Audiobus Reviews

I was a user from when Audiobus first appeared, and for the first couple of years it was fantastic …. BUT.. it’s been getting buggier and buggier since, and I can’t remember the last time I used it and it worked the way it was supposed to. Take today’s session for example, I try to load an app into the input. Fails. I have to relaunch Audiobus . Fails. Then I have to restart the entire iPad. Then it finally launches but says it might not perform properly. I select Aurea as my output, and when I launch it, wipes clean everything from the project I was working on, all tracks disappeared! Unbelievable. Fortunately I had a back up. I finally get it recording into Auria, but I have to work on the iPad internal speakers because it won’t recognize my Bluetooth speaker, no sound comes out, ever. So do my recording, go to close Audiobus , and it glitches out and creates a giant volume surge out of the iPad speakers, not great for my tinnitus. Way to go, beginning to end an unpleasant experience. Deleted for good this time.

This is sad. Audiobus is an iOS legend. Completely responsible for getting me into iOS music making. Have a dedicated iPad with hundreds and hundreds of music apps and was still using this app all the time. It was recently sold to new owners… now I am sadly deleting it. Gone are the days of passing the time playing with this app on flights and other times without wifi. Now it needs a connection to check if you have paid for a subscription I guess (barf, I will NEVER do that). Why would I subscribe to an app I’ve owned for probably a decade? Just because you broke it and it won’t work correctly unless I do? Nope. At least introduce some exciting new features and a roadmap of what you expect in the future if you’re going to push a subscription. I would still dump Audiobus but at least it wouldn’t feel scammy.

Ever since I got my 10.5 ...I bought BeatMaker 3...hoping to transition from my iPhone to a larger format...I mainly use NI iMaschine2...which is getting long in the tooth ..but I’m highly efficient and it is my goto pocket production tool. Moving on to the iPad I wanted a newer updated experience using some of my soft synths I love but couldn’t incorporate with iMaschine2 easily so I purchased AudioCopy to make it a reality...

Honestly I hate the way I have to connect it through beatmaker3.. there’s no easy way to use it with out coming out of the bm3...I can’t change patches...it’s clumbersome..and don’t see a need to use it since bm3 can see most of my synths through audio units...

So that’s a waste of money to me and for my workflow...it’s meh!

It’s sad that Audiobus doesn’t have a simple, or any, for that matter, built-in function to record individual tracks or the stereo mix for export to other apps. Not everybody wants to open an entire daw or another app just to capture a few sketches. It’s a disappointing oversight, because with the state-saving, if it had this simple function, it would have been so much more elegant & useful for saving templates to capture sketches, exporting to samplers, etc, and only then going to a daw. Extremely unreliable with Cubasis, as well, so, damned one way or the other. Wish I could get a refund. Grrrrr.

this app 3 was the glue of my music app setup for years. During my last flight I discovered that it had been broken. It appears to have been purchased by some other company that decided to implement an always-online component that can only be avoided with a subscription. It doesn’t matter if you paid full price in the past, it’s downgraded for everyone. Phones are usually online so who cares, right? Normally you might not notice, but if you are on a flight, in a cellular dead zone, or away from wifi, Audiobus becomes useless.

I want to love this app but I showed up too late to this party. Bought Audiobus without first checking the developer forum 🙄and I guess this makes it my fault that it doesn’t work properly within the updated iOS world and with GarageBand. I know the developer didn’t cause the problems instead it’s caused by the tight and difficult apple company, but it would have been nice to be informed of this in Audiobus Store, and not hidden somewhere in the www.
Trying to find solutions which require more app purchases like the fun but not to precise loopy, or perhaps ill skip this plan and go straight to AUM, $30 later...
Bummer.

UPDATE:
Recent update has resolved IAA zombie process issue and removed incessant "continue" button. Initial app launch is still slow (trying to phone home?), and highly inappropriate identity trackers still exist. Even so, an improvement from before.

OLD: My my... They've actually managed to make it worse... After years without any usability improvements and few bug fixes, this new patch introduces an incessant "continue" button on the boot splash instead of just launching the interface as before, as well as breaks IAA even further (now they launch as zombie processes, requiring manual intervention or even reboot). Worst of all, IT NOW CONTAINS TRACKERS.

Audiobus is very, very good, except for one small problem. As a voiceover user, I cannot access the mixer controls. Voiceover, which is a screen reader built into all iOS devices, tells me that the mixer tab is dimmed or grade out. This makes it impossible for me to actually access these controls, which means that as a mobile Internet broadcaster, my levels are always at the highest end of the scale and in danger of clipping. If we can get this fixed in the next Version, I would be very, very grateful.

Aside from that, I’m very happy with the functionality of this up. Great work guys!

Once I figured it out, it was what I was looking for without knowing it. I like certain sims and other fx sims. I can pull an IR, a drive from Bias, an amp from THu, stand-alone mod n time, and keep up with my CPU. Amazing what even an old iPhone can pull off CPU wise. I now record all my guitars on my iPhone in the garage or on the back porch or at the lake. Still a lil nervous about gigging with it but…..

