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.

Are random attributes taking over your work?

Now I know we all love a bit of random generation. We all know the apps and we all probably love them (at least until the next one arrives). Are you using them too much?

Recently I loaded up some of my old started tracks and noticed something odd - they were all weird all over the place sci-fi like stuff - after a while I realised they had lots of random generation involved.

I know I recently bought Riffer, so I’m not clean yet :p but I am now playing my own notes much more often and kind of finding it much more therapeutic. Yes, I still take an age as my playing skills are poop and my hands shake badly, but my tracks somehow seem much more thought out now.

So maybe the message here is - yes, we have the tools, but maybe we should use them more sparingly, or maybe I’m just talking shit again ;)

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Comments

  • No. More random. :wink:

  • I mean. You still have to craft the sounds and rhythms into what you want. Random is a great starting point though if you want to make non preset electronica/Lo fi etc. I also just get a great deal of pleasure hearing the crazy sounds random can land you with.

  • I use random a lot - sometimes to spark ideas, but usually because it’s the quickest way to get things going.

    I’m thinking about getting Riffer - I like the idea of creating a whole album from randomised riffs and patches.

    It’s also more interesting for me to listen back to, as I didn’t actually write it.

  • I originally thought that randomising apps would help me get over times of little inspiration, but today I think that in such times, I'd rather do something completely different instead of forcing myself to compose.
    Using randomisation as a compositional tool might be a better option.
    I usually don't start without plenty of ideas in my head, but at some point, when trapped into writing a line that sounds so familiar, a random lick tweaked into something new and useful can help make things better.

  • I think we need more apps with controlled randomization rather than just random randomization

  • I know some people are just i ching to introduce all sorts of stochastic aspects into their art, but note the badge I’m wearing that states I’ll only use designed moves.

  • edited October 2018

    No need for randomization here - both my playing and tweaking are random enough ...
    Rule of thumb: the more you tweak a patch the more it approaches white noise o:)

  • I don't use it.

    I barely use piano roll except when I need my own chord progressions to play while I play others.

    I guess that is why I don't use the Brambos Sequencer Suite even though I bought it.

  • carefully curtailed randomisation, is a craft... thankfully apps like Rozeta Suite make that loads of fun, in many ways, it is a bit like adding humanization in Logic Pro...
    Roll the Dice!
    :smile:

  • I love randomizers on the iOS platform, actually I'd like the devs to start putting randomizers inside their randomizers but for me that's what iOS is about... discovery, wonderment, from self contained environments mostly... Outside of iOS not so much... for example the majority of the synths I have don't even allow you to save presets etc and things are much more deliberate for me in that space. For the most part for me iOS is for not doing things like I do elsewhere and that's what makes it fun. It's all about randomizers, ikaossilator, Samplr shenanigans, and any app Igor vasiliev decides he want's to make. Chuck stuff into other stuff and see what happens :)
    now if hermut Lobby would just allow sample import we could get on with it now couldn't we.... yes we could!

  • hjdaspo pspijupI&^££*$( 'poliads bj\d;u;../.kh\li\ygiytsavgfasbvsnayuya
    ggixyzyyhh899938hjno thanksmvvmvmvzliidepilsjhl,j 99900jhhjo777ihsdhsuouijs
    okloxsjhbhsbhjufufuufufjjjjfuiofiodjdjdkodododdjd

    I used a randomizer to generate this response. After I went through all the stuff I got and filtered it to what was useable I am left with.....
    no thanks
    :D

  • I use them more often than not. For me the fun is changing the notes randomly produced by tweaking parameters and adding effects. I therefore tend to think of myself as a ‘music producer’ as opposed to a ‘musician’ when it comes to the electronica.

    I wonder how many notes I would need to change in a random sequence before I can then call it my own. Probably somewhere between just over half and all but one 🤔

  • I play with randomness sparingly for idea generation at the instrumental level. If I’m using something like that in a composition or live, it’ll strictly be a concrete idea that has been ‘solidified’ into performance or recording, or it’ll be deterministic randomisation (ie. the ‘same’ randomisation will be produced, every time). There aren’t many (any?) iOS apps that I’m aware of which that can take a random seed, so I do most of the randomisation I do (which tends to be subtle anyway) on the Linux parts of my setup using pattern syntax in Haskell language.

