Yes, we know. People have been recording and remixing albums on iOS for ages. As the man who claims to have given Damon Albarn the idea to make an album on the iPad, I am intimately familiar with the concept.
However, until today, the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch weren’t recording studios in the true sense of the world, because recording studios include instruments, effects and recording gear — and you can connect them all together. On the other hand, iOS devices, even once they learned to multitask and even copy/paste audio, were incapable of routing music from instrument to effect to recorder.
That changed today with the release of Audiobus ($10.49), which we have been anticipating for months. Its creators call it “the missing cable” between iOS apps, which is a fairly apt description of the way it zaps audio between apps.
We’ve been putting Audiobus through its paces today, and we’re happy to report that it works as advertised.
Given the complexity of what this app does, and the challenges of presenting its mechanics in a way that makes sense — and allows you to jump between apps in order to set things up and then play them — we’re frankly a bit blown away by how solidly Audiobus accomplishes what it sets out to do. The design is straightforward, it’s working perfectly for us so far, and the Help menu explains everything that isn’t immediately obvious about what to do.
If you make music on iOS, or are thinking about it, you very likely need Audiobus, and will be glad to pay $10.49 for this “audio cable”, perhaps most of all because it doesn’t add layers of complexity to your set up, as we feared it might.
It’s as good a demonstration as any that even as smartphone and tablets replace computers, they are turning into computers too.
As of today, the following apps work with Audiobus:
- Funkbox
- JamUp XT
- JamUp Pro XT
- Loopy
- Loopy HD
- MultiTrack DAW
- NLog MIDI Synth
- NLog Synth PRO
- Rebirth for iPad
- Sir Sampleton
- SoundPrism Pro
- Sunrizer Synth
Evolver.fm observes, tracks and analyses the music apps scene, with the belief that it’s crucial to how humans experience music, and how that experience is evolving. [clear]