Putting it all together

In the last several weeks there were few things happened that really made music production process on the iPad much more complete.

First GarageBand came with Audiobus support and on the same week Audiobus achieved 100 apps that support technology. Which means that Audiobus now is the standard technology in iOS approved by Apple.

Then Auria was updated with time stretch and sidechain functions (there's no side chain compression yet - but ProC will support Auria sidechain in the next release).

After SampleTank (with great sounds library) and FL Studio (not a great as a DAW but very good sound library) were updated with Audiobus. So now it can be controlled with virtual midi and recorded in other apps via Audiobus. IK Multimedia (developer of SampleTank) also updated their effects app - AmpliTube. 

Few days ago NanoStudio announced to implement AudioBus.

And finally iMini - iPad reincarnation of MiniMoog was updated with Audiobus and Virtual Midi support. 

With so many great apps like SampleTank and iMini and DAWs like Cubasis, Auria and BeatMaker 2 the music production environment on iPad is becoming more and more advanced each week.

Soundfonts player bs-16i on the Audiobus

If you are using DAW or MIDI sequencer with Virtual midi support (like Cubasis or Genome) you'll like this app. 

bs-16i is the Soundfonts player and Soundfonts are small sample libraries created specially for wavetable-based synthesizers. 

The app itself doesn't give you any specials - it is just SF2 (soundfonts files) player with keyboard and some controls (filter,lfo, midi routing).

But when you combine this with Audiobus, Virtual midi and huge choice of free SF2 files in the Internet - it is gold.

The app itself has low CPU consumption so it plays nicely with Audiobus and other apps running.

Read this 13 pages thread on KVR forum to find links to cool SF2 files. 

As long as SampleTank doesn't play well with background audio and with other apps like Cubasis, bs-16i is a great addition to expand your iPad sound library.

Cubasis updated with Audiobus support

Cubasis DAW was updated with Audiobus support. Now as it supports both virtual midi and Audiobus you can use external apps like Animoog, Magellan, NLog Synth, iPolysix, iMS-20 and others as VSTs.

For each new device added to Audiobus Cubasis creates new audiotrack with Audio-in from that instrument.

Audioshare with Audiobus support

We didn't review it here before, but this app is very important for complete in-the-box production on the iPad. You keep and organize your music files - audio samples and midi files. And transfer them to your favorite DAW or other music app. It supports "Open in" (so you can transfer your garageband mixdown there), General pasteboard and AudioCopy. 

And now they are on the Audiobus which make this app even more useful.

Cubasis and iPolysix through Audiobus and LoopyHD video

Today KORG updated their apps to support Virtual MIDI and Audiobus. So now we can use our favorite DAWs - Cubasis or BeatMaker (they both support midi out and audio tracks) with KORG apps. And thanks to the Audiobus we can record in audio what we play in iPolysix (you can do the same with iMS-20 or any other synths that support MIDI and Audiobus). I recorded video showing how it's all work together. Try it the same on your iPad!