    As a personal rule, any composition should ‘export’ exactly the same, 100% of the time. Idea generation and improvisation can and will be more flexible than this, but I honestly don’t find myself using randomness that much. I have an open source project of my own that can be used to generate non-deterministic randomised harmonic sequences under user defined constraints, but I use it more for ‘simulating’ potential ideas to test out manually and cherry pick from than for throwing a sequence of computer randomised decisions down on the page.

  • @Fruitbat1919 said:
    Now I know we all love a bit of random generation. We all know the apps and we all probably love them (at least until the next one arrives). Are you using them too much?

    Recently I loaded up some of my old started tracks and noticed something odd - they were all weird all over the place sci-fi like stuff - after a while I realised they had lots of random generation involved.

    I know I recently bought Riffer, so I’m not clean yet :p but I am now playing my own notes much more often and kind of finding it much more therapeutic. Yes, I still take an age as my playing skills are poop and my hands shake badly, but my tracks somehow seem much more thought out now.

    So maybe the message here is - yes, we have the tools, but maybe we should use them more sparingly, or maybe I’m just talking shit again ;)

    Wou;d say back to the early synth sequencing times when the human factor was completely redundant. All this grooves and swings of machine driven music is just fake. I like honesty so if you do things live do it real live and if you wnat to do things machine based and let the machine do it's thing.

  • edited October 2018

    Ideas are random.
    I'm fine with it.

  • One great example of randomization is Oscilab.
    Being able to force the random gibberish that @AndyPlankton described quite accurately into something musically useful by restricting the output to specified rhythm and scale makes it so much more useful.

  • edited October 2018

    @Mayo said:
    Ideas are random.
    I'm fine with it.

    Lots of papers in creativity and novel behaviour that disagree with this. The generally accepted model is that ‘new’ ideas are a novel combination of existing knowledge. The ingestion of new ideas is a loosely related and much slower moving process than that of idea generation itself. Check out the ‘creative systems framework’ and ‘improvisation model’ for two different and highly interesting points of view.

    .. although I understand the essence of what you’re saying ;)

  • This is why I love Adipose land (my wife’s name for AudioBus Forums)....lots of thoughts coming out from all directions B)

  • @rs2000 said:
    One great example of randomization is Oscilab.
    Being able to force the random gibberish that @AndyPlankton described quite accurately into something musically useful by restricting the output to specified rhythm and scale makes it so much more useful.

    Yes, randomisation within certain parameters does have its place and usefulness.

    @OscarSouth said:
    I play with randomness sparingly for idea generation at the instrumental level. If I’m using something like that in a composition or live, it’ll strictly be a concrete idea that has been ‘solidified’ into performance or recording, or it’ll be deterministic randomisation (ie. the ‘same’ randomisation will be produced, every time). There aren’t many (any?) iOS apps that I’m aware of which that can take a random seed, so I do most of the randomisation I do (which tends to be subtle anyway) on the Linux parts of my setup using pattern syntax in Haskell language.

    As a personal rule, any composition should ‘export’ exactly the same, 100% of the time. Idea generation and improvisation can and will be more flexible than this, but I honestly don’t find myself using randomness that much. I have an open source project of my own that can be used to generate non-deterministic randomised harmonic sequences under user defined constraints, but I use it more for ‘simulating’ potential ideas to test out manually and cherry pick from than for throwing a sequence of computer randomised decisions down on the page.

    This is me too, I may use a randomiser to generate ideas I wouldn't have necessarily come up with, but once I have it I want to keep it and not to have it change on me unexpectedly or unpredictably.
    All this saves me is noodling...but I quite like the noodling, so if I use a randomiser I kinda feel like I'm missing out on part of the journey. I still do it from time to time though :)

  • i've said this before, but i'll say it again ...

    the machine and I are co-creators :)

    with apps like the wonderful Gestrument Pro and Roseta smudging and blurring the boundaries almost out of existence

    i ♥ my ipad ;))

  • @Fruitbat1919 said:
    This is why I love Adipose land (my wife’s name for AudioBus Forums)....lots of thoughts coming out from all directions B)

    Tell her shush and to get back to making you smiley beans on toast :D

  • @OscarSouth said:

    @Mayo said:
    Ideas are random.
    I'm fine with it.

