Radical change in pricing policy on IOS → Playbeat 4 on the App Store
I’m sure it used to be a one-off purchase for about £15. Now it’s in-app purchases (I haven’t yet looked at what you get for free in the base app).
Just bought 3 last week and missed refund window…Facepalm !
Dusted off the ipad and got Grooverider 2 last night, and i gotta say i’m seriously impressed!
I loved the first one but the sound engine was quite limited, especially when it came to mixing and fx. This not only addresses that and adds plugin support, but also lets you mix and beatmatch between project files, how genius is that?
How is everyone who got it liking it so far? Are you still in the honeymoon period?
For me there’s a bit of immediacy lost with the sequencing compared to version 1, but that’s made up for with how great the interface for the clip editor is.
It’s funny, while checking out the app I was consciously looking for things i don’t like as much compared to my elektrons while absent-mindly doodling my way through the feature-set, and after an hour i had a track going that was WAY better sounding than what i’d be able to pull off in an entire afternoon using an octatrack, a syntakt and an mpc live together. I wasn’t even thinking about it!
I then went on to figure out how to sync it with hardware, which is fairly straightforward if you also have AUM:
- Connect a Digi box with USB audio (syntakt in my case) to the ipad and use it as an interface
- Open AUM and enable MIDI output to said digi box (which will send clock to the rest of your setup)
- Load Grooverider 2 as an IAA node in AUM, enable “IAA Host Sync” in the settings in Grooverider 2, no need for ableton link. Create a simple beat/metronome and start playback.
- Back in AUM tweak the MIDI clock offset until Hardware and Software are perfectly in Sync together. This is important, having it only 1.5-3 or so ms off can make it feel like there’s timing jitter, but in fact in my experience the clock is actually super tight.
The only downside is that pressing play/stop on the hardware won’t control transport on the ipad.
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This is why people are pleading AUM developers for years to implement external clock possibility. Eh…
Bought gr2 myself on release, but still haven’t chance to play with it.
Though i use AUM also to route digitakt and use all ios plugins, my wish was always to have dedicated elektron ios app, like overbridge, to be able to see all tracks and effects that Elektron boxes can offer, since AUM acts as a mixer.
Saying this, there is a “hack” you can use in order to give transport control to Elektron using Audiobus app, setup Elektron as main clock and run AUM within Audiobus.
The only downside of this method is that sync minimum is set to one bar, and can’t be changed.
So any app with their own sequencer (gr2 f.e.) will have 1 bar pause at the transport start
there’s good reasons it doesn’t have that though.
devices like laptops and tablets usually have quite large amounts of latency compared to hardware instruments due to the buffer size of their audio callbacks.
this allows for a lot more computations to be done, with the drawback that it takes a few milliseconds to generate the audio. this gets even more complicated once you bring plugins into the equation, which can generate even more latency. most DAWs (including AUM) have mechanisms in place where the varying amounts of latency in all parts of the system are always monitored and compensated by delaying other parts of the system so that everything ends up being in sync, with the result being that the total latency is always determined by the weakest link in the chain.
as long as AUM (or any other DAW) is sending clock to external hardware it is possible to always factor in this latency compensation into the amount of offset that clock signal needs to ensure things stay in time. AUM is extra generous here in that it allows users to adjust these offset values manually, which is good for digital hardware that more often than not has its own internal latency as well.
if you tried this the other way around you’d have a problem though: imagine your AUM session had a total latency of 15 milliseconds, and you’d be trying to clock it from an elektron box.
if AUM immediately started calculating audio by the time the MIDI “START” message and the clock stream arrive, the resulting audio would be 15 milliseconds late. but since we can’t look into the future the only solution would be to either temporarily speed up the internal clock to catch up with the external one, which would sound weird and wonky, or to wait 1 or more bars before starting playback, which would frustrate users too.
and all of that is assuming you’re able to pull of a reliable PLL that manages to follow the clock signal within a handful of audio callbacks, which is much less straightforward than you might think.
it’s exactly these kinds of issues of synchronizing between digital systems that have latency that led to the invention of ableton link, and if more hardware manufacturers were to implement it (which thankfully is happening more and more) we could finally say goodbye to these hassles.
in the meantime the way AUM has implemented things is hands-down one of the easiest and most reliable ways of syncing to external gear that i’ve encountered so far.
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There’s a very simple solution to all that, though.
Allow MIDI clock in, and have an offset slider to adjust, which goes both positive and negative.
This is how Drambo works.
Even better (but not necessary) is if your sending device has the same slider (I send MIDI from Ableton to Drambo).
Ofc it can’t see into the future, but to avoid missing the first notes you simply have 4 empty bars at the start of a song.
