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
I’ve recently started building and modifying guitars from used parts and spare pieces, basically just trying to build Frankenstein guitars for specific sounds and tunings, learning how to set them up and replace electronics, so I suppose this is kind of like woodworking and electrical work, but without an actual woodshop. Certainly I’m not carving out my own guitar bodies and necks, simply modifying friends’ junk guitars or buying pieces and putting them together. Most important thing with building guitars is a good straight neck and high quality pickups. Anyway it’s fun. I’ve also gotten into brewing my own beer. That and baseball and fatherhood and iOS music making, that’s basically my life right now. Don’t see a real need to sing or practice singing every day since there are no gigs. If I got a lead role tomorrow I’d just go and do that.
I’ve played guitar my whole life and in many bands so that’s my main songwriting tool, I also play bass and drums, played drums in a pop band once, nothing fancy but I know my way around a drumset. And I’m proficient in piano as a result of two music degrees. So throughout my life I’ve written many songs and pieces of music, several albums worth. That was my passion before opera became a career. While on the road I always spent time composing on my phone in GarageBand and laying down tracks, mostly midi and virtual instruments and sometimes vocals and guitar. Lots of instrumental and ambient music as well. Last year I started wanting to expand my production skills and really become a one man band, to produce my ideas and have more creative output and an outlet besides just the job of singing opera. The need for more creative output has always been eating at me. So it became clear that mobile music production and iOS was becoming a legitimate studio quality force. I got myself an iPad, spent several months just researching and learning Auria Pro, Cubasis, AUM, modular, guitar apps, fx, and getting to know the ecosystem. My goal has been to teach myself how to best run my home studio, to learn how to mix and master, but also to record my music and make some albums, to learn how to collaborate with others and to better arrange and compose. Sure I could sell an album for $5, but this isn’t about that. I’m trying to learn if I can function in a mobile music production world and expand or even pivot my skills. But mostly it’s to express myself and to present my work to the universe. I’ve already “made it” as a musician but I want to fulfill my other creative dreams and musical ideas, and apparently I now have an indefinite amount of free time to achieve this in our almost apocalypse dumpster fire of a world.
Lots of successful singers are using their name and fame to teach lessons online. I could do that and have done it a little, but that’s not my main focus right now. I decided early on that I didn’t want to take money from students by virtually teaching a live art form that depends on live acoustic. I suppose I should teach more for people of all levels, I’d be an asset. Just felt weird to take money for lessons when there are zero jobs. Lots of singers are also making free opera content and virtually promoting themselves with living room recitals or as I call them “underwear arias”, to stay relevant. Again I don’t feel drawn to that, it doesn’t pay, and it’s not how opera is meant to be presented anyway. I’m putting all
My energy into fatherhood and my home studio in the basement, where I spend all my free time playing guitar, composing, and recording. The more opera doesn’t come back the more I could consider expanding my studio into voice over, collab, arranging, using my trained skills etc... but opera will come back again and I’ll be grinding from city to city again, but by then I will have also learned how to be a mobile recording studio producer, so win-win...
I wish you well.
I was pitched by a clever enterprise on learning to play guitar well:
https://www.guitarmasteryintensive.com/
They only accept 40 students per grouping (quarterly?) and they charge $6,000 to
participate. $240K/quarter or $1M enterprise.
They have assembled an excellent staff of teachers and "good news/bad news" post free FaceBook video tips made by their instructors.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=905505973274778
Similar to the type of training available from Udemy, TrueFire, and many YouTube channel
instructors. Their pitch claims they produce a more focused path to excellence. So, is excellence worth $6,000 compared to going to Berkelee. The main benefits of Berkelee would be the contacts and all the ensemble experiences to augment the instrumental instruction and getting a more general musical education.
It’s marketing, and people all just trying to make a buck, more power to them. Sure it would help someone play better, largely because they would be compelled to practice as a result of having skin in the game. It’s nothing that you can’t find for free or through your own curiosity though.
And you’re right about connections and experiences at a place like Berkelee, it can certainly pave the way. I know two guitarists who are Berkeley graduates, one is totally amazing and plays in a few great bands in the Bay Area, and the other sucks really bad and is also a petulant asshole.
I was actually looking a few months ago at the Sound Engineering degree Berkelee is offering completely online this year. It looked quite interesting and tuition is sharply discounted. However, a large part of the curriculum is literally the exact same things we do and hash out on this forum. The Audiobus forum should just offer a Music Production or Audio/Sound Engineering degree using artificial intelligence to cull and curate all it has to offer.
Talk about an education...
The first half of your sentence got me excited:
but that second half is deadly and could take a lot of money to develop:
I'll finish the first half without really committing to anything extra ordinary:
The Audiobus forum should have a Music Production or Audio/Sound Engineering
(wait for it) Thread with a pointer to (our) Wiki.
UPDATE: I started the University thread.
@McD should I be sorry for exciting you? That wiki page seems incomplete, nothing comes up when I type in “TH-U” or “NS2 whiners”. Seriously though, this forum is a real education. There should be a designated faculty and rigorous testing of members. Just one split second of digital clipping and you’re expelled...
Wiki's require subject matter experts to document their research. @_Ki, @espiegel123 and many others have poured hours of work into the Wiki. TH-U is really a marginal app in the
old of IOS Music Production but a page on Guitar Amp Sims would be an excellent idea.
NS2 Whining has it's own forum:
https://www.blipinteractive.co.uk/community/index.php?p=/categories/general
They are a pretty well behaved reverential lot in general and the odd Whiner gets
handled like a Heckler at Mass.
Thanks for pointing out the wiki resource it’s great, as is the search bar atop the forum of course. Regarding NS2 I will repeat the same trope, I actually love the look and layout and how it operates, but so much of what I do depends on audio tracks that it’s only a partial asset for me.
