but less. I’m switching my workflow to get a middle-step between lego music and what some call dawless but not into drambo fields or AUv3 madness, just some lumbeatting and chordimist plus logic new goodies.

  • @TheDubbyLabby said:
    I suppose realtime but you can detune by editing the setup at user tab so export whatever into new to get all the properties and fool the app tunning to get more range...

    Haha, true, thanks! That'll work for now. ;)

  • Do any of the Ampify apps allow for odd time signatures?
    Loops of 5, 7, 11 beats?

  • I've taken it, drank it, made out with it, gone on long walks with it, broke up with it, got back together, and now we're in the next stages of our relationship. Here's the first video I did when I explained my workflow using Blocs Wave. I've added a few more apps to the list but the fundamentals stay the same.

    (If possible, please watch on the channel. It helps my channel out).

  • i still LOVE it

  • edited May 2020

    @despego said:
    Do any of the Ampify apps allow for odd time signatures?
    Loops of 5, 7, 11 beats?

    Don’t think Groovebox does, but Blocs Wave can record free length loops, like manual looper style of any length, so shouldn’t be a problem there. If you use nothing sound packs though it might be a bit difficult. I don’t use the sound packs except for drums occasionally

    Edit: actually that might not work, because there’s some kind of record quantization for loop start and end even if it’s freestyle so I don’t wanna say that’s certain

  • Thank you @db909 - I wouldn't use sound packs. I was thinking to use it for firing my own "loops" and try different ideas. But only 4/4 is limited and limiting. I guess it's not for me, then.

  • I love the app, don’t get me wrong, but now that i have many loops imported i decided to clean it up by saving the loops offline and deleting them from the User library. There’s no way that i can find to export them! I’m sitting here looking at iTunes File Sharing, and there isn’t an entry for BW either. I learned a lesson the hard way, unfortunately. I guess i’ll have to just bite the bullet and delete them. I’ll create a folder on my NAS drive for keeping the originals.

    Looks like User presets is a roach motel. :(

  • It’s definitely one of my desert island apps, for sure.

  • @motmeister said:
    I love the app, don’t get me wrong, but now that i have many loops imported i decided to clean it up by saving the loops offline and deleting them from the User library. There’s no way that i can find to export them! I’m sitting here looking at iTunes File Sharing, and there isn’t an entry for BW either. I learned a lesson the hard way, unfortunately. I guess i’ll have to just bite the bullet and delete them. I’ll create a folder on my NAS drive for keeping the originals.

    Looks like User presets is a roach motel. :(

    Yah that was really the only thing that kept me from getting vested in Blocs. Especially when I got a new iPad back in the day and realized..... oh. Now it is just an occasional workflow trick. If it let me really organize and transport my library I would buy more stuff but being store locked for so long is almost like investing in future abandonware.

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