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Purpose of Audiobus
I am a noob relative to this app (and AUM), but not to multitrack recording. So I ask, what good is AB3? I have Cubasis, meaning I have multiple tracks with all types of effects. So other than synth stacking, what would I use this app for? I've watched a lot of video tutorials, but stacking several apps on one channel, then sending them to a single DAW track makes no sense to me. Yet sending different apps to separate tracks is what DAW's do anyway. I guess I'm having difficulty finding practical uses for this, unless it's best used with loopers in lieu of DAWs.
Comments
I use it for feeding IAA apps into Cubasis to record live or the sequenced audio
Audiobus is for making apps work together that don’t normally work together. If you’re just working in a DAW and that works for you, then you have no need for it.
Say, for instance you wanted to use an IAA app in NanoStudio 2. You can’t because NanoStudio2 only supports AU apps. Audiobus would allow you to send the audio from that app into NanoStudio 2. With Cubasis, this isn’t an issue because it supports IAA instruments.
For working outside a DAW, (say for just jamming) it’s super convenient because it gives you more control and convenience over just running apps separately. But, it doesn’t sound like you do that, so it doesn’t add anything for you.
As you probably know, there was a time long ago (before there was IAA, and well before AUv3) when DAW hosts couldn’t host instruments without an intermediary.
Once hosts could host (through IAA, and/or AB) iOS midi was a snarly mess, and AB expanded to sort that.
Now that there is IAA and better still AUv3, I still use AB to host my (many) favorite IAA instruments that are not yet AUv3 (multi-out and otherwise), where audio and midi routing would be impossible without AB3
Some people use AB3 with loopers and AUM as you mentioned, also ApeMatrix and Multitrack DAW. Those are setups that I haven’t gotten Into too deeply, and are iterations of an approach I’d typify as “device-as-DAW” which is useful for both production and performance.
I’m sure other more adroit and articulate forum comrades can answer your question, but there’s a start.
AudioBus has a significant role in the development of IOS as a usable musical production tool. Hundreds of apps have implemented the audiobus interoperability specs.
Overtime Apple took 2 steps to make it less relevant:
Because of Audio Units the strict need for AudioBus has dropped dramatically. Cubasis with Audio Units will probably cover most of your needs. But there's a limit to that approach that drove me away from it as a workflow.
There are corner cases where AudioBus still shines as a stable, unique solution:
Piping IAA apps into Cubasis will probably be one for you at some point... but maybe not as fewer apps are IAA only. But it's there for that eventuality.
For me, the AudioBus Start/Stop controls (i.e. tape recorder transport buttons) are
a life saver.
For example, the great LUMbeats Drumming and iBassist apps are all IAA. Plumbing them into AUM or Cubasis via AudioBus is a great way to start/stop a virtual rhythm section. I think this requirement has been addressed in AUM (via Ableton Link interfaces... yet another occasionally implemented Inter App defect standard).
AUM implements about 95% of what the AudioBus app does and it's that other 5% that
many use it for here. Like Remote Control of transport using a second IOS device for the User Input.
Every new update to the AudioBus adds a few new features that are unique.
If you find yourself getting addicted to this Forum to discuss IOS Music apps and stay current then buying one of @Michael's apps is a good way to say thank you.
There are many that use a "Best in Class" Hybrid-DAW on their iPad/iPhones using:
Xequence 2 for the best MIDI record/playback App
AudioBus3 for Transport/Plumbing control App
AUM as the AU Host and Mixer App
What you are going to learn soon is that loading a lot of AU's into Cubasis and expecting it to scale like a Desktop computer is going to fail. To really scale Cubasis you'll need to freeze heavy resource AUv3 apps (like Ravenscroft 275 piano or iSymphonic orchestra samples).
For me freezing is too painful.