Every great University has a Wiki... you just need to pay for access.
(NOTE TO BURSAR: Monetize the wiki using BitCoin, PayPal or Patreon).
Google "Trump University" to avoid common pitfalls.
I’m not a fan of modern musicals as I find them stylistically corny. I loathe the predictable finale of the big straight tone note that’s held forever kind of flat and finally released into vibrato. Just proves my point that vibrato is natural and free. However, there’s a huge audience and fan base for Broadway and the performers are truly extremely talented dancers and singers. I was floored when I saw Kelli O’Hara.
@McD I have a death wish so I’m downloading iOS14 both on the iPad and iPhone. Cue the Appocalypse...
Google for context:
I love context.
I saw her perform the entire role last year at Roundabout in NYC, it was perfection from beginning to end. The entire production was stunningly executed and choreographed. Kiss me Kate can seem thematically dated for a modern audience but whatever, “Tom, Dick, or Harry” is a raunchy masterpiece. Any musical, opera, or movie from back in the day can be seen as misogynist, anti-feminist, or racist, etc...
Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter
Story line based on Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew"
Cole Porter wrote the best lyrics, loaded with double entendres.
The movie poster was pretty racy for the time:
I thought Titanic was a great musical. Not a big fan of ALW, however.
@JoyceRoadStudios What did you think of the many Movie Musical singers:
Howard Keel
John Raitt
Mario Lanza
and the modern lot:
Josh Groban
Michael Buble
You may be candid because you're point of view is unlike anyone that hasn't spent a lifetime
perfecting an operatic voice. I'm curious if any of these voices came close to stage capability.
An Operatic Voice has had limited commercial potential since the 80's I think but being able to fill a theater will always keep a well trained voice working but not for the really big ticket roles which increasingly go to actors like Hugh Jackman or even Johnny Depp in "Sweeney Todd". The audience seems to prefer the actors and is willing to accept mic's on stage too.
Technology has changed the analog world.
Mary Martin (I Gotta Crow!)
Mary Martin (I Gotta Crow!)
Mary Martin (I Gotta Crow!)
An answer in several parts:
A great singer or great voice will always be that no matter what genre. They can move us with consummate technique or a unique tone, or a great ability to communicate. I’m a big fan of John Raitt, he’s a thrilling singer with a big range. Howard Keel has a a great baritone voice. Mario Lanza was a good tenor by operatic standards. Michael Buble and Josh Groban are pop singers, and they’re fine. Sure their Christmas album will sound better the Jello Biafra’s. Josh Groban is not wearing a heavy wig and 60 pound costume under blinding stage lights, slaying dragons or sopranos with his acting skills, following a conductor and pumping out high notes for 3 hours straight. He’s making popular albums. Opera is more of an athletic endeavor.
You mention theater filling voices. America has really huge theaters for opera, often 2500-3800 seats. European houses are mostly smaller, often in the neighborhood of 1200 seats. During Mozart’s time operas were being premiered in 500 seat theaters. So in some ways La Scala on Covent Garden already made opera too big over a hundred years ago, but then it got even more grotesque in terms of screaming in big halls. That being said, unless you’re specifically singing Puccini and Wagner opera which have thick orchestrations, the secret to singing is actually having a voice that’s lined up. A medium sized voice that’s properly produced can be heard in any hall. You can go the Met and hear singers singing triple pianissimo, but their voice still cuts to the back of the hall. You can also hear a “big” voice straining and pushing but it doesn’t carry past the conductor’s podium. It’s all about resonating in your “mask”, singing with overtones, and singing on the breath. The point I’m making is that classical training teaches a free voice that has complete control to do what it wants and that resonates properly at any dynamic, it’s not about just loudness.
And lastly, opera is a niche art form with a niche fan base. There’s no point comparing it to Hugh Jackman or trying to force its mass appeal. Opera has been dying for decades, or so they say. The truth is that it’s live performance, theaters create many jobs and sustain lots of peripheral industries, and the singers don’t need to all be famous to be successfully working in the field and making a good income. I love traveling to different cities, getting to know bartenders or locals, and if just one comes to the show and likes it, that’s enough for me. I still get paid no matter how empty the theater is. My job is often to be the horse and not worry about the jockey or the racetrack. But the horse is still the main attraction.
Just for the record I'll note that John Raitt is Bonnie Raitt's father. Two very different singers.
Are there singers who are also remarkable instrumentalists in your experience? Singers that
could also work as instrumentalists? I suspect the effort to maintain the voice might make this problematic to maintain another musical pursuit but being around instruments and venues and having a lot of downtime... maybe it's possible.
It’s hard for singers, the craft can be all consuming and you have to protect your ears. As a baritone I just drink a cup of coffee and go to work, as long as I’m memorized it’s just fun and being an actor. So I enjoy other musical pursuits. Others are just consumed with their own voice, as if opera is as important as curing cancer.
But there are plenty of great singers who are also great all around musicians, or singers that started as virtuosos in another instrument. A few great jazz crossover artists who play and sing too. Even though the voice is the most original first instrument in the history of the world, it’s also easy to make fun of singers as just musicians without discipline. “Oh, you wanna be a musician but too lazy to practice? Then you’re just a singer...”
This clip comes to mind from a recent online Met concert, just being able to toss this off during live streaming is ridiculous...
@McD while we’re at it, this is #swoonworthy
Dynamics! Consistency! Beauty! Diction!
RBG was a big supporter of opera and the classical arts, I was fortunate to sing for her and sit with her on many occasions. I sang at her husband’s memorial service at Georgetown years ago. She was even staged into an opera as an extra in DC! It was all in good fun, but the security detail around her was still massive and quite serious.
R.I.P.