Currently walking the dog while using AB3 to apply different effects to a drum app’s individual channels. AND! I’m using its’ (AB3) state saving feature to save my initial setup so I can recall it later. I love being able to throw a compressor on a kick or add some reverb using apps from different developers. If they got this app baked in, this phone/iPad gonna be bumping bumping.

Thx for Audiobus and. And!... the AB forum as well. Invaluable. For realsies!!!

Rock solid. Indispensable for getting sound into your iDAW (I use Auria via AUM for guitar, bass and drums). State saving is a time saver. If you have a music app that doesn’t support this app ... is it truly a music production app? this app is the gold standard - and the this app Forum is the online water cooler - of the iOS musician community. If your goal is to make music with an iPhone or iPad, and you are new to this process, you will definitely want Audiobus. Read the description and press “buy.”

I use this with NanoStudio—which does not allow you to have hovering AUv3 plugin windows. I wanted to measure real-time LUFS loudness using Youlean Loudness Meter. this app will let you turn Audiobus in to a hovering window, by clicking the 3 dots at the top and press the slide over icon. This is very useful, if you want to monitor your mix, without having to go to the channel and tap the icon everytime. You cannot do that in AUM. THANK YOU!

From connecting any of the compatible apps on their site to making a custom oscillation and generated instrument for a kit for sale? This is it. The depth of possibilities are huge. It has a transport that will sync with a daw. And it connects instruments and effects in a way few apps in the world can. If all apps worked like this? The future would be cool. Meaning this is so far ahead of anything you thought possible on an iOS device that you could watch videos all day about what people do with this app and it is all new. Every day people figure out more stuff it can do. So you do all that and save the preset? It loads and connects every compatible app (100’s) for you. It’s like all the wires of a real studio. In one hand. Did I convey I more than like it? I have needed this app and have used it 10+ years. It’s extremely fun as well.

I got this way back before the current version. It was a game changer then. Lots of apps have compatibility but not even close to the scale of this. They keep adding apps and improving. I don’t use my computer setup much anymore because it is much more cumbersome and the abilities the IPad lacked in the past are virtually gone. This along with a good iOS interface an iPad and maybe some mics(drums) can save you a couple grand.

this app 3 is endless fun for any musician who appreciates iOS music apps. Just make sure the iOS music apps you own are compatible with this app 3 and make sure your iPad/iPhone is powerful enough to run everything.

Great way to quickly mix sounds from different apps. For me it’s mostly just a fun way to jam and play around live, but I can see it being useful during production as a “sketch pad” to get your ideas out.

If you own a couple of music apps that support this app and especially if you own a few Audio Unit intruments or effects, you are doing yourself a big disfavor if you don't own Audiobus yet.

It puts all the pieces of the audio routing puzzle together and lets everything jive together as a perfect matching ensemble. And version 3.1 takes it even a step further with the great new workflow improvements.

I started out with this app years ago but at some point when AUM got released I moved away from this app. However with version 3.1.1 and the improved and very solid support for Audio Units it has drawn me back into the this app camp and feels like returning home. Thanks to the developer's fantastic support it also fixed a couple of technical issues i was having and everything now plays like a dream.

Highly recommended app. Get it now if you don't own it yet!
Full five star rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and both thumbs up 👍👍

Review Edited: I was having some trouble with my app dying when using AUv3 plugins for effects, and rated Audiobus , as such. The developer reached out to me personally and told me where to go for assistance with support issues, and assured me that they would help me resolve it as quickly as possible.

I am now on my way to getting the issue resolved, and other than that, Audiobus does a great job at routing audio from one app to another and allowing multiple apps to be used simultaneously and routed to a common output or recording app. I have updated my review score accordingly.

When it comes to communicating between music apps, this app is the best. I will be the first to admit that I have a very simple workflow, not relying on multiple effects to create my sounds. I prefer to adjust my sound in Audiobus itself. With the addition of the IAP of Midi Learn for only $2.99 I free myself from having to use the on pad controls, using my Midi Control Surfaces instead. Start, Stop, Switch between apps, Mix, Adjust; all these and more are now at my fingertips. Ableton Link insures everything is in time. And with one of the most robust support communities at the this app forums you just can’t go wrong.

I’m using a CEntrance MicPortPro with a Sennheiser microphone. Audiobus lets me see and select available interfaces. In the case of the MicPortPro, this app lets me select left channel, right channel, both, or any combination. Accidentally selected both left and right, plus right, resulting in higher levels (actually sounded better). No other app I’ve seen gives you this kind of control. After you select your input, you can add plug ins and Route the audio out to Audiobus of your choice ( in my case Twisted Wave). Indispensable. Suddenly using an iPhone to record voiceover isn’t such a cumbersome effort.

One of my most used music apps for several years now. It allows me to quickly test out ideas and make sketches that I can then easily export (as either audio or midi) for further elaboration on my laptop computer. I can hardly think of any improvements that I would make to it because it’s just that well designed and coded.