The best tool I have seen to really scale IOS music production is the NanoStudio2 app with
custom loaded samples. It can deliver something closer to the realtime environment of
a loaded Desktop DAW at a fraction of the cost. Check out this thread for the details on
avoiding the AUv3 resource penalities:
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/33481/secrets-of-the-ios-masters-scottvanzandt-and-nanostudio2-no-auv3-instruments
Since you're new to the game you can see there are many options. Cubasis3 is the closest to the Desktop paradigm. Learn to love freezing audio as needed or consider Hybrid-DAW or the NS2 benefits of an optimized walled garden. I forget to suggest Korg Gadget which is also great for many musical styles and pairs well with Xequence 2 if you have a deep MIDI
background.
Keep sharing your progress and post some work to help provide us with a musical context
for your needs.
In these days of AUv3 and the expected obsolescence of IAA, I view AB3 as another AUv3 host, in the same category as AUM, apeMatrix, Auria, BM3, Cubasis, NS2, and Zenbeats.
The one time I turn to AB3 when I'm not just looking for an AUv3 host is when I want to use Loopy, which works best with AB3.
Great stuff, thanks from another noob.
What a fantastic post.
(another noob).
If only it would be once and for all stable. And will open all the project without forcing apps to open.
It’s just the app that made this all possible, and you should buy it if only for that. Can’t say I use it much, these days, but it will always be the unreal magic app that started it all.
And it so generously provides this forum which is like the library of alexandria for ios music.
I use AUM for incoming signal from interface.
I run AUM as input into AUDIOBUS.
I run LOOPY in AUDIOBUS output.
Most important two feature of Audiobus for me:
This for me. I also like to add...
I’m a Xequence person and without Audiobus my workflow wouldn’t be viable. Those 2 are the apps I spend the most time in (I only use AUM as I have to and don’t get on with it at all). Just wanted to praise AB really and also finding your preferred workflow can be a long journey on iOS so would say to keep an open mind.
You know, I’ve been thinking and what I’d find an interesting way of playing it out would be if Audiobus develops into a kind of ‘harness’ that allows us to assemble the equivalent of a DAW in any way we want, from minuscule quick one-off singleton project rigs to professionally scaled-up erections.
What I mean by that is that if Audiobus did all the management that you’d expect a DAW to provide, but beyond the current audio and midi routing possibilities, handed off or delegated more robust performance of those tasks to things like midi looper apps and midi patch matrix apps (like ApeMatrix); audio mixing apps (like AUM); file recording, saving and playout apps; display and control apps; etc.
Audiobus would take care of the overall project management, in that you’d start Audiobus, load a working project, and it would then load everything else in the correct order, and put it all there for you so that it seems like you’re only ever using one app (Audiobus) every time as your frontmost surface. Of course there’s be error and failover when it can’t find an app or that apps working files, etc but that’s a different problem and could be solved.
The reason I stick with Gadget and have made no progress with this “AU3” thing whatever it is is that I’ve no idea where it all is, whenever I’ve tried I’ve lost most of my work because it all wasn’t loaded when I expected it all to load, so I walked out in disgust that it was all such an abysmal mess. It’s not my job to lash the studio together each time, it’s my job to make pop tunes. Audiobus could be that – a virtual DAW that uses other things to make and remember the DAW each time, the way we want, hiding the fact that it’s a bunch of disparate apps.
We are all n00bs.
Fine post there @McD.
Back in the day when we didn’t have nice things like IAA and AU, Apple adopted and implemented Audiobus into GarageBand. Without Audiobus, Apple would probably not have seen the need for IAA nearly as quickly as they did and, we....well we wouldn’t even be on this forum.👊
Well, when you read these replies then one thing becomes obvious. The beauty if iOS music making is that much more than on the desktop you don’t just choose your DAW, you craft your setup as an Instrument every time again. And not just with plugins. Also at the core. Sometimes I start my idea from AUM, sometimes from Zenbeats. Sometimes from blocs wave. As the others said Audiobus is very often the hub.