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.
Boudleaux And Felice - indie rock collaboration with JanKun
This song is about Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, one of the great songwriting partnerships of the 20th century, and a couple whose story is fascinating.
I wrote the vocal parts over some very basic chords, and then @JanKun created all the music around the vocals. It's been a huge pleasure to work with @JanKun on this track, and a delightful surprise to hear the music that he composed, which I think has really enhanced the song in ways I would never have thought of.
Comments
Nice! 💥 Has a Dinosaur JR vibe to it. Really dig the intertwining guitars 👍
Thanks for the listen. Dinosaur Jr are one of my favourites. I remember Freak Scene coming out in my last year at school, and I also love the comeback albums they did in the 2000s.
Thank you so much for listening. Glad you like the guitars, it took some time to make these work together though. But they became the foundation for the rest of the arrangement.
I didn't think about the Dinosaur JR vibe, but now that you mention it, I can clearly hear the similarity between Jay Mascis and @richardyot 's singing on this track. Big fan here too!
@LinearLineman @McD @Daveypoo @flo26 !
Would like to hear your opinion on this track !
You can’t go wrong collaborating with @jankun! Plus you get his voice.
Actually on this one it's my voice
Yes, of course. I was referring to my collaborations with him. Sorry for the misunderstanding. You sound very good, as always.
Excellent production! (Don't ruin my high by explaining how much desktop software intruded in the results... let me assume IOS can achieve this level of mixing quality).
Can I see a copy of the lyrics?
I dig reading the lyrics to have a better chance of understanding the "meta" details of the "song". I have an inability to follow lyrical content in the presence of music. People tell me what a song is about that I've heard 1,000 times and I'm floored. IN this case there are clues in the text here but I want to follow the storyline of B & F Bryant.
Googling I see they wrote a huge collection of Everly Brother hits, as your clever intro hints at.
Since we traffic in labels to describe genres they seem to be the creative force behind hit Rock-a-billy. "Wake Up Little Susie"...
The production is 100% iOS, the mix was done in Auria.
Lyrics below, I am fascinated by the story behind the Bryants as a songwriting team, I’ve watched every interview I could find with them, so I know their story quite well:
In Tennessee the Bryants
Are working on a song
You never see these giants
But their shadow is long
Destiny and fate
Bought them to this place
They were destined to be great
When they first met face to face
He wrote for you
You were writing for him too
He wrote for you
And soon you wrote as two
Boudleaux said to his Felice
This dream is what we’re meant to be
Boudleaux said to his Felice
Honey just you wait and see
To Tennessee from Georgia
The road was hard and long
But then one day a barber
Said his boys needed a song
Destiny and fate
And the Everleys boyish charm
They were destined to be great
When they left that Georgia farm
Lovely lyrics. Only mention of a barber outside of Sweeney Todd, I think.
I dig it! Nice vibe between the instrumentation, arrangement & production. The keys in the chorus I particularly like, as well as the harmonies/Vocal double tracking.
I like the alt pop vibe - feels very natural for the melody. Nice job, folks - so when's the next single? 😎
and that Operatic hair cutter from Seville.
Thanks. Just reading now I can see how I missed the storyline completely.
One of the worst aspects of streaming pop music is the loss of the album or
lyric book to help me follow the poetry or storyline of a song.
This recent 10 minute Taylor Swift tune just left me thinking... "She really doesn't
have much of a voice." I didn't get anything about the Jake Gylienhaal details about betrayal.
I'm always impressed by people that can follow lyrics on first listening while I'm focused on the melodic choices or the instrumental arrangement as I was here. That's why my comment emphasized the excellence of the arrangement and the mix. I couldn't focus
much beyond that. Reading the lyrics will change the experience.
I'm finding a similar pattern with streamed video... I need subtitles to be able to focus.
I suspect a loss of high level frequency content with aging is a root symptom but it could also be the way my brain function is slowly changing with age.
I had to double check the spelling of Beaudleaux... it appears to be a cajun truncation of
french.
The Phrase "Beau de leau" meaning "Beautiful Water". But that's based on google translate and a couple years of high school french that I barely passed.
High school french taught me that all consonants require a vowel or you should just ignore them. That "d" without a follow "e" jumps out at me as just wrong unless the "dl" combination is an acceptable cluster in french.
And barbershop quartets, natch.
Did turn of the century barbershops staff with tenor, lead (melody tenor), baritone and bass singers? I always thought these singers were the customers that liked to sing at the barber's shop.
I'm a little bit annoyed,but I must say I have not enjoyed the track.
I don't like being negative,but a lot of things prevented me from enjoying it.
