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.

starter screen favourites

edited December 2012 in Feature Wishlists

I hesitate to request this, because one of the things I love (and this a great app) is it's simplicity, at least to us users! When you select an app in whatever slot a list appears. The list gets daily longer. Would it be possible to do a favourite or an edit as in the bookmarks on safari, moving up and down so that the apps we use most are near at hand? At this rate, in 12 months, we'll be paging through hundreds!

Comments

  • I was thinking exactly the same thing. What about an alphabetical list to start simple?

  • I'd be happy if were alphabetical (and taller!). Good problems to have, for sure.

  • We actually did not think about that problem. But this definitely needs to be addressed in an update...

    Anyone not ok with ordering it alphabetically for a start?

  • I certainly don't object to that but I do not mind the random order they have, its sort of a factor for random creativity sparks, you open the input list because you wanted to do a) then you see that other app and go, why not do b) instead :)

  • the idea of saving set ups has been floated, which is related to this thread. that way you could recall an input, effect and output selection with a single touch perhaps. its would provide a quick way back to favorite settings. might be a good idea, but i second the remark that on of audiobus's great characteristics is its simplicity.

  • While I wouln't dare complain about an alphabetical list, I would still prefer a most-used ordered list. Having to scroll to the bottom in order to get to my favorite apps like WaveGenerator or Sunrizer might get frustrating (assuming my list of enabled-apps continues to grow... as of yet, it isn't quite long enough to cause much concern)

  • Alpha is good how about by usage...eg: order of last used.

  • Good point for uglykidmoe.

  • Nice thing about alpha is that it always remains the same. Clean, just like audiobus.

    I could see a 'most recent 3' or 'most used 3' or something at the top and alpha afterwards (including those three).

  • @syrupcore that would work for me...

  • These are probably stop gaps though. When the API goes public and we could have 100+ apps in the list, something more considered will probably be required. Maybe a favorites + 'all' list or something.

  • A favorites list is a good idea. I would say listed in Categories according to the primary focus of the app, but that isn't as feasible considering the varied functions of even a single app...

    for instance, nLog. It would have to be designated as a synth and effect, meaning it would show up twice, which isn't lending itself to simplifying a long list of apps.

    Perhaps then an editable list with folders (similar to bookmarks) so that users can organize their apps in whatever way they see fit?

  • edited January 2013

    Audiobus is a nice app.

    I like to have lined up in date order.
    It is difficult to find among New Apps from visiting this site on a regular basis, are displayed in name order.

    By the way, the current situation seems to be order-buttons are not working properly.
    When I press the Data button, Korg Apps is displayed higher than Bassline.
    Is this the cure?

    My English is poor, I hope that the meaning is transmitted properly.


    Correction
    I was mistaken that page of this site. I'm sorry.

  • My vote would be to keep with the simplicity of the current workflow but also allow the user to configure their experience through an Audiobus settings page.

    Having an alpha (a-z) listing of apps (for each of the slots - input/effect/output) as the default makes sense to me as this will most likely provide the most accessible/intuitive workflow for the majority of users. But as stated by @syrupcore, as the number of Audiobus compatible apps increases this could become cumbersome too, so some form of configureable grouping system available via a settings page would make sense too.

    The simplest solution would allow the user to configure a single 'group' (e.g. 'favourites' but the naming convention should be configureable by the user) that would appear before the alpha list with a clear separator between the two. This is probably my favourite solution.

    However I can see the need at a certain point to accomodate multiple categories/groups - e.g. Percussion, Synth, FX etc. My preference here would be for the sub categories to still appear as a single list for each Audiobus slot (with clear separators between each category) rather than as sub-folders (having multiple folders of apps within each Audiobus slot could end up being clunky and take away from the simplicity & smooth workflow of the current implementation).

    One final thought and this is applicable to any solution, even one that doen't allow for sub-categorisation. Allow the user to pick exactly which compatible apps appear in each slot through an Audiobus settings page. Because this option requires the user to configure the apps that appear in each slot, I would suggest that the default behaviour when a user first installs Audiobus would be to 'show all' available apps in each slot, that is until the user decides to alter the default behaviour through the settings page. This settings page could also allow the user to configure the order in which apps are listed, a-z, last used etc.

    Allowing some form of configurability will get around the bugbears many users have with ACP (AudioCopy/AudioPaste) workflows - huge scrolling lists of every ACP compatible app on your IOS device. As soon as you make the SDK public, the average quality of Audiobus compatible apps will inevitable fall so some form of configurability seems essential to me.

    jm

    http://soundcloud.com/leftside-wobble

  • I feel like we're here now so I thought I'd float this thread again. Loading the audiobus app and scrolling the apps list is slow. I'm guessing this is at least partially because I have forty thousand AB compatible apps. I don't know that to be true, of course, but I do know that I use under 10 apps very regularly and looking for them is a (first world problem) pain.

    I know iOS7 is the main development focus right now and amen. That said, I'm still a fan of having a favorites list that is shown by default and I hope that can make it on to the soon list. Other apps aren't even considered as existing until I tap 'all' in any of the slots. That 'All' listing has every app available with a star icon so that a user can add/remove an item from the favorites list. If this seems like it would be confusing to new users, let me put in a vote for a settings option to 'use favorites'. I know, and believe, settings are the enemy.

    More discussion of this in this thread: http://forum.audiob.us/discussion/comment/4712

  • +1 to @syrupcore's sentiments. It may not be a life&death issue, but sometimes I remove apps from my IPad to simplify my lists (and open up space on my 32gb). ....I think I've got too many great choices and it slows me down.

  • I like the favorites idea, but in the mean time, alphabetical, for me, would be very cool.
    Thanks

  • @myth, they are alphabetical now. I probably should have started a fresh thread to avoid confusion!

  • Alphabets vary. :)

  • @sebastian here I go again. Once a year isn't bad, eh?

    I don't know if it's even possible but could apps in the lists be (optionally) grouped the same way I have them grouped on my home screen? I dunno if that sort of info is accessible to apps (fake spotlight searches to build the list/groups?) but as I scrolled the list tonight I thought of how handsome and personal that would be.

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