Audiobus vs Virtual Midi

iKMultimedia has a new e-piano app out that sounded great at NAMM last month. Unfortunately it doesn’t support Audiobus but it does support Virtual Midi. Can you still use this in Cubasis?

You can record in the IK app and then copy and paste the audio to Cubasis. And you can use Virtual Midi to drive the app from Cubasis. Audiobus makes the process more seamless (effectively replacing the copy and paste steps and ensuring that everything stays in sync) but there are still ways to use other apps like iLectric that are not (yet?) on the bus.

Thanks Phil! Not sure why the iK guys missed the Audiobus support and, unfortunately, I wasn’t using Cubasis at the time I saw them at NAMM…otherwise I would have heckled them during the demo :wink:

Does virtual MIDI paint an audio track like Audiobus does or is it just MIDI info like recording directly to VSTi’s from within Cubasis?

Thanks again!

Virtual Midi is just Midi data but it allows you to control one app from another within the same device without any Midi cables etc. So you can control Sampletank from Cubasis or play Thumbjam from Geo Synth for example. I understand that Ik is working on adding Audiobus to the Sampletank app, that will probably be the first. My view is that we are rapidly reaching the stage that any serious music app is going to have to have Audiobus before people will even consider getting it. No AB, No Sale!

Ok, understood and I agree completely about the lack of AB resulting in lack of interest from consumers. Thanks for the great info Phil!

Ik Multimedia has mentioned on their Facebook page that Audiobus support is coming. Unfortunately it also sounded like it is 2 updates away since they were already working on other features before they even considered Audiobus. This goes for SampleTank. ilectric Piano, iGrand etc.

But you never know, they may surprise us.

Until IKM support Audiobus here is a workaround - I made a little tutorial:

I see an opportunity for a whole new series of how to videos… Great explanation and excellent work.