First,The singing is often out of tune.maybe am I too sensitive at this?
I found the melody was a little weak for my tastes.
But what disturbed me the most was the mix.
To be fair,after a few seconds of listening (after the beginning of the drums),I've checked my monitors to see if something was not out of phase.
To my ears,the mix is confused.The drums sound a little bit anemic and,once again to my ears,clarity is missing ,as well as instruments separation (don't know if it is the right term).
Really sorry to be harsh,but I hope you won't hold on to it.
It's always a little bit hard for me to give my point of view on other's people music...
Sure,it's only my point of view.
Anyway,the only thing that matters is that you've enjoyed your partnership on this track and not the fact that Flo likes or not this track.
Cheers!
No... you actually don't have to say it. WTF. It won't change the work and probably
damages the artists being judged.
It's OK, I can take the critique, but really this one reads more like a rant than anything meant as constructive feedback 🤷♀️
@richardyot this is a great tune. I can definitely hear there is alot going on but maybe buried in the mix in places.
Love the low end piano notes in places and the breathy vocals in the chorus.
The intro is cool and i love how you bring the music in with what i can only describe as the reversed cymbal effect, does that make sense? Btw, how did you create that effect?
My only criticism would be there is no punch to the overall sound, it just sounds weak. Could you remaster and maybe compress it a bit harder to really make it a bit more punchier?
@richardyot sorry forgot to mention, as the intro goes into the song with the reversed cymbal effect the level drops slightly rather than consistent with the intro volume.btw i listened to your song with my old AT ATH-M50's which have great clarity just for the record. So basically there isn't much wrong with the mix apart from said points IMO.
Not a rant at all.I hesitated a lot before giving my opinion.it can be complicated sometimes to explain its thoughts when English is not your first language.
The fact is I' didn't like the track.But anyway,who cares?
To each its own.
Sorry @richardyot , If I hurt you. It was not mean to be.
Flo
Sorry.
I've tried many times to influence artists with lists of things that are "wrong" (pitch is a crucial) but I fell that anyone that posts here it putting forward their best intentions.
There's always something I can find to respect and those critical comments are best saved
when someone is being asked to buy some music and you can save them from a flawed
work.
I wanted a guitar player to turn up and I told him (tactlessly) "It sounds like chicken scratch
out front." He leaned down and whispered in my ear (he's 6' 6" and I'm down an octave)
"NEVER TELL A GUITAR PLAYER HOW TO FUCKING PLAY."
In the second set the whole band turned up their amps and he sounded great. It turns out they were testing the capacity of the club to accept higher volumes.
Trying to do someone a favor with your opinions is dangerous. Telling them something positive is generally a good practice... at least start there.
A keyboard playing song writer gave a concert and played a keyboard rendering of a classical piece. At the end a fan came up and said the classic piece was a real highlight for him and the artist mumbled aside to me "As my songs were all shit?"
Artists have such fragile egos... they over focus on the negative and usually provide more than enough negative with their own internal dialog.
I think he can say it. I do think he overthought it and ended up overcooking the response. It’s not what he said but the manner in which it came across that can be criticised from my viewpoint. And the tone came across as unpleasant. However if we don’t like what somebody has said, perhaps we can show the same restraint in challenging them that we feel should have been shown in the first place. Two wrongs don’t make a right. And those of us with English as our mother tongue need to remember that not everybody on this forum speaks English as a first language. I’m frequently taken aback when I find out somebody isn’t a native English speaker when they write better than many who are.
I definitely don’t agree with your ‘won’t change the work and probably damAges the artist’ comment either. Richard has been posting in his Song of the Month club for newly 2 years and encourages everybody to critique and be critiqued. I’ve had comments in the SOTMC that have directly resulted in me changing my song. That’s one way you can improve as an artist. If you were working with a record producer they’d be very fast to tell you when a take was good or dog shite (relative to your own work) which we don’t get as amateurs self-producing our own work. When you release 80 odd songs over consecutive months, some of them are going to be great and some not so good just relative to each other. Even john and Paul released some crap songs on otherwise seminal albums!
