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Export Audio from Orba

I really enjoy the Orba and also the internal sounds to play around.


I understand, that in the App I can save the loop, in midi I suppose, but I didn't find a way to export the song created into an audio file (e.g. mp3) or in a midi file to further process in a DAW.


Is there a way to export and if not, it would be great to have a way to share the music created.

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There is currently no way to export the Audio that the Orba creates, afaik. Your best bet would be to plug the headphone jack into a recording device/Line-In, start playing the loop on the Orba and record the audio coming from the headphone jack.


The songs aren't saved in midi either, they use a proprietary format that can be read as xml, I think. Artiphon is working on making midi exports available more easily, not sure about audio exporting. This would be harder to achieve aswell, since the sounds are all created by the synth engine on the Orba - so to save a song the Orba itself would have to be able to create .wav/.mp3 files, I'm nto sure this is technically possible even.

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It quite honestly seems like a huge oversight on the part of the developers. Why would anyone create a digital instrument that can be used as a MIDI controller, but missing the ability to export? 

My own theory is that forcing the songs to be loaded and played on the device itself, also coerces people into advertising the product as the easiest way for many people to share the audio would be to simply record the device in action. 

Apologies if this sounds overly-suspicious. I love the Orba, and so far the Artiphon staff have been reasonably helpful; but I was very surprised when I received my Orba today and discovered there is no export function... 

You can access the files on a Mac at least.

Plug in the Orba, open finder. Click GO on the top bar. Hold Option, click on Library when it appears. Then Artiphon folder > Orba > Songs. They are in .song format at the bottom. Find a way to convert the .song file and you're set.

If you want to have what is on your Orba as midi so you can play it in a DAW, like GarageBand or Ableton Live, you can set Orba as a midi input on a track in the DAW. Then you can put any sound generator on that track and start editing, remixing, or adding to the song.
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"You can access the files on a Mac at least."


This sounds like damage control to me. Many users are not on Mac, and many other users have said the songs do not export properly and do not sound proper when converted; so that isn't very helpful. 

The main complaint here being the ethics of a company that repeatedly makes promises while refusing to deliver, and concentrates it's efforts on advertising gimmicks. 
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No what we want is to be able to plug in the Orba and download the songs we made on the Orba.

Jason, your comment looks like your has been blacked out somehow. We definitely did not do that. 


Your comment:


"This sounds like damage control to me. Many users are not on Mac, and many other users have said the songs do not export properly and do not sound proper when converted; so that isn't very helpful. 


The main complaint here being the ethics of a company that repeatedly makes promises while refusing to deliver, and concentrates it's efforts on advertising gimmicks. "

We are working on upcoming features. We are usually not talking about unreleased features. The song exporting as audio is an exception since it was public for a short time. We had to remove it because there were some very difficult bugs in it. Exporting a song in an app from an external synth (Orba) means you have to run the entire same engine from the synth (Orba) as an emulation in the app to render the exact same audio that the synth produced with the same musical information, note start/end, gestures, etc. There is no synthesizer with an editor app that can render and export the audio from a hardware synth, with maybe one or two exceptions, for that reason. We have the midi information and the synth patch information but there is no audio on Orba that could just be downloaded. Similar to just playing a synth- you don't get a rendered audio file to export but you would have to record the synth's output in real-time. This not a straightforward standard feature and we are working on it.

There really needs to be a way to make a song created into an export, otherwise, what's the point of this thing

I dont get it. Why not run the orba as Extertal blootooth Microphone. What I mean is let the orba play and at the same time the app will record the output sound. Herewith you will have an export or am I missing something. Then you will have an 8 bar long sample which you can further line up and addit in another software.

The point is - I would assume - to take this instrument and just play it. Like you don't grab your guitar only to produce a track

Sorry Mortimer, I don't mean this to sound snippy but by that logic, there wouldn't be any need to record or save anything you play on the Orba. Why be able to save your loops if not to build a song to enjoy or share later? 


I just got my Orba and I'm obsessed with it. I am not a musician so there's a big learning curve for me when it comes to understanding what Arne said above, but I'm learning; that's how I ended up here. 


At the end of the day, I'd just like to agree with Volker and say that I hope this is a feature that's coming soon. 

Hi Kenny, sry man, seems like only the first half of my post was sent!
(seems like the problem was that I used an emote)

Sure, one thing is to just grab that awesome instrument and play along (that was just refering to what might be the point at all) but I added that I totally get the need to save Your progress! Absolutely!

Right now I'm helping myself with the built in function (couldn't send a picture of my awesome cover arrangement either) but I also hope that there will be an easy midi or even mp3 output.

Btw, where are the song and preset files located? They're not in my program folder...

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Thanks Mortimer. Yeah, I hear that. Funny thing for me is - the only instrument I have (or could even hope to use) IS the Orba! But I do play along with the loops I'm able to make, and that is pretty awesome. 


I edit digital video as part of what I do for a living. I produce short films with young people. Something I was hoping to be able to do is to create music to underscore a video using the Orba. I was excited to see that the Orba is actually something that I could actually use to do that. (I love that Orba makes music accessible to folks who are otherwise not skilled musicians.) So I was pretty surprise to learn that I couldn't export an Mp3. 


I was able to find the .song files using the instructions above, but it looks pretty difficult to convert them. 

Sounds great Kenny! And I get that being your own composer is ideal as a video or multimedia creator.

I tried some online converter (midi-to-mp3) and the results were... hilarious^^
My Seven-Nation-Army Remix was transformed into a 3 hour long code reading!

But I will not give up

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