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.
“Salsa Picante”
Looking for something new I watched a “Salsa Jazz” tutorial and learned how to play a bassline in that style. So, I created a MIDI loop of a salsa bassline. Then I added a nylon and steel string guitar loops and a piano loop driven by the latest @wim Hypno-Sequence Mozaic script using the rhythms of the first 3 loops.
Then I improvised some Hammond B3 and Trumpet over the loop… recording the results and played that recording back while improvising more trumpet and B3 over the whole.
It gets pretty close to a band playing Salsa live.
All drums courtesy of LumBeats Jazz Drummer (straight 8th feel) and Afro-Latin Drummer.
Comments
Since I’m not familiar enough with Salsa Jazz to have a baseline to judge your bass line 😄, I’ll just say I enjoyed this. I really like the complexity of the drums and the brass and key sounds.
Thanks. Salsa is a niche genre of Cuba and Puerto Rico but the jazz players of early bebop embraced it as a great genre to improvise over. Notably, trumpeter Dizzy Gilllespie.
Complexity is why I wanted to understand the bassline. I a gig with a Salsa bass player and when we played a salsa tune he never seemed to play on ONE. In this bassline I started the loop on one but never play another one again. Mostly, its the “and” (offbeat) of three and four. The Afro-Latin part features the salsa “Clave” pattern. But I just kept layering on more and more and enjoyed the resulting groove.
Great track - I love the entire thing. Each element is fantastic. Oddly that percussive cacophonous piano worked so well with the melodic and soft tones - awesome job…how much was live instruments?
Yeah! I dig when you go off into new, uncharted territories. I agree with @dreamcartel about the piano part. I’m thinking Thelonius Montoya. Can I offer a suggestion? How about adding a strong repeating melody, part A, and a complimentary response, part B. Then an extended improvisation, part C. You could then arrange it into a standard ABABCAB form. Just my 2 pesos. Adios amigo!
Nitpicking here, but in PR it’s not quite niche even if Reggaeton and Latin trap dominate a bit more.
Anyway , I quite enjoyed your track and think it is definitely in the ballpark of Latin Jazz. It’s also playlist worthy (to riff off of Seinfeld’s sponge worthy joke).
Allow me to be presumptuous, and recommend both Marcolino Dimond and Yomo Toro (RIP both of them) if you haven’t checked them out before. Marcolino played piano for some artists during Fania’s apogee and he would belt out these incredible piano solos like it was nothing. Yomo Toro was a master of the Puerto Rican cuatro.
Thanks.
The trumpet types are “Solo Trumpet” which models several types and the Organs are B-3X. I played those parts with a 2 octave Bluetooth keyboard.
I loaded up the @wim Mozaic script with 16 notes taken from the C Dim scale which has a 4 1/2 steps so the script gets midi input from 3 Atom sequences that generate the salsa parts rhythmically so the piano part sounds rhythmic as played by a person using their knuckles or fists. I love treating the piano as a percussion instrument which it is technically but they created a new category called keys because of that physical layout that has lasted generations since the harpsichord was created. The first harpsichord plucked the strings and didn’t use hammers so it was a stringed instrument without velocity soft-loud like the Piano-Forte.
Regarding ABA type forms I need to use another DAW or maybe Loopy Pro. When Loopy adds MIDI recording I’ll do that because I need to save and manipulate the MIDI.
I love the history of Afro-Latin music. Those kings of the genre are virtuosos.
I also love stride piano as a display of extreme technique and virtuosity. Both genres respect the fact that people are dancing and interacting with the groove.
Cubasis works fine for me. I’m sure you will come up with something. You always do.
I like the idea of using the piano for things it was never intended to do. Have you ever heard of Ferrante and Teicher? They did some cool things back in the day. This is something I listened to on my parents HiFi.
Very well done. Your drummer’s heart sings. HH to you and yours McD. Illegitimi Non Carborundum!
Hippo Holy Days to you and Kim, @LinearLineman. It’s good to see you sharing improvised piano sessions with iPad editing again. I think there are more vistas in the editing phase you can experiment with since you have the larger screen now to see the interface.
Great vibe, lots of energy, I enjoy it when you go in different directions… here’s to more this year 🙏
The force ebbs and flows… without the venue I’d loose a lot of reasons to keep investigating ways of manipulating sound and would be poorer in spirit. So, I thank everyone here for being supportive of all that create, share, teach, assist and engage. You that read and hold back… you are missing something you don’t even know you need: connection. You probably have enough from other sources but some do not and community… even a virtual one can make all the difference.