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Rearrange audio slices with timing intact (Mozaic perhaps?)

Let´s say you have sliced up an audio loop which does not conform to strict 16ths etc; some slices are short, some are long. Let´s say you want to generate endless variations of these slices, but where the timing is preserved; both long and short slices have another slice triggered as soon as the long/short slice ends, so playback should not be restricted to some equal grid length.

I can imagine doing this manually in BM3 by auto-slicing with Create pattern ON, then manually dragging the notes (with proper lengths) around, making sure they align up end-to-end in each new arrangement. This can´t be done automatically, right?

Any other DAWs or apps which would support this? I looked into Egoist and Sector, but both are restricted to fixed trigger lengths, so long slices would be cut off (and the next slice would start too soon).

I was thinking maybe a Mozaic script could handle this? In Learn mode it could listen to incoming midi to collect a set of notes and their lengths. In Generate mode it could replay these notes in shuffled order, always making sure that the next note is played back as soon as the previous note ends. Does such a script exist already, perhaps?

Could be useful for rythmic noises and bass loops etc.

Comments

  • No answer for you, but I'm interested in this as well. I've been doing this manually in Garageband and would love to be able to generate this automatically, trying many permutations of the connection. It'd be great to be able to repeat/reuse any slice(s) as well, still maintaining the length, that is. There must be some app in iOS, right??

  • edited May 2020

    I've built a Drambo patch a while ago that does something similar and can be extended to do what you want.
    https://patchstorage.com/instant-music-sequencer-steps-follow-beat/

    It listens to a breakbeat (or any other rhythmic loop with detectable transients) and uses the hit transients to automatically advance a melodic sequencer by the exact rhythm of the breakbeat.
    It does not care if the rhythm is quantized or totally off, and instead of driving a sequencer to give a melody a new rhythm, you could also drive a Flexi sampler with a different breakbeat in which you choose the slice order by using the CV sequencer.

  • There is three new slicers being released in the near future, hopefully one of them will have this function.

  • edited May 2020

    @rs2000 said:
    I've built a Drambo patch a while ago that does something similar and can be extended to do what you want.
    https://patchstorage.com/instant-music-sequencer-steps-follow-beat/

    It listens to a breakbeat (or any other rhythmic loop with detectable transients) and uses the hit transients to automatically advance a melodic sequencer by the exact rhythm of the breakbeat.
    It does not care if the rhythm is quantized or totally off, and instead of driving a sequencer to give a melody a new rhythm, you could also drive a Flexi sampler with a different breakbeat in which you choose the slice order by using the CV sequencer.

    Can this be used with a live input? Like live drums ?

  • edited May 2020

    @Mayo said:

    @rs2000 said:
    I've built a Drambo patch a while ago that does something similar and can be extended to do what you want.
    https://patchstorage.com/instant-music-sequencer-steps-follow-beat/

    It listens to a breakbeat (or any other rhythmic loop with detectable transients) and uses the hit transients to automatically advance a melodic sequencer by the exact rhythm of the breakbeat.
    It does not care if the rhythm is quantized or totally off, and instead of driving a sequencer to give a melody a new rhythm, you could also drive a Flexi sampler with a different breakbeat in which you choose the slice order by using the CV sequencer.

    Can this be used with a live input? Like live drums ?

    Sure!

    Edit: Sorry for the bad slicing, could have done better 🤭

  • edited May 2020

    @rs2000, cool! If I ever take the Drambo pill I'll sure check it out. In the meantime hoping for maybe a Mozaic script ... maybe I'll need to sit down and try myself, but I'd be equally happy if one of the usual gurus stepped in :#

    @robosardine that sounds promising, too.

  • @bleep said:
    @rs2000, cool! If I ever take the Drambo pill I'll sure check it out. In the meantime hoping for maybe a Mozaic script ... maybe I'll need to sit down and try myself, but I'd be equally happy if one of the usual gurus stepped in :#

    Mozaic is great at the MIDI processing but you'll find the GUI is where you'll loose the audience for what you're describing. Drambo at least has tools for organizing sequences. Mozaic does not... a piano roll GUI page might help but I wonder if @brambos has hit payback on this app compared to something like Mononoke which probably required a fraction of the effort. From a development perspective Mozaic is a work of tremendous talent for an extremely difficult use case. It's a bit like a hand gun with free bullets.
    And you are then expected to support self-inflicted injuries.

    You can get Mozaic code written if you help explain carefully what you want but you should do your home work and see what's possible by looking at the top Mozaic tools at PatchStorage.

  • The timing logic itself would be straightforward; once you have shuffled your slices in some order, the midi start time for a given slice would be the sum of midi note lenghts of all slices preceding this one.

    A mutate knob could have some smartness and not completely randomize everything, but keep neighbour slices as neighbours (depending on mutate strength).

    @Artj's suggestion of repeating some slices could be supported, but would add the side effect that the generated loop wouldn't have the same length as the original. One could fix this by using some cutoff at the end, or even try first to come as close as possible to the original length.

    You are right about the lack of proper UI as problematic. But if one could make this work as a MIDI fx in e.g. BM3 then it could spit out new variations which you could immediately further manage in that piano roll.

    Anyway, time etc. ...

  • @bleep said:
    One could fix this by using some cutoff at the end, or even try first to come as close as possible to the original length.

    Thanks, @bleep. Yes, cutting off the end of the last slice as you suggested would be fine, similar to Blocs Wave cutting off any exceeding length of the last random slice, so it's not always whole, half, quarter, or eighth note there, but whatever needed to complete the loop.👍

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