Audiobus...the breakthrough we've been waiting for?

[Derek Buddemeyer]

I don't know about you guys, but I can't wait to see what audiobus brings to the table. Finally a way to stream audio from one app to another...I would love to play guitars through Jamup, drums from Music Studio, piano in Garagband, synths from Nanostudio, and record them all directly into Multitrack DAW....eliminating the need for audio copy/paste, email, iTunes file transfer...this could possibly eliminate the need for a PC or MAC based DAW...for me at least. Any thoughts?

[AudiobusApp]

Hi Derek,

Thanks for the kind words. It's a bit scary to see the hugely positive reaction to our - still unfinished - product across the web. We know the pain of our potential users because we make music with iOS devices and apps ourselves. We understand that the current workflows are ... let's say less than optimal and we're trying to fix it.

It's an interesting task anticipate what users like you are expecting from Audiobus - for example the combinations of apps that you want to use.

Many users are asking us if Audiobus will make it possible to integrate their iOS apps into their Mac/PC based DAWs. You're hoping for a solution that lets you use an iPad for the whole process (which is going to be possible in the first version of Audiobus, if developers of DAWs integrate it, which we are pretty sure of already).

Do you have any further questions you'd like to ask Michael or me?

//Sebastian Dittmann
(Audiobus)

[Derek Buddemeyer]

Hi Derek,

Thanks for the kind words. It's a bit scary to see the hugely positive reaction to our - still unfinished - product across the web. We know the pain of our potential users because we make music with iOS devices and apps ourselves. We understand that the current workflows are ... let's say less than optimal and we're trying to fix it.

It's an interesting task anticipate what users like you are expecting from Audiobus - for example the combinations of apps that you want to use.

Many users are asking us if Audiobus will make it possible to integrate their iOS apps into their Mac/PC based DAWs. You're hoping for a solution that lets you use an iPad for the whole process (which is going to be possible in the first version of Audiobus, if developers of DAWs integrate it, which we are pretty sure of already).

Do you have any further questions you'd like to ask Michael or me?

//Sebastian Dittmann
(Audiobus)

I have just released an album that was mixed and mastered on my iPad....I used several apps to create tracks and integrate them into my songs....very time consuming...but had a good outcome. For me, I would love to use my iPad alone, for the whole process, and with your tech, I think it could be a breeze. I am looking forward to your release and hope devs will want to play ball....as this could be a gamechanger! Good luck in your endeavors...hope to see something soon as I am already working on a second album!

[SingleCell]

Hey guys, I have a question. From a developer's point-of view, but also from the point of view of someone with little iOS experience so bear with me...

If I made a music app for iOS, I'd want to pack in as many high-quality features as possible, taking up as much processing power as is available without dropping out. Now if every other app developer does this, that means you won't be able to run both at the same time, let alone route one app's output into another app's input.

I imagine a lot of people here are waiting impatiently for this tech to be able to combine several apps routed into a DAW as Derek mentions, but will this really be possible on say, an iPad1 or even 2?

I guess it's no different than some apps which let you run them in the background while you play in another app, so maybe those with experience running multiple apps can chime in to share their experiences.

I'm just worried that if I want to offer the "Audiobus-compatible" sticker on the box, I'll be dumbing down my app in order to leave some juice for others and will be depriving users of the full potential of their device.

-Rej

[AudiobusApp]

Hi Rej,

Hey guys, I have a question. From a developer's point-of view, but also from the point of view of someone with little iOS experience so bear with me...

If I made a music app for iOS, I'd want to pack in as many high-quality features as possible, taking up as much processing power as is available without dropping out. Now if every other app developer does this, that means you won't be able to run both at the same time, let alone route one app's output into another app's input.

That's actually not the case right now. No good iOS music app developer does this. Simply because you want to be compatible with iPad 1 or iPhone 4 and that has about half the performance of the iPad 2. This will most likely continue to be true because a large percentage of the market is always going to not use the latest devices. So you're tweaking performance for that part of the market, not the high end stuff.

I imagine a lot of people here are waiting impatiently for this tech to be able to combine several apps routed into a DAW as Derek mentions, but will this really be possible on say, an iPad1 or even 2?

I guess it's no different than some apps which let you run them in the background while you play in another app, so maybe those with experience running multiple apps can chime in to share their experiences.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Audiobus is not the first thing that forces music app developers to do this. We've been doing this for a year now since has been introduced. Therefore many of the apps that will be compatible to Audiobus are already tweaking their performance requirements to even lower levels.

Speaking as one of the creators of SoundPrism Pro for example I can tell you that we've reduced the performance requirements for SoundPrism from 95% of the CPU before Virtual Midi to 5-20% on an iPad 1. And that's already true for the version that is on the App Store right now. Many developers of synths and controller apps have done the same thing.

I'm just worried that if I want to offer the "Audiobus-compatible" sticker on the box, I'll be dumbing down my app in order to leave some juice for others and will be depriving users of the full potential of their device.

-Rej

You're not going to 'dumb down' your app. You're making it play along nicely with all the other apps - which is something that increases the value of your app by quite a lot.

Best,

Sebastian
//Audiobus

[Storms]

Not to mention, that even if you have a software synth that uses 80-90% of the CPU, with AudioBus, you should be able to freeze the track to audio in your DAW, close the synth app, and open up your next synth and begin adding a new track. This opens up a ton of possibilities that up until now have only been available on "real computers."

[audiojunkie]

Very interesting!

--Sean