It all works well, excepting an amount of jitter which is unavoidable.
I don’t use Aum anymore so it’s not an issue for me personally. However, there’s no real reason why Aum couldn’t have it.
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I would still love to have option to choose from
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well i mean you just said it - the “simple” solution in drambo requires adding empty bars before playback (which only really works in a linear song mode), and also has considerable timing jitter (which is in fact avoidable as AUM doesn’t have it).
drambo also doesn’t do plugin latency compensation at all, which can lead to a lot of headscratching and frustration if you don’t know what’s going on under the hood, and even if you do it requires a lot of convoluted workarounds to implement yourself.
ymmv of course but i’ve had nothing but headaches trying to sync drambo with elektron machines in the past.
i guess the only “real reason” why the devs behind AUM don’t implement MIDI clock input the way drambo does is that they are aware of these issues and don’t want to invest time and effort into providing such a limited/flawed feature to their users, as it would clash with the otherwise very slick and streamlined nature of the app.
in contrast, with drambo being the modular toolbox it is beepstreet can totally expect their users to be happy and willing to come up with their custom solutions and workarounds. different strokes for different folks.
the good thing is that there’s a choice for both your and my preferences.
It works in any mode, I simply mean, at the very start of the your session, you let it run for 4 bars. Many easy ways to do this, have a blank clip, or turn the master output down for those bars. Once it’s running it’s fine.
MIDI timing jitter is unavoidable for any app, as it’s down to the MIDI coming into the system, although in most cases you wouldn’t notice or care. It depends what you’re doing obviously, but is not a problem for Drambo or other apps.
Each app probably has their own way of ‘smoothing’ any clock jitter. I’ve found that unless you’re changing tempo rapidly whilst playing, it’s fine.
I can see how this would be an issue for some people in certain situations. I’m playing and jamming live (like many people would be if they were syncing their hardware to Aum), which means you need all forms of latency compensation turned off anyway.
I really don’t think adding MIDI clock in to Aum would be a limited or flawed feature… anymore than the fact that MIDI is inherently flawed by the nature of being a very old system, still used today.
I don’t think it would clash with the slick nature of Aum etc. MIDI clock, and clocking in general, can be tricky to set up and get right. That’s the responsibility of the user to get right, as long as it’s implemented and available in the first place.
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I couldn’t agree more. So many people have requested it over the years but the suggestion is still shot down. I don’t need hand holding. Put the feature in and let users decide if they want to use it or not.
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Is it shot down? I think I’ve seen the developer’s post stating they are working on it.
I’d even get it as an IAP. AUM is nice, but not really useful with external hardware because of this.
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I could be mistaken as I have not looked into it for a long time. But I believe the developer has said in the past they did not feel it was needed. Regardless, I do know that users have been clamoring for it for a very long time.
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Hoping it’ll be added at some point!
In other news I heard Octatrack MK3 is coming soon, it’s being developed by Lord Lucan at his base on the moon! 
Seriously though, Aum is a great app and maybe we’ll get the syncing added one day!
I guess nobody has an idea?
My work around to get AUM to sync to hardware with stop/start and match BPM is to use LoopyPro as slave to Digitakt so that it plays/stops when I play/stop on Digitakt, then just turn on Ableton Link in both LoopyPro and AUM, AUM will then start/stop in sync with hardware.
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Got GR2 last week, loving it so far. My main complaint is that some parts of the workflow are a bit clunky (no real step sequencer, piano roll is fiddly on a Mini 5, no retrigs).
The main idea of it is great and it feels like the most complete fusion of a groovebox with a DAW.
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On the steps page simply press the instrument name on the left to solo then slide to solo all. You can then just tap what you want to mute. I’d prefer dedicated solo AND mute buttons.
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I’m still really enjoying it.
It hasn’t taken the crown from Drambo though.
I thought only reverb was convoluted 
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Lately I’ve been having a lot of fun using the trigger outs of a drum machine to run sequences on my td-3 and sh-01a. I love how it can change a 16 note sequence into a 4 bar structure. I know this is the basis of most modular synth setups, but watered down with x0x to synth trigger.
Are there any iOS sequencers that can do this?
Ideally, something where the pattern triggers and note sequence are decoupled. An x0x interface would be perfect, even Drambo’s native sequencer, which moves another sequence to the next note, respecting ties, rests, slides. And then the sound would be produced by an auv3 synth.
I have Cykle and it seems like it’s closest to this.
I’ve also been able to build this in Drambo, but the UI of the cv and gate sequencers feels off.
I figured I’d ask if anyone knew of other potential sequencers before going on a blind buying spree.