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.
Creative block
Having the toughest time lately. Just feel like the well is dry honestly. Not sure if it's just a phase or if the song has actually gone quiet in me. Just thought maybe putting it out there in the ether would help.
Comments
I know that feeling well! :-(
Been that way for me for a few years. I can start something and when I get chance to sit down to progress it I've completely forgotten where it was going. Bought an iPad recently to try and help but still busy messing with all the lovely synths that bought again from iPhone versions. Far too many toys to play with on a little box! :-)
Knowing that it happens to everyone may or may not help. I'm in the same boat, but for a different, yet common reason.....life. Too many priorities pulling me away. I'm sure things will turn for both of us...just hang in there. Put another way, I still love music...it's one of my greatest pleasures (close 2nd to sex ;-), and if you feel the same, I have to believe the pendulum will swing back for both of us.
Yes..I too know this state...Dashed off a couple of songs, started two more then poof inspiration disappeared! Sometimes I think it helps to step away and work on other things...
Thanks guys. It's usually not so much work. Most of my life I've just been able to sit down and have it sort of pour out of my head. Not always in the same direction each time. I'll flow from one genre to the next depending on my mood, but lately I just break out the iPad after a few days of it collecting dust and I force myself to make some kind of soulless beat and then force myself to open another app and then I just stare at it. Maybe I'll doodle around for a minute, but it always ends the same lately. Nothing really accomplished and certainly nothing inspirational is captured. Feel like I'm just going through the motions because it's what I've always done. The guitar feels like it weighs 200 pounds when I pick it up. I sure hope it's just a phase. Maybe i just need to step away for a little while.
Just came out of 10 years in limbo.. got loads of other stuff done in my life, so there's always a bonus
Without iOS I wouldn't have come back!
Hope you have fun either doing... or not doing
A break or a pause can be good (How can I miss you if you won't go away
, but remember, just like in technique, there are plateaus which only become obvious as such when you move pass them. Chin up.
Welcome to being an artist.
I probably spend half the year fighting writer's block, and the other half furiously trying to get stuff done before I get writer's block again LOL. Here's a few ideas I use when I start getting in a rut:
http://innerportalstudio.com/articles/ChasingInspiration.pdf
Best advice I can give is just not worry about it, do something else. The muse always comes back, and usually better than ever after a long break.
lol, thanks for the free therapy guys. All good points, and I appreciate them. I'm going to set it all down for a little while and see what happens. It's been a ton of fun for a really long time, and I do hope it comes back to me. Have to follow the path life lays out for you sometimes though. In my experience, it's absolutely impossible to force inspiration. When she comes she comes. When she says "no"...well, no means no. Have to play the cards I'm dealt. Thanks again though guys. For seriously. I appreciate you taking the time to chime in. My chin is up for sure. I don't know another way to be really. Just spent the last few months waiting for "it" to wash over me again, and it just hasn't. Doesn't mean I'm going to draw a bath and break out the razor blades. Just press on and see what happens I guess.
I think that hoping it comes back is the first step.
Sounds to me like you've got your head on straight, Boone. If it's a chore and you're forcing yourself, it's not inspired. It's best to just take it in stride and not fret over it. The subconscious is very powerful.
Not sure if this will help, but I've read that thinking of something that makes you angry is a way of getting past writer's block. If that doesn't sound appealing, or it's too depressing, maybe just try thinking of something you feel strongly about.
I think that there's a distinction between art and craft. Craft can be pumped out on demand but art is another process that, as you say, won't be forced. Most things are cyclical and the need for self-expression too. It's important to me to have tools that give me as much control as possible for the moments when it's pouring out. But the on-demand muse (thankfully) doesn't exist
Get together with some other people to try writing, that always seems to help me. Things start to flow and turn out vastly different than if I had worked by myself. If not, just have some fun, it will come when it comes.
Silent Meditation....or get the app for that.
Sometimes too many ideas is as bad as none.
At last...an app that I could create!
Like everyone else, I land in the same space fairly often. I try an instrument I don't normally play. Or make up some fake movie scene and create a score for it. Or do a decidedly non-true-to-the-original cover.
Or I post here too much. Or drink too much.
For me creativity is like a muscle, the more I use it the stronger it gets.
Hmm, do you need me to make a new app?
@sonosaurus said:
HarpJam would be the answer to my prayers.
Maybe some kind of MindJam™? Physical controls are so 2013...
@sonosaurus we ALWAYS need you to make a new app!
Lol thatsRayor
@funjunkie27 a design idea; a button that does nothing when pressed and leaves you pondering...WTF just happened....maybe some more buttons as IAP's.
Edit: nevermind, this feature is already being implemented.
“It is not just do do do. It is not just be be be. It is do be do be do.”
― Amit Goswami
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/535404-it-is-not-just-do-do-do-it-is-not
@WMWM said:
Sounds like vim.
@sonosaurus, how about 4'33" cover app?
Already been done @syrupcore
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/4-33-john-cage/id808378692?mt=8
ha! Of course there's an app for that! Foolish me.
Still waiting for the "Holophone"(Futurama;)
@Sonosaurus: Your turn
@sonosaurus said:
What a about an app like a daw to work a few persons in the same project and collaborate?
One get the inspiration and the rest continue the project...:)
R.E.S.T. (floatation) - Restricted environmental stimulation technique and a proper massage will charge your batteries. I love it
Listen to a lot of music instead of trying to make your own for a while.
This guy writes about how your musical brain needs fuel (good music) to function. Works for me.
http://therecordingrevolution.com/2014/01/13/the-puzzling-truth-about-writers-block/
You've got to get mad...