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.

Is there a way to create a bus in Beatmaker 3?

So when I’m working on a song I’ll stem out everything in wav files after I get the arrangement down and load them into a new project, that way I can add effects to everything individually and also it takes less CPU. I was wondering is there a way to make a sort of bus so I can utilize adding effects to a drum bus I could make? I always see things about busses but the only thing I see is aux sends which I haven’t done much with because I still want to know the uses for that. I would be trying to do this with stemmed out audio tracks, not using the pads.

Comments

  • AUX channels is what you need . Keep in mind you can have up to 8 ,plus (as usual) there is no midi learn , limited to the ‘macros’ control.

  • Also you can put Audio-Effects on „pad level“ - if this is useful depends on how you import your recorded stems.
    I (personally) find 2 Send channels a bit limiting to put effects on each instrument separately.

  • @MrBlaschke said:
    I (personally) find 2 Send channels a bit limiting to put effects on each instrument separately.

    But there are 8 total . Maybe I am wrong since I gave up any hopes for further development and don’t use BM3 at all.
    I don’t think anyone would need more than 8 sends but as a hmmm...workaround you can add an audio track and select a bank as input , place a reverb (100% wet) and have 2 separate tracks for dry and wet .

  • @Korakios said:
    But there are 8 total . Maybe I am wrong since I gave up any hopes for further development and don’t use BM3 at all.
    I don’t think anyone would need more than 8 sends but as a hmmm...workaround you can add an audio track and select a bank as input , place a reverb (100% wet) and have 2 separate tracks for dry and wet .

    You‘re right - i never realized one can add AUX tracks :smile:
    I do not use BM3 that often.

  • You can also use the AU FX called 'Mixer Send Receive' which is bundled with apeMatrix. It's a separate AU, so you don't need to run apeMatrix to use it. It makes 16 new busses available, and it's pre-fader. With it, you can use BM3's Banks as busses.

  • @Korakios said:
    AUX channels is what you need . Keep in mind you can have up to 8 ,plus (as usual) there is no midi learn , limited to the ‘macros’ control.

    So I need to add 70% saturation to 4 different wav files. If I use the aux sends I would just be doubling the sound since I can’t actually mute the volume of the originals. If I mute the originals, they will also be muted in the sends. If I put the saturation on the send, it would just be parallel saturation, and the original would still be there with the saturated signal added to it. That would be doubling up the volume, and that is not what I need.

  • @Encore I do not use audio tracks in BM3 and I apologize in advance if this doesn't apply. I'm going to tag @tk32 as he would probably know the definitive answer to your question ...

    My personal workflow in BM3 is that I automatically create invidually Pad groups for drums, bass, leads, pads, arps, strings, etc. If I find that I need kind of a subgroup I just create a "leads2" so that I can isolate a separate set of sounds off on their own, each sound on their own pad of the "group". Each Pad group has its own bus channel if you will and I can apply processing to all of those like sounds like side chain compression, EQ for uniformity, or like an overall reverb to apply. I also do the same thing @Korakios does with Aux Tracks. Can I move around pad's and change which group they are in? No. But, since I've already pre planned out how my stuff is laid out, I rarely find this to be an issue. It works great.

    As for audio tracks specifically, I do not have the expertise. TK does though!

  • @Encore said:

    @Korakios said:
    AUX channels is what you need . Keep in mind you can have up to 8 ,plus (as usual) there is no midi learn , limited to the ‘macros’ control.

    So I need to add 70% saturation to 4 different wav files. If I use the aux sends I would just be doubling the sound since I can’t actually mute the volume of the originals. If I mute the originals, they will also be muted in the sends. If I put the saturation on the send, it would just be parallel saturation, and the original would still be there with the saturated signal added to it. That would be doubling up the volume, and that is not what I need.

    Send the sends to pre , lower the faders to zero ;)
    Sometimes pre/post didn’t work, had to save ,quit and reload the project.

  • edited April 2019

    (Thanks for the tag (and endorsement) @drez :) )

    @Encore based on my initial understanding of your requirements, here is some info about how I recommend arranging the signal path in the 'mastering' version of your project in BM3 (the one that contains only stems):

    1. AUX channels can be used as busses in BM3 - it just requires a tweak to pre/post-fader send settings.

    If using AUX channels as mixing busses you just have to enable pre-fader sends on any channels you want to group and then drop the channel fader to 0 (-infinity). Once you've done this the corresponding send dial effectively becomes your gain control for that particular stem.

