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Hello Inter-App Audio! So Long Audiobus?

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audiobus dead because of inter-app audio on iOS7?

Does iOS7 mean the death of Audiobus as we know it?

Well, it’s been a year since Audiobus – the third-party magicapp that routes audio between iOS apps – was released and it looks like we may be saying a quick and tearful goodbye… sort of. As amazing as Audiobus has been it always was considered a bit of a hack around Apple’s walled garden, even to its makers. Since then Apple has clearly seen the value of offering audio and midi routing between apps and has now included it as a core feature with the release of iOS 7. It’s now up to the app developers to update existing audio apps to support the new routing system – a bit of a bitter pill to swallow for some considering that the mad scramble to support Audiobus is just barely in the rear-view mirror.

To hasten adoption of the new standard, it seems there are quite a few bugs popping up between the way Audiobus routes signals between apps and the new way under iOS 7. That leaves developers with a choice between focusing support for the current accepted standard (Audiobus) vs a potentially limitless future that, perhaps unfortunately, only Apple can provide with Inter-App. If developers rally around Inter-App, where would that leave Audiobus? There may still be room for Audiobus in the marketplace yet, but it may possibly be in a diminished role that serves as an add-on to what Inter-App audio ends up providing. Perhaps it can function as a handy visualized routing system for all midi and audio paths currently flowing on your device (although it looks like it may have competition going forward with JACK)

As it stands, it’s still a bit of a wild west in the land of audio production on iOS. Standards have yet to be set in stone, and there are still growing pains to be felt. But with the release of Inter-App audio it appears the future is a little bit clearer, and brighter, for everyone using the platform. Until then, expect to see a lot of bullets flying in attempt to shoot down those bugs.

May 2014 UPDATE: Audiobus 2.0 has hit the App Store with unlimited input chains as a new core feature, and seems to have ironed out much of its existing iOS 7.0 stability issues. Meanwhile Inter-App audio is still struggling with adoption and has a lot of bugs to iron out. The audio production game is still wide open on the ever-changing iOS platform.

iConnect Turns Your iPad Into An External Midi Device

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With iOS7 comes huge promise for the future of professional audio integration within iOS itself, as well as integrating with external pro studio setups. For the latter we have a major game changer in the release of the iConnect MIDI interface featuring realtime midi messaging and audio pasthrough between your desktop DAW software and your iOS music making app of your choice. What does this mean? It means you can essentially turn all of those beautiful sounding synths, drum machines and audio tools within your iPad or iPhone into real-time instruments you can play and record midi events to from your existing desktop sequencer setup. This is a brilliant merger between the charm and creativity found in oldschool external midi setups, with the accessibility and variety found in modern virtual instruments.

Check out a fantastic discussion and demonstration of the power in this humbly priced device from SonicState. Skip to 12:40 to see the magic happening:

VST support coming to iOS?

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You’re in good company if you make music on your iOS device and are looking for a multi-track product with VST support. So far this has eluded us but there are promising ventures on the horizon. Near the top of the list is WaveMachine Labs Auria, which has received high praise from Computer Music magazine. You can check out the full review here.

WaveMachine Labs Auria

Finger Drumming Demonstration and Tutorials

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As I always like to say: the finger drummer is the new drummer. It’s probably the single best skill worth learning for modern electronic-based music composition. And to this end, we came across a series of fine finger-drumming demonstrations/tutorials put out by appsformusicproduction.com. The best way to learn is by watching, so check out these videos and start practicing!


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Ohm Studio. Future Of Online Music Collaboration?

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Ohm Studio is the newest release from veteran plugin manufacturer Ohm Force. It’s being billed as a collaborative DAW environment similar to Cubase, Reason, Logic, etc, except that you can freely browse the online boards through the application to find open mixing projects that you can lend a hand to, or of course start your own projects and allow others to add their twist to it. Very exciting indeed. The application is still in beta so as of now you can try it out by going to http://www.ohmstudio.com

A cursory glance proves promising, although their are a lot of issues needing to be ironed out. One of the most glaring issues is plugin consistency when loading the project across different users. VST plugins are supported, but unless any 2 users share the exact same plugins, the project will open without some of those key ingredients for 1 of those users. VST support is also a bit buggy at the moment, leading to crashes and freezing but that probably won’t be an issue since the product is still in beta.

To Ohm’s credit, they appear very open to input while they are still working out the kinks. Helpful support seems to be always available in the in-application instant messaging system, and you get the feeling that Ohm is banking a lot on the success of the product. Let’s hope this platform proves to be a success as its bound to open up countless avenues for music production going forward.