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.
When you listen to electronic music, what do you prioritise?
When you listen to electronic music, what is it that you first notice, or perhaps first enjoy?
Is it the complexity of the sounds, the harmonic evolutions, the tonal twists, compared with boring old acoustic instruments which can hardly vary their sound at all and have to make do with simply going up and down in frequency and length of amplitudes.
Is it the fact that the author has managed to put interesting sounds together to form something like a coherent song, which you can walk away still whistling, and perhaps remember bits of it later?
Is it the message it conveys, the meaning it has in the societal context, the emotions it evokes, the action it catalyses?
Is it the bloops and blips you can move body parts to? If it’s this one, I’d argue a lot of today’s so—called ‘electronic’ radio-played pop music could’ve been performed two centuries ago with normal vocals and using organs, basses, percussion, whatever else was commonplace at the time, except nobody was doing dance/pop music in the style we adopt today, but there was nothing stopping them if the style was there then.
Comments
Which of your questions do you prioritise?
I like the way the electronic sounds interact, weave and dance magically around each other. I blame Jean Michel Jarre for it all... it was him that got me started.
Yes, arps and sequencers have completely changed the form of music and the ways we can attend to it. But what you prioritise depends on the particular music. The only constant is the thrill of sounds you've never heard before in structures you've never known tugging at emotions you don't know how to name.
Lyrics.
For me, the tonal timbral harmonically complex quality is the thing that I appreciate. I have comparatively less interest in rhythm, melody or harmony – I always took the view that that’s the sort of trick you resort to if you haven’t got an instrument that can change sounds well enough.
Additionally, I’m quite interested in the social effect it has. When I was young, electronic music that was blatantly designed to confuse and piss people off was somewhat appealing (I think they called that ‘experimental music’ back then). Now, I’m equally interested in electronic music that just walks straight in and kicks a demographic in the balls, by parting generations into those that get it and those that keep playing the hits of the 80s. That’s very interesting. More of that, thanks.
I don't say this to be cocky, but coz I believe it to be true: if harmonic and rhythmic structure are not of interest, tonal timbral harmonically complex quality can be found in non-musical environments e.g. certain factories and workshops, or just beyond its walls for more timbral variation from the background ambiance.
Seems that there are plenty of folk these days patching modulars with no aim of achieving structured rhythm, melody or harmony - but to see what the equipment will come up with by itself. All you need to do this is a basic understanding of what modules are, and a load of money for a modular system. But I don't totally dismiss generative "music" on modulars - some have clear plans with an idea of expected outcome which involves complex calculations - but for me this is essentially programming, "musicality" does not come into it.
Those who don’t find harmonic and rhythmic structure of interest probably don’t like music.
Chas : Why don't you - play us a tune, pal?
Turner : I don't like music.
Chas : Comical little geezer. You'll look funny when your fifty.
(Performance, 1970)
Well, I was intending this question to be directed not at the music you generate yourself, but the music that we hear on the radio, online, on a gramophone, you know, extant music already out there. The ‘motive’ behind the music might have been to be successfully sold to as many people as possible, but nobody consumes it for that reason, there’s other things about it that might appeal to us.
I mean, a lot of pop music we’d consider ‘electronic’ has a surprisingly banal and simple bass line that could have been supplied with a bass guitar not a synth. A lot of the chordal stuff isn’t evolving but rather just organ-like stabs or beds. A lot of the melody isn’t there for very long. The most popular electronic music is barely electronic at all.
rhythm and timbre.
It reminds me of some experience of feeling alive.
I’ll just switch thing around.
For me, the rhythm, melody or harmony is the thing that I appreciate. I have comparatively less interest in tonal timbral harmonically complex quality. To me that’s is a song vs some organized sound and rhythm.
No trying to offend anybody.
I think some people focus more on the rhythm other on the melodic aspect. I am definitively in the melodic camp. The drums/rhythm in my songs are very primitive.
For me, its the dynamics of sound, and how it fits in the rythem, like f.e. drum & bass.
