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.

I would like to ask some Egoist questions before I make the purchase

Looks cool but I have a few questions before I drop $20 on it.

  1. Is it easy to use? Does it have a fluid user interface?
  2. How does it compare to Samplr? Are there enough differences with Samplr to justify the purchase?
  3. Is it worth $20?

$20 is a lot for an app, so I wanted to get some people's opinions before I buy the app. Thanks for your help. :)

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Comments

  • Really hard to quantify worth..
    I really like it and it's very different to samplr. Samplr is king as far as I'm concerned but this is so different.

    Very restricted as you only get 1 sample and 1 synth and 1 drum machine that all share a fx unit. You can turn fx on and off per machine (slicer/drum/bass).

    But also very cool, and sounds great. Slicer is very creative and fun.

    Maybe download the demo for pc and try it out for free ;)

  • edited November 2014

    Thanks Buska. Unfortunately I don't have a PC so I can't check out the demo. You said the sampler, synth, and drum machine share a FX unit. Can you pipe them individually to a DAW through AB or IAA for processing? Thanks.

  • There are 5 very good tutorials on the SugarBytes YT channel that are worth looking at.

  • @mkell424 said:

    Thanks Buska. Unfortunately I don't have a PC so I can't check out the demo. You said the sampler, synth, and drum machine share a FX unit. Can you pipe them individually to a DAW through AB or IAA for processing? Thanks.

    Nope unfortunately

  • @thinds Thanks for Youtube suggestion.

    @Buska Bummer. So really it's set up to be used as a stand alone product? You use AB to record a stereo output to your DAW?

    Another question: does it respond to MiDI?

  • edited November 2014

    @mkell424 said:

    Another question: does it respond to MiDI?

    Yes. It fully supports MIDI in all kinds of ways (externally, internally etc). If you use it as a plugin in an iDAW (like Cubasis or Auria) it also keeps track of the playhead/pointer, so it's always in sync with your hosts song/track position (like Effectrix).

  • After an hour I confidently say it's almost exactly like marriage; quite lovely but I don't know what the hell I'm doing...

  • edited November 2014

    @mkell424 said:

    @thinds Thanks for Youtube suggestion.

    @Buska Bummer. So really it's set up to be used as a stand alone product? You use AB to record a stereo output to your DAW?

    Yeah you can send the stereo output through audiobus :)

    I made this just recording a live jam through audiobus:

    https://m.soundcloud.com/mir_eko/egoistjam-ipad

  • Running it at 33bpm through CsSpectral. Mutant soundscape Valhalla.

  • @thinds said:

    Running it at 33bpm through CsSpectral. Mutant soundscape Valhalla.

    Awesom idea

  • edited November 2014

    Ladies and Gentlemen, for one night only:

    MUTANT SOUNDSCAPE VALHALLA!!

  • Seems to be rock solid midi clock in.

  • MUTANT SOUNDSCAPE VALHALLA!!

  • MSV reminds me of my first band (Mostly Shit Vocals)....would stay and chat but need to go get my head further asploded by Egoist...

  • It's not that it's meant to be used standalone, more like it is more suited for live use like the rest of sugar bytes apps

  • @JohnnyGoodyear said:

    After an hour I confidently say it's almost exactly like marriage; quite lovely but I don't know what the hell I'm doing...

    I think you'll need much more than an hour to fly this thing. Not that it is that complex it's just quite a lot of stuff going on.

  • so you can control everything via a midi controller?

  • Not sure if absolutely everything but most definitely all of the important bits. A bit like wow and others, great midi implementation.

  • :) sounds great.
    and it sounds like each pattern can be a different tempo is that right?

  • edited November 2014

    If you need an overview of each section Bassgorilla has a good demo/review

  • edited November 2014

    I guess it'll work like Thesys (for me anyway), where i turn on send Midi clock in Cubasis and Egoist just runs alongside.. And i use Audiobus if i want to record it into Cubasis.

  • edited November 2014

    @audiblevideo said:

    If you need an overview of each section Bassgorilla has a good demo/review

    Thanks for this.

    EDIT: These vids are an excellent entry point. Not a manual boy myself, but got going far quicker from here. There will no doubt be quibbles (and some bigger than others), but totally turned on by this app.

  • @supadom said:

    @JohnnyGoodyear said:

    After an hour I confidently say it's almost exactly like marriage; quite lovely but I don't know what the hell I'm doing...

    I think you'll need much more than an hour to fly this thing. Not that it is that complex it's just quite a lot of stuff going on.

    That's what she said. And she was right.

  • so is there a way to get your own samples into the drum machine by using ifunbox?

  • The Sugar Bytes apps really need Dropbox import ... or at least 'open in' export option from Audioshare and Dropbox.

    Egoist is great at grabbing parts of samples and longer audio clips and sequencing/re-sequencing those, and finding pleasant surprises through rolling the dice.

    But like iMPC Pro, it's so frustrating having to go through AudioCopy or iTunes, or resort to the iFunbox workaround, assuming that's possible in this case. At least with Effectrix and Turnado you can us AB and IAA, but this is a sampler, and it needs better access for samples.

    AudioCopy is slow (opening) and it doesn't handle 24bit (or 48K rate) samples, which is standard we are mostly dealing with in 2014 with DAWs and third-party packs. The pathway from DB-to-Audioshare-to-AudioCopy-to-Sampler X is tedious, and often requires the extra step of converting sample in Audioshare.

  • Thanks for the comments. It sounds like a bitch to get your own samples into it.

  • No on the importing drum samples, @kobamoto. I don't hold that against it though, since it's main thrust is using the slicer to re-sequence and mangle hits/shots/samples from longer pieces ... and it really excels at it. You can quickly isolate drum hits and sequence those with the slicer, in other words.

    Also, there are lots of variations (32 per kick, snare, hat) of drum hits within those kits if you tap and hold and slide vertically on the drum icons. So I think you're getting 480 kicks, 480 snares and 480 hats.

  • Sorely lacking an open in as stated above, great app!

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