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.
Ask the Artist: @HorseTrainer
I'm still searching for ABF notables to play "Ask the Artist" and you'd be surprised how many do NOT want to play. You scare them or they value their privacy more than 15 minutes of ABF notice.
But I convinced an artist of another focus who joins us here as a music making hobbiest to open himself to your questions. He's the @HorseTrainer and has a life time of experience working with horses to discuss and explain. On another thread I asked him:
Do you really Train Horses? If you lead them to water...
He replied:
Yup. I was a pro rider/trainer of sport horses for 25 years (can longer ride due to injury).
Some farms use automatic waterers where the horse has to push down an aluminum paddle in the drinking bowl with their nose to activate a valve that fills the bowl with drinking water (called a Bar-Bar-A waterer). When you first install this type of waterer. You do indeed have to lead the horses to the waterer, and train them how to use it. Fortunately most horses are smart, so you only have to teach one or two horses, and the others will learn two use the waterer from the others.
Polo ponies? (I hope that's not insulting). What types of sports?
General Riding Horses, Show Jumpers, Three Day Eventers, Dressage Horses, a Discipline called "Hunters", and a few of the Western disciplines.
Mostly I like teaching regular average people to ride regular average horses in regular average Barns.
So, I asked if he'd let you fire in some questions and he wrote:
Hello Audiobus forum members.
McD thinks I'm interesting enough to be worthy of a Q&A thread.Beware... You may be chosen next.....
Please try to avoid specific questions about equestrian competition. Competing in shows was never my thing. If you have general competition questions that should be fine.
My interests are primarily the area of equine training, riding, equine psychology/behavior, equine/rider biomechanics, health care and equine management. I have a "non-professional" interest in anthropology, human psychology, and cultural evolution.
Disclaimer: Answers to all questions are my personal opinions. Seek "in-person" supervision from an experienced riding instructor before attempting to interact with, or ride any horse. Horses can behave in ways that may result in injury, harm, or death to persons on or around them.
What would you like to know about the world of horse training? or do you have horse stories to share?
Comments
My horse story:
I spent some time in Qatar years ago and decided to give horseriding a go. I loved it apart from trying to get the up-down movement right when learning to gallop. Bollocks beware 😅.
I always got to ride a lovely black stallion they said had previously belonged to the King's stables. This could have been marketing nonsense but it added a mystique to the whole thing, and he was, it must he said a very regal beast.
The riding center was kind of far from where I lived and I used to share the cost of the taxi with a friend. Sadly, after a month or so, they told him he was too overweight to ride, I didn't want to pay those cab rides myself, and my days as a would-be jockey were over.
Horses can be wonderful teachers. @Gavinski called horses "a very regal beast", and I agree many horses do project "a sort of living-in-the-moment acceptance of existence" that many individuals find very comforting. Some might interpret the "presence" projected by a horse, as that of a confident being.
There are numerous facilities called therapeutic riding centers. They are where individuals who are handicapped, autistic, or have emotional problems, are provided an opportunity work with horses under the supervision of mental health professionals. The benefit many of these patients receive from their exposure with horses, has been in many cases been life changing for those patients. Horses can be very healing creatures.
A friend of mine who retired a Quarter Horse of hers to a therapeutic riding center. Told me the story about her visit to see her old horse. She told me that he (the horse) was about to work with young handicapped girl in a wheelchair. The girl has severe emotional issues and has difficulty interacting with people...
My friend told me that as she was walking up to see her old horse, the therapist was just then pushing the wheelchair up so the handicapped girl could greet the horse. What happen next was magical, that old horse gently put his head down and placed his face against the girls body, she wrapped her arms around the horses head, and placed her face against his, and held him in a long embrace. My friend began to cry and so did everyone else who witnessed it. That old horse knew exactly what he could do to help heal "his friend". So that any reading this story understand, this is not common for all horses to do things like that.
@horsetrainer What was the first horse you ever owned and how old were you?
Really nice story, yes, there’s definitely something very beautiful about horses, thanks for sharing that @horsetrainer.
I grew up in farm country. My Sister and our neighbors all had horses, and I was being put on the backs of horses since I was around 5 y/o. My first horse was a bay "Morgan-Quarterhorse-cross gelding", and I was 12 or 13 when I got him.
The area where we lived was a mixture of forrest, farmland, and meadows. We had riding trails the went on for miles and miles.
Some of my fondest memories of that time where getting up at the crack of dawn, tacking up (saddling) my horse, and we'd ride off on a day of exploration. I'd bring a lunch for myself. My horse would snack along the way grabbing mouthfuls of tall grasses, tree leaves on the sides of the trails. He'd eat whatever looked tasty. When I stopped for lunch it would be in a meadow, and I would dismount to eat. My horse would just stay close to me and graze, he never once tried to run away. I think he enjoyed our days on the trails as much as I did. He'd drink from the rivers.
We had several lazy flowing rivers in the area. Most horses are excellent swimmers and love to go swimming. Where the trails crossed the rivers we'd swim across. I'd usually remain on my horses back as he swam, but a few times I'd swim along side letting my horse pull me along with him as I held onto the saddle with one hand. I'd remount before reaching the opposite river bank.
