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 Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

OT: Experimental Writing

Wondering what the perspectives are here on experimental writing apps, maybe just cuz I want to see if there's any I missed. These sorts of apps have refired my writing-related energies after two failed attempts at book-construction.

Right now I'm mostly enamoured by WordPalette: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordpalette-experimental-creative/id995679850?mt=8 With this one, you paste in other texts to generate a vocabulary, which you then pick words from off of 4/5 sliding bars. It's been enotmously joyful to create my own meaningless grimoires by chopping/resorting Aleister Crowley in combination with the previously-mentioned Abandoned Works (with some Lewis Carroll and Kafka chucked in for balance). Please note this app is FREE.

Then there's Liptikl, https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/liptikl-cut-up-text-generator/id956088831?mt=8 which is a close second-place in my usage, though it tends to operate a bit slowly which can be aggravating, though the positive results make it bearable. This app being a purer exercise of the Burroughs/Gysin/whomever cut-up method.

There's also Creative Writer https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/creative-writer-endless-source/id737521232?mt=8 which was my first foray into these apps on ipad, but which has fallen into disuse as I much prefer selecting my own source-texts as per the previous two apps.

And then the other day I picked up Metaphor Generator https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/metaphor-generator/id919048419?mt=8 which I've only used a bit but which seems to have a slightly peculiar/abtruse vocabulary.

I originally started using these to generate quasi-random lyrics, but now it's evolved into a whole slew of digital 'zines' which I don't know what to do with, assembled here-- https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gebap1ncetzdup0/AAA6GL0TBdOUNkE3rauxD3dKa?dl=0

So any commentaries upon this somewhat fledgling field? At times these apps have pushed my music production into the background, but that's maybe more a function of what I feel more capable at performing, or historical trends, whatever.

Comments

  • edited September 2015

    Never used apps, but me and a few other nerds created our own strange language and texts, by cutting and pasting random pieces of text into each other, and then tweaking the results. Mostly gibberish, but very often we'd create new words and phrases that really worked. We were all web devs and designers, and used to frequent early forums (IRC) and found after slipping in the odd new word, others would pick them up by accident, spreading them across the web.

    I do love all this stuff, I'll have to check out the apps you've mentioned. Creative writing is another part of the art/music pudding.

  • edited September 2015

    Putting text again and again through Google translation is fun too. Hassan's backroom is amazing...
    this happened
    Set the text is still fun and Google Translate. Hassan amazing back room

  • Thanks for the links, some good ones on there. I was going to buy Liptikl previously, I have all their other apps but don't get a complete my bundle offer, so I refrained slightly disgruntled, looks useful though :)

  • I'm very interested in writing, but automatic writing techniques don't really work for me - everyone has individual approaches to writing so it's quite possible they work well for others.

    I wrote 4 - 5 short stories a week for three years in order to improve my storytelling, and to be honest it was hard going but eventually I did discover a couple of methods that work pretty well (for me at least).

    If you're writing fiction/stories one method that works pretty well is to drive the narrative with questions, that you answer slowly over the course of the story. An example is a comic book that I started writing (maybe I'll finish it when I retire!) where the protagonist is in a strange situation and I use questions and curiosity to keep the reader interested, you can see the first 3 pages here to see what I mean:

    http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/gideongray/gideongray.htm

    Another method that I find works really well for lyric writing is to paint very vivid pictures of real situations. My influence here is the films of Richard Linklater: Dazed And Confused and Before Sunrise in particular where ordinary people have ordinary conversations but the films are powerful because they are so intimately observed. The key here is make the the imagery as concrete as possible. I can post a couple of examples of lyrics written in this way:

    http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/lyrics/warm-summer-nights.txt

    http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/lyrics/a-box-of-things.txt

    Anyway, I might be totally off-topic here since I can't recommend any apps or anything (practice is the best approach to writing, just like anything else), but I felt it might be worth sharing my thoughts - if this stuff isn't right for this thread I can start another topic.

  • @richardyot
    gideon gray -- really well done how you draw the reader in.
    BUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
    please post one new page every week ;)

  • @rhcball

    thanks for posting, word pallette looks really nice indeed

  • @nick said:
    please post one new page every week ;)

    Haha - if I give up sleep then I should be able to fit this in along with earning a living and of course my Song of the Month Club obligations...

    I would love to finish it, but comic book take soooo loonnng to draw.

  • @richardyot said:
    I'm very interested in writing, but automatic writing techniques don't really work for me - everyone has individual approaches to writing so it's quite possible they work well for others.

    It may have started out a bit like that, but where I'm at now with WordPalette and Liptikl is not really anything like automatic writing. I'm progressively increasing the ratio of my personal input vs. what words are presented by the apps, but for me the fun of it is to try and carry on a theme/pattern/etc. while working with the vocabulary that's presented by the apps. The main reason I'm fixated on this technique is because the external vocabulary that you 'impose' on yourself shifts the writing into directions you wouldn't have likely gone if left to your own devices. It's very much a situation where stories and reasonings unfold partly on their own, which I can then bend and twist as per my fancy according to whatever I want to insert of my own (or rework what's there, etc.)

    Of course the more tried & true 'straight' methods are good if you're looking to Communicate with other Humans (and publish), but i'm under the illusion that i'm shooting for something else, which is nonsense, but i dunno...

  • @rhcball said:
    Of course the more tried & true 'straight' methods are good if you're looking to Communicate with other Humans (and publish), but i'm under the illusion that i'm shooting for something else, which is nonsense, but i dunno..

    No that's totally cool - artistic processes are always highly personal, and everyone approaches their art and work in their own individual way.

  • oldie but goodie ... The Complaint Generator.

    http://www.pakin.org/complaint/

  • @rhcball said:

    This reminds me of the same principle but in creating melodies etc....

    https://www.wavedna.com/liquid-music/ableton-live-plugin-max-for-live/

  • This is good for divining secret spiritual truths via anagrams. I use Liptikl to generate 12 random letters and search the anagrams, I have gotten a few recent thoughts reverberated back to myself this way (but is that of any value, i don't know, maybe just an aetheric card trick)...

    http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

  • I mainly use a small army of monkeys tapping on good old fashioned typewriters, they tell they're working on 'snore and peas' , they say it will be a classic.

  • Is there any kind of Gysin/Burroughs word cutup app?

  • @CalCutta said:
    Is there any kind of Gysin/Burroughs word cutup app?

    Liptikl is straight-forward cut-uppery. Alternatively you could use this: http://www.languageisavirus.com/cutupmachine.html#.VgRC-1r3arU

  • @rhcball said:
    Liptikl is straight-forward cut-uppery. Alternatively you could use this: http://www.languageisavirus.com/cutupmachine.html#.VgRC-1r3arU

    Wonderful thanks!

  • edited September 2015

    Some choice bits from a session with the Metaphor Generator linked above...

    Dustman's Electromagnetic Pandiculation
    The Nightlong Insectivore of Conflict

    Remoteness is a Necessary Malversation

    Legitimacy is a Fourfold Ruin

    The Rich Constancy of Misdeed

    Metamorphosis is a Finite Elastic

    Dolly's Electrostatic Spat

    the Nilotic Concavity of Migraine

    Geography is a Transparent Driveway

    The Gnarled Magnolia of Silkworm

    The Nihilistic Disunity of Resale

    The Barebacked Absinthe of Drought

    Drudgery is an Intact Ramrod

    Brain is a Tyrannous Focalization

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