    Lots of papers in creativity and novel behaviour that disagree with this. The generally accepted model is that ‘new’ ideas are a novel combination of existing knowledge. The ingestion of new ideas is a loosely related and much slower moving process than that of idea generation itself. Check out the ‘creative systems framework’ and ‘improvisation model’ for two different and highly interesting points of view.

    .. although I understand the essence of what you’re saying ;)

    Hey, this might be a good reason why in modern life we've stopped calling our creations "inventions" but rather accept them to be "compositions" :#

    @Fruitbat1919 said:
    This is why I love Adipose land (my wife’s name for AudioBus Forums)....lots of thoughts coming out from all directions B)

    If your wife is creative with words, let her write sentences containing only letters from A to H (or add five more letters for the black keys if you're over-curageous) and make music from them :D

  • @AndyPlankton said:
    hjdaspo pspijupI&^££*$( 'poliads bj\d;u;../.kh\li\ygiytsavgfasbvsnayuya
    ggixyzyyhh899938hjno thanksmvvmvmvzliidepilsjhl,j 99900jhhjo777ihsdhsuouijs
    okloxsjhbhsbhjufufuufufjjjjfuiofiodjdjdkodododdjd

    I used a randomizer to generate this response. After I went through all the stuff I got and filtered it to what was useable I am left with.....
    no thanks
    :D

    shame! it would have been nicer to have ended up with ^££*
    i wonder if people play the money markets using randomisers?? no wait! thats why we are in this mess isn’t it?

  • @RockySmalls said:

    @AndyPlankton said:
    hjdaspo pspijupI&^££*$( 'poliads bj\d;u;../.kh\li\ygiytsavgfasbvsnayuya
    ggixyzyyhh899938hjno thanksmvvmvmvzliidepilsjhl,j 99900jhhjo777ihsdhsuouijs
    okloxsjhbhsbhjufufuufufjjjjfuiofiodjdjdkodododdjd

    I used a randomizer to generate this response. After I went through all the stuff I got and filtered it to what was useable I am left with.....
    no thanks
    :D

    shame! it would have been nicer to have ended up with ^££*
    i wonder if people play the money markets using randomisers?? no wait! thats why we are in this mess isn’t it?

    hahaha I guess it's the artist in me not the money maker :D

  • If you let the machine pick your numbers for you, did you actually win the lotto? I don't think I could live my new extravagant life to its fullest if I won without picking my own numbers

  • @AndyPlankton said:

    @Fruitbat1919 said:
    This is why I love Adipose land (my wife’s name for AudioBus Forums)....lots of thoughts coming out from all directions B)

    Tell her shush and to get back to making you smiley beans on toast :D

    O I just love smiley beans on toast :D

  • edited October 2018

    When tired but still motivated instead of drinking coffee, lately I'll fire up ApeMatrix and load in a synth and a Rozeta. Sometimes I get something useful to build upon. Sometimes I just figure out something 'random' in the app that I wouldn't have otherwise. It's a win.

  • @simonnowis said:
    i've said this before, but i'll say it again ...

    the machine and I are co-creators :)

    with apps like the wonderful Gestrument Pro and Roseta smudging and blurring the boundaries almost out of existence

    i ♥ my ipad ;))

    You mean the app developer and you are co-creators, yeah? ;)

  • @OscarSouth said:

    You mean the app developer and you are co-creators, yeah? ;)

    :) yeah :) without their magical apps all i'd have here is a rather expensive black mirror :)

  • @OscarSouth said:

    @Mayo said:
    Ideas are random.
    I'm fine with it.

    Lots of papers in creativity and novel behaviour that disagree with this. The generally accepted model is that ‘new’ ideas are a novel combination of existing knowledge. The ingestion of new ideas is a loosely related and much slower moving process than that of idea generation itself. Check out the ‘creative systems framework’ and ‘improvisation model’ for two different and highly interesting points of view.

    .. although I understand the essence of what you’re saying ;)

    I get what you are saying too ;)
    There is always an element of rolling the dice when even composing an idea using existing knowledge and all of those choices paired with a strong sense of experimentation and discovery.

    Long Live Random!

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