I have a vague suspicion that the tide is gently altering direction a bit again. I suspect that when a lot of us grew up, we latched on to a specific thing about the music we heard. Later generations latched on to a different thing, something we didn’t value or prize so much, or perhaps even recognise at all. And now, I think there’s another of those flips. I think the seeking of dance rhythms is becoming less dominant than it has been in recent decades. I think the seeking of tonal interestingness is becoming more than it has been. That’s interesting, if I’m anywhere near on the mark with this.
The human, reaching out through the machine.
uuuh
My all time favourite album regarding dynamics and rhythm is still Advance from LFO, so joyful to dip in.
for me this post was the mic drop...
I'm not sure I quite understand what you are after in this post. These seem to be many different and multi layered questions. All of them interesting but very difficult to answer.
First of all it depends why I am listening to something. For enjoyment or out of professional/musical curiosity. Although those can sometimes go hand in hand.
For enjoyment I have to say that it absolutely depends on the music. I focus on that aspect of a piece that I find most interesting/pleasing. There are some works with interesting sounds but banal melodies - or no melodies at all. A rhythm can be interesting/pleasing but not the actual sound of the drums and the other way around. I often find the melodies of songs great but get really turned off by the voices of the singers.
I think that kind of sums it up for me already. If a piece of music can engage me emotionally then that is it. Job well done. And I think this can happen by any means. The melody, voice, style, timbre, lyrics, political statements, integrated field recordings, etc. Preferably a nice mix of all of it.
Having said all that, I still think that melodies are overrated and nothing without the right sounds. Trying to program a Yamaha QY70 with your favourite songs is not a good idea. I'd definitely rather listen to some nice generative music with a good sound design than that.
Rhythm and shifting syncopated timbres. It all started in an abandoned warehouse surrounded by containers of medical waste with a head full of oblivion.
Fluctuations in line voltage. So much out there with sub-standard power sources. Occasionally there's decent voltage regulation. Good power is a pure sine wave with no extra overtones.
That reminds me of something written in the KLF’s No.1 book, about how the ultimate devolution of dance music (well, as it was when the book was written) would be the ideal 808 kick, and nothing but that throughout the song. No other instruments, no fills, no complexity, just a repetitive 808 kick. That in their opinion was the peak.
I don’t go along with that myself, but there you go, it’s an opinion. I do think the whole electronic music thing is in a struggle at the moment. It doesn’t know which ways to go, so there’s a bit of a Cambrian Explosion especially in hardware. Lots of new specialised weird gear, as well as lots of reentrant revisiting of classics, lots of single purpose things, lots of completely open possibilities, lots of risk.
You have impeccable taste! IMO Advanced is timeless. RIP Mark Bell
I know it when I hear it. Usually what catches my ear are little quirky things, that perhaps other people don’t notice but that I like to amplify and expand upon. Like I may be listening to some random sample and there’s this little half second I think “hey this would sound cool looped”. It’s all about intuition for me, not much of a thought process.
Objectively, though, I appreciate good sound design, hard grooving drums, and that feeling of “damn, this is some fine arrangement “.
There are few little songs I can listen to without thinking I would change something. But sometimes I listen to something so perfect I just stand in awe.
Melody, vocal tonality, Harmonies, hooks, lyrics but most of all originality. Some songs however can be the same nearly all the way through but have a hypnotic groove that keeps your ears and brain interested.
One example is Talking Heads Remain in light album.
All the songs are long apart from Once in a lifetime and all follow a groove rather than a normal song structure, intro, verse, chorus, mid etc. It is made up of a lot of poly rhythms with hooks used just once or twice in a song. Then there is the fabulous Dave Byrne vocals and the way he builds up cross over vocal lines, chants and harmonies and most of all it is truly original!
I like synth's timbre innovations. Interesting rhythms, not necessarily complicated. Catchy grooves and melodies of course.
That was a good album, Remain In Light. I think they managed to de-Eno the end product just enough, not too much, not too little.
Man, I would have to say emotion.
However, if the project has vox it could ultimately make or break the project. Drums and textures are up there as well.
It was a great album to listen on headphones and get stoned.