    2. You can create up to 8 AUX channels, and each one can be a separate 'bus'

    Just be aware that if you have more than 2 AUX channels you have to modify the mixer view in order to see the sends for AUX #3-#8. I'll show you in a quick video

    Be right back,

    I'm going to make you a quick video showing the setup process....

    Here you go - this video shows how to use AUX1 as a bus for 2 drum tracks

    BEWARE - it gets a little loud in the middle, as I deliberately demonstrated how the volume of the drum tracks is doubled at first, but then is fixed once you enable pre-fader sends and kill the fader

    The post/pre-fader sends control is highlighted below. It is a toggle per-channel (or per-pad). If you end up using more than 2 AUX channels you’ll need to hit the All sends button (circled in yellow) to see the dials for AUX 3-8

  • Video added. :)

  • Thorough as usual @tk32 :+1: !!

  • Question - can you change which Sends are displayed in the mixer view? It only shows 1 and 2, but what if I wanted 3 and 4?

  • Aux sends are sends, not buses, no matter if you change to post or pre fader, you will always get doubling of the audio, that is unless you want no ability to mix the sources in to the bus and are just going to plant every channel at the zero volume position (-inf db)
    If you want to create a bus just for the purposes of applying effects so that you can resample back out, you just put the fx on the master channel, that is an actual bus, the master bus, there are no other buses direct in BM3, other than the grouping of audio from a bank of pads, so you could always load the audio on to pads of one bank, use MIDI to trigger them and then use the bank output as your bus.

    @jameslondon74 you can show all sends, but not specific sends.

  • @Turntablist said:
    Aux sends are sends, not buses, no matter if you change to post or pre fader, you will always get doubling of the audio, that is unless you want no ability to mix the sources in to the bus and are just going to plant every channel at the zero volume position (-inf db)
    If you want to create a bus just for the purposes of applying effects so that you can resample back out, you just put the fx on the master channel, that is an actual bus, the master bus, there are no other buses direct in BM3, other than the grouping of audio from a bank of pads, so you could always load the audio on to pads of one bank, use MIDI to trigger them and then use the bank output as your bus.

    @jameslondon74 you can show all sends, but not specific sends.

    @Turntablist @jameslondon74 this is true to an extent but my method to get on the BUS is to route to an Aux then Solo it with other tracks not routed to the Aux also Solo’ed

  • edited May 2020

    You are still sending to a send, you lose your meters and the ability to solo, plus you still have no bus, because a bus could also be sent to a send for send effects, the whole point to a bus is to sub mix, so soloing a bus to just hear the drums, add a bit of reverb to the drum bus etc, just because you can achieve one specific task with a send, does not make it a bus, much like a bus can't be a VCA, they all have their own use cases.

  • There's a free plugin supplied with Ape Matrix called "Mixer Send Receive" that can be used to make a pseudo bus.

    1. Add bank sounds, and add Mixer Send Receive as the last plugin in the Audio FX plugin chain for any bank or pad you want to bus.
    2. Add an audio track. Don't set any audio input for it. Do add the Mixer Send Receive plugin as an AU FX.
    3. In the mixer view change to "Pre Fader Sends".
    4. Pull down the faders for the banks that are being bussed. Mute won't work for this.
    5. Audio will be received on the bus.

    To get control over the levels sent to the bus, you can use another of the free Ape Matrix sends, "Gain Pan" in the Banks FX chain before the Mixer Send Receive plugins on the Banks.

  • @wim said:
    There's a free plugin supplied with Ape Matrix called "Mixer Send Receive" that can be used to make a pseudo bus.

    1. Add bank sounds, and add Mixer Send Receive as the last plugin in the Audio FX plugin chain for any bank or pad you want to bus.
    2. Add an audio track. Don't set any audio input for it. Do add the Mixer Send Receive plugin as an AU FX.
    3. In the mixer view change to "Pre Fader Sends".
    4. Pull down the faders for the banks that are being bussed. Mute won't work for this.
    5. Audio will be received on the bus.

    To get control over the levels sent to the bus, you can use another of the free Ape Matrix sends, "Gain Pan" in the Banks FX chain before the Mixer Send Receive plugins on the Banks.

    In practice this is unfortunatly pretty laborious. This plugin would be so amazing and solve the whole problem, if you could say, wheather the bank is a sending or a receiving unit. So you then could determin x banks with channel one as send and one bank with channel one as receive and they get mix up without sending audio back. This would be so awesome, don't understand why the send/receive plugin can not do this.

