Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Comments
For me the album cover ‘experience’ is tied to vinyl sleeves.
As a teenager spending hours listening to a brand new album (bought with the little pocket money i had) while studying every inch of the sleeve (sniffing it too)
They did smell nice, the records too. My green vinyl copy of Steve Hillages Green smells lovely.
I miss the whole experience of picking out an album to listen to. Carefully taking it out of its cover and placing it on the turntable. listening over my stereo systems speakers. No iDevices . Nice
What is interesting to think about is album cover vs. VIDEO. Prior to the 80s and MTV, the album cover served as the only visual to contextualize the story of the songs. So many great albums of that time — Dark Side Of The Moon, Led Zeppelin albums, Yes Roger Dean paintings, Bowie albums ... the Stones’ Sticky Fingers with it’s Warhol zipper! Then you got the lyrics, credits, maybe a gatefold or an occasional poster, but the rest was up to you to make up in your own imagination.
All that changed in the 80s. Then video kinda waned for a bit in the 90s. And now it’s the YouTube era, and the whole thing has been flipped upside down. The video might be your starting point for discovering an artist, and the music part of it (be it an album or a single or an EP), which was once the whole point, might be something that the audience never even gets to.
MonzoPro : Pretentious Art Project
Here is a very quick mock up of Album Art for PAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Looks a bit smeared.
I'l give myself the sack
I’m touched!
Oh, one more question. When creating an album cover for digital release only, you obviously make the “front” cover, do you also consider the equivalent of a “back” cover, and make that too? As a separate artwork?
a picture is worth a thousand nonthoughts.
The old LP album covers were beautiful, readable, and sometimes even functional. I bet I've got some old double-LPs in a box up in my attic somewhere that have seeds and stems still trapped stuck in the inner fold.
Vinyl album covers played an important social role, too.
When friends came round they would often carefully select one to roll on. This was a ritual that helped validate your standing in the community: friends could see what you had in your collection - and would comment as they went though it - and would further endorse your taste (with any luck) by what they finally picked to use.
It was a bonding experience that kept the group tight.
For me the biggest break in the various traditions of ‘music packaging’ came with the CD.
Even with all that storage they failed to allocate any to record the track name.
So people went from knowing the title of the song (a key part of it) to only knowing it as ‘Track 3’.
And aren’t vinyl and CD covers pretty much the only square art form?
Let's not forget cutting out and wearing the mustaches and stuff in Sgt. Pepper.
.http://www.feelnumb.com/2011/11/09/the-beatles-sgt-pepper-lonely-hearts-club-band-album-insert-cut-outs-art/
Well, photography:
https://flic.kr/p/GVw3v
https://flic.kr/p/dMuNR
Interesting points. But I think it's more complex. Before the 80s you had tv shows and even a lot of wat you could see as short promo movies like music video that did contextualize the songs. The most important vehicle to promote songs was the looks and clothes the musicians were wearing. So people could recognize the type of music through the looks. Hence most covers where in the first place just pictures of the musicians dressed in a certain way. In the 60s the fashion statements moved slowly to visual styles that came with certain (youth) cultures. So their was more and more a shift to different album covers (in ceratin culture) than only pictures. This peaked in the 70s with the status album cover artists booming. An artists as Roger Dean reached solely fame through his work of producing album covers for the band YES. You also pointed to. An album was at that time more than than a piece of vinyl, it was the whole package. This whole packing continued just into the 80s and became at that time even more important with the booming of the DIY culture (with amongst others also cassettes as a means of distributing) that did some weird packaging.
I see the shift towards a downfall of packaging in the collapsing records business caused by the introduction of cd's that really started to take of in the mid 80s. Recordstores and (indepent) distribution channels started slowly collapsing. Albums that once were more than a piece of vinyl became now a standarized package lost their attractiveness. Most younger people I know just stream Spotfy and let the algoritms do the work. They hardly don't bother to look at the images that come with the songs. Though as you say there's of course still a large audience that goes to YT, but again also most young people go there for the music and hardly are interested in how the videos look. It's just to listen you favorite tracks for free. I think music because it came so easy and nearly free accesible it lost it's value for a lot of people.
Once in a while a certain video becomes trending in the social media because music and video have something to talk about as for example Drake's God's Plan or Childish Gambino This is America.
“What is an album cover” makes me think of the cover of “Go 2” by XTC. The cover was made by Hipgnosis who made covers for Pink Floyd, 10cc and others
Thanks to put the albumcover in a historical context @Lady_App_titude and @mannix
I would say the album cover became finally obsolete with the growing importance of streaming services. Because you just subscibe to a catalog of an endless series of songs the value of owning sometime declined. You can listen to (nearly) everything you want instanly. Possession of a piece of culture (the piece of vinyl with a great record sleeve or even a cd with a boring cover) was the key. Vinyl or a CD was actually something you threw money at because it was of some value to you. With the loss of this an image (cover) of whatever accompanied with a song doesn't matter anymore. Unless of course it's picked up in the social media for it's shocking or political message people just don't bother anymore. Good point also made by mannix.
An all time great cover
and an all time greatest free 12" dub versions ep that came with the first few 1000 copies
GO+ ep.... a high point of accessible 'weird'
also you gotta love how you have to take the insert out and line it up with the back sleeve to read it properly.. attention to detail.. death to the streamers!!! ;-)
My guy did, at least. He was thorough and good.
And to answer the question