Anyway. Feel free to dig out any of my songs posted here and tell me all the ways they’re crap. I have enough confidence in myself to know when I’ve created something good relative to my own abilities and conversely I often know when something isn’t quite right. Having somebody point out that a vocal line is too repetitive for example can help confirm what you already thought put it pinpoints exactly where things are going astray. I welcome the criticism. I can filter out the best and worst of it. I like it when people like my music but at the same time I have a weird irrational discomfort with being praised too much! It makes me feel like it’s overboard and they must be wrong or being too kind as it’s definitely not that good 🤣
Constructive criticism can be a necessary part of making music. I miss collaborating with my friend and old band mate, who has an innate ability to be brutal with his criticism. But it doesn’t half help you get to the good stuff quicker and saves you wasting time on something that’s rubbish. And here’s the thing… I instinctively knew when he was wrong. If I knew something he thought was shite was actually really good it would perversely reinforce my views! But most of the time I’d know he was right and move on.
Anyway. If we all just treat each other the way we’d like to be treated and not jump down somebody’s throat the minute they make a mistake the world would be a much less polarising place.
I do realise that this might come across as hypocritical but I think and hope I’ve got the balance right. Apologies if I haven’t :-)
I also honestly believe that criticism can be fruitful and helpful, and would agree with the sentiment that well-founded and thoughtful criticism is actually more useful than shallow praise.
Personally when I’m critiquing work, even if it’s work I really dislike, I will always try and find the positives as well as the negatives. Tell the artist what they got right, as well as what they got wrong. Because otherwise the criticism comes across as unbalanced.
To be fair to @flo26 he was tagged by my good friend @JanKun, maybe that wasn’t a wise idea. I tend not to tag people when posting a track because it’s best to let people comment out of their own free will. Now poor flo has been dragged into a bun fight that he would have avoided under different circumstances 😉
One difficulty we face here is that people are working across many different genres, from jazz to classic rock to ambient and experimental. It’s going to be impossible to please everyone simply because we all like different styles of music that have different standards as to what is good and bad.
And finally as to the pitch of my vocals: one thing that I’ve learned to do over the last couple of years is to sing harmony parts. Harmony is really unforgiving if you get it wrong. If either part is out of tune the vocals sound horrible. Having sung the harmony parts on the chorus of this song I’m very confident that they are in tune, because it would be really obvious to even the most untrained ears if they weren’t.
Thanks for the feedback. We deliberately went for very little compression on this track in the hope of creating a more dynamic mix. However I might reconsider this idea in light of the feedback we’ve received. I will come back to the mix in a few weeks, with fresh ears, and see if the drums need to come up and if the mix could do with more compression.
You've a Dylan meets Morrissey vibe, but louder. 🙂
Would be interesting to hear a sparser mix where the bass reinforces the main melody.
Enjoyed it.
@richardyot @flo26 @McD @Daveypoo @LinearLineman @klownshed
Ok, guys ! Once again, this confirm something I knew for a long time ! My dear friend Richard is one of the wisest member on this forum. I have the deepest respect for his work as a songwriter, iOS producer and for offering every month a space for us to exchange constructive ideas on each others work. And I really enjoy working with him.
Lately, I feel that the number of individual creation thread drastically increased which is a good thing. It probably means that the iOS platform is maturing to become a reliable music production medium. On the downside, I believe that all these creations tend to get burried almost instantly without always getting the proper feedback they deserve. For this reason, I really believe any creator on this forum who wish to get constructive feedback and not only a " nice track, I dig it" should post their creation, not only as an individual thread but also inside the Song Of The Month Club thread which is in my opinion the best place to exchange and take the time the listen to each others.
I now realise it was a mistake to tag people to ask for their opinion, and I sincerely wish Florent will forgive me. Désolé mon pote, j'aimerais bien te payer une bière pour me faire pardonner, mais je suis un peu loin ! Le cœur y est !
Being a french native speaker like him, I think I understood what he was trying to say, and I was in no way offended by his opinion which I truly respect, cause I love what he shares with this community. Few words might not have been properly chosen, but I know from the bottom of my heart that there was no bad intention from his side.
I am feeling like it is a huge misunderstanding, I sincerely wish to apologize for triggering it.
That being said, the people I tagged were chosen because I knew they came from different musical background and that having their honest feedback could help us improve the work we did on this track.
So once again, I am terribly sorry for this incident, lesson learned.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to our track.
I love this forum, and I love you all guys.
@JanKun
I don’t think there’s anything to be sorry for, just a storm in a teacup :-). You asked for feedback and got it — both barrels 🤣
And I agree posting in Richard’s SOTMC and chewing the fat there is to be encouraged. Especially when it’s filled with genres you wouldn’t usually listen to. It’s a good expertise to listen with intent when you’d normally skip. We can always learn new things.
Let’s just nerd out talking about our music and apps and stuff. If you fancy complaining there’s always the headphone jack — never gets old. ;-)
If you’re interested in the SOTMC, check out November 2021. Klownshed’s entry is stunning 🤪🤣