    I'm also hoping that intua implements an easy way to utilize the banks more (which are busses, so the functionality is already there). An option to send the output of a bank to another to mix it up would solve many problems (the way wit the aux tracks is just so annoying in practice, because you loose so much convenience)

  • @Jusch1995 said:
    In practice this is unfortunatly pretty laborious. This plugin would be so amazing and solve the whole problem, if you could say, wheather the bank is a sending or a receiving unit. So you then could determin x banks with channel one as send and one bank with channel one as receive and they get mix up without sending audio back. This would be so awesome, don't understand why the send/receive plugin can not do this.

    Other than it being a little hard to get your head around, I don't see it as complicated or needing to work the way you mention.

    If an instance has audio coming into it then it sends on the bus selected. If it doesn't have audio coming in then it forwards audio coming in.

    It took me a long time to get this, but now that I do, I don't see anything wrong with the way it works.

  • edited March 2021

    Yes, but the problem Is (unless I'm doing something wrong) , that you have to pull the faders down on your banks, because otherwise it doubles all the audio to the other banks. So you loose the ability, to mix, solo and pan the bank itself, which is a huge con. So you don't really get any benifit to using the aux tracks.

  • Can’t the Midi Tools do that quite easily.

  • edited March 2021

    @Poppadocrock said:
    Can’t the Midi Tools do that quite easily.

    Midi tools just sends midi but no audio, as far as I know

  • wimwim
    edited March 2021

    @Jusch1995 said:
    Yes, but the problem Is (unless I'm doing something wrong) , that you have to pull the faders down on your banks, because otherwise it doubles all the audio to the other banks. So you loose the ability, to mix, solo and pan the bank itself, which is a huge con. So you don't really get any benifit to using the aux tracks.

    I see, I think. I always use FX that have Wet/Dry controls and always set them to 100% wet when using AUX tracks. So this is not a problem for me.

    I don't recall ever having an aux send that doesn't work this way. One always has to take steps to avoid doubling up the audio. I guess I may be still not fully understanding you.

  • @tk32 said:
    (Thanks for the tag (and endorsement) @drez :) )

    @Encore based on my initial understanding of your requirements, here is some info about how I recommend arranging the signal path in the 'mastering' version of your project in BM3 (the one that contains only stems):

    1. AUX channels can be used as busses in BM3 - it just requires a tweak to pre/post-fader send settings.

    If using AUX channels as mixing busses you just have to enable pre-fader sends on any channels you want to group and then drop the channel fader to 0 (-infinity). Once you've done this the corresponding send dial effectively becomes your gain control for that particular stem.

    2. You can create up to 8 AUX channels, and each one can be a separate 'bus'

    Just be aware that if you have more than 2 AUX channels you have to modify the mixer view in order to see the sends for AUX #3-#8. I'll show you in a quick video

    Be right back,

    I'm going to make you a quick video showing the setup process....

    Here you go - this video shows how to use AUX1 as a bus for 2 drum tracks

    BEWARE - it gets a little loud in the middle, as I deliberately demonstrated how the volume of the drum tracks is doubled at first, but then is fixed once you enable pre-fader sends and kill the fader

    The post/pre-fader sends control is highlighted below. It is a toggle per-channel (or per-pad). If you end up using more than 2 AUX channels you’ll need to hit the All sends button (circled in yellow) to see the dials for AUX 3-8

    When i add a new aux channel how to make it receive from send 3 or 4? It only seems to default to accept from 1/2

  • wimwim
    edited March 2021

    Yay - thanks @tk32. I was mulling over how to write just such an explanation. Came back to my computer and found you had already did it better than I could ever have. B)

  • @wim said:

    @Jusch1995 said:
    Yes, but the problem Is (unless I'm doing something wrong) , that you have to pull the faders down on your banks, because otherwise it doubles all the audio to the other banks. So you loose the ability, to mix, solo and pan the bank itself, which is a huge con. So you don't really get any benifit to using the aux tracks.

    I see, I think. I always use FX that have Wet/Dry controls and always set them to 100% wet when using AUX tracks. So this is not a problem for me.

    I don't recall ever having an aux send that doesn't work this way. One always has to take steps to avoid doubling up the audio. I guess I may be still not fully understanding you.

    I'm also not clear if you're referring to "aux" tracks, which I think of as Sends, or "bus" tracks which I think of as collecting output from several channels.

    Anyway, I think others are doing a much better job of explaining things. I'll step away. :D

Sign In or Register to comment.