Most horses have this thing they love to do when they enter the water. They'll stand in a spot where their about knee deep, and repeatedly "paw" at the water with one of their front hooves making great big splashes. We tend to think of this splashing behavior as just playfulness, but it's so common that it's probably instinctive. Perhaps it served some function for wild horses long ago.. like a way of scaring away water snakes or something?
In those days I hadn't yet had any formal training other than what I learned from my Sister and our neighbors, but I didn't need it for the riding I was doing. I had an excellent seat, could jump, and most fun of all were the fields where we could just full out gallop and fly. It was so much fun.
My family moved off the farm when I was around 17. We moved to a home were we had no room for horses. and by that time I was more into cars and motorcycles. I didn't get back into horses until later in life.
Geez, I don’t own a horse, but I do own an iPad. What instruments do you play? How do you record? What’s your musical history?
Your question contains parallels to my thoughts when McD asked me if I would participate in a Q&A thread...
An Equestrian Q&A on iOS Music board?
I might have to draw on some philosophical comparisons between the Art of Music and the Art of horsemanship.
At age 16 I began to get into listening to a lot of the progressive rock of that era. Listening to Tony Banks and Rick Wakeman is when I first began to dream about owning a synth. I was at a party in the early 80's, and a group of musicians had set up their gear in somebody's house and were covering Synchronicity II (Police) which was a new song at the time. One of the guys in the band had a Juno 60 and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. The next year I bought a new Juno 106 and that was the beginning of my hands-on "obsession" with synths.
I was lent a cheep POS guitar by a friend. A couple of other friends and myself would get together from time to time, "get lit", and I'd play improv on both the guitar and the keyboard, while they made up words. It was all recorded to a cassette recorder. Then we'd listen to it later and laugh. Every once in a while we'd come up with something that wasn't half bad. After years in my closet I eventually gave all the tapes to one of the friends because he wanted to keep them. I've lost touch with him and the tapes.
Later on I began to hang out with some other friends, most had had formal music training, and we'd get together and Jam. Didn't really record We Just Jammed for practice. By that time I was hauling around my Korg M1 in the back of my car. We used an MSQ100 sequencer that I had gotten for the Juno, and I had a TR505 drum machine. We'd set up loops and Jam all night. Those were some fun times.
Life moved on and I began to work as a newspaper photographer and a photo editor. I had less time for music (and grew tired of the party scene). By that time I had the Juno, the M1, and also a Roland D50. I was playing a Guild D20 Acoustic at that point.
Work demands took up all my time and music fell by the wayside. Then as my photography career stared to really take off, I ended up getting really sick. Doctors said I had prolonged exposure to darkroom chemicals, I was basically over stressed from meeting deadlines, and ended up unwittingly poisoning myself from poor darkroom practice. I was out of commission and really sick for a few years.
At that time my Doctor gave me the advice. "To heal from this you're going to have to find something you can do, that you enjoy and is low stress". My younger days of riding horses was my first thought. That's when I began my professional equestrian career.
All the old vintage music gear got sold when I moved to my first Stable Manager position. I didn't have the room to keep it.
When I discovered this forum and learned there were iPad Apps that could emulate vintage synths without requiring room to set up gear. That's when I got back into music again.
Do you have Syntronik? The whole collection. It's great. I'm hoping we'll see Roland Cloud.
I've bought all the Korg's and have 2 DX7 clones, OBxD, all the Moog's. Heavenly for all the synth sounds I drooled over.
@horsetrainer
What a fascinating journey, really cool.
Yes. There are a million stories on the ABF and many takes on the ideal Artist.
If YOU, dear reader, have cool stories and like to write PM me.
@Gravitas Thanks!
@McD
I have the Syntronik version without the IAP's.
It's mostly the cost and disk space that's kept me from getting the full version (Even when it has gone on sale).
These days, my primary interests in iPad music are studying sound design. I'm spending most of my iPad time thinking about the architecture of synth designs, and doing sound experiments. For me, Drambo has become a great workshop for testing sound construction theories. I think it's more fun to program a sound and understand how it's made. I tend to be more attracted to Apps that let you program sounds, rather then Apps that come with samples ready to play. It's just my personal preference.
A good odyssey, horsetrainer. You got to the Elysian Fields ahead of schedule.
+1
This is been a nice ride.
My sister-in-law put me on her horse (which she trusted) and took me and my wife for a
ride up in hill in the woods of Maryland (where they filmed the Blair Witch Project).
Neither of us had ever ridden horses except on those tourist caravans where they rarely let you move above a trot and not for long to avoid the insurance and legal problems of rookies on horseback.
But on the way up the hill the horse wanted to jump a log rather than walk around it. Probably just for the exercise. I survived but that was beyond cool.
One the way back when we reached the 1/2 mile flat to the stables the horse took off at full gallop. Eager to get this rookie off his back or just eager to get another good bit of exercise. Anyway I damn near fell off backwards when it took off but I grabbed the saddle horn and hung in there. I don't know how long it took to cover the 1/2 mile but probably around a minute or so. There are some things you'll never forget and can re-play like a video tape anytime you want. That ride was one of those moments. I first and unfortunately for me, a last. No one ever gave me their horse to ride again. Just this horse caravans with the little trots. To get that full Monty Id have to live a horseman's life and pay the dues. My youngest daughter took riding lessons and had many of the peak moments I suspect but mostly in a small show ring type of setting due to the lack of open woods in California where we lived.