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.

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Song Of The Month Club - June 2020

What is the Song of the Month Club?

It's a place where musicians come to give and receive feedback on their work. Anyone is welcome, whatever their level of ability.

The spirit of the club is to contribute: if you submit a song for others to comment on, you should also have the courtesy to listen to everyone else's contributions and give as much feedback as possible. Posting a track and not listening and commenting on others is not cool.

The purpose of feedback is to be honest. Essentially you should give your truthful impressions of the song, whether good or bad. Negative feedback, if done in the right spirit and with courtesy, can be the most useful and can help the artist to grow and improve and correct their mistakes.

All submissions are welcome, don't hesitate if you want to contribute. We like all kinds of music and we are particularly fond of vocals (but of course we still love a great instrumental). If you are thinking of experimenting with vocals this is a good place to get started.

We ask that you only post one song per month in this thread - if you're lucky enough to be able to produce more, then please just submit your strongest material

And finally, iOS is not a requirement for posting here. If you've recorded your song using nothing but a ukulele and a Fostex 4 track, that's fine

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Comments

  • My entry for the month, lyrics in the spoiler:

    A man looking is round
    He holds a paper crown
    He lifts it to his head
    And this is what he said:
    I am the Paper King
    And I see everything

    You’ll slate me you’ll bait me you’ll tell me you hate me

    The Paper King will have his day
    His paper crown will fly away
    He's just a paper king
    He can't do anything

    A crumpled paper crown
    A torn up paper gown
    A man out of his depth
    A kingdom was a stretch
    He was a paper king
    And he lost everything

    You’ll slate him you’ll bait him you’ll tell him you hate him

    The Paper King will have his day
    His paper crown will fly away
    He's just a paper king
    He can't do anything

  • @richardyot love the mix and the effects on the guitar and vocal. The sound of the voice really fits the lyrics, imo. The type of song that would play in a specific scene of a movie during a montage. Nice work!

  • @drez said:
    @richardyot love the mix and the effects on the guitar and vocal. The sound of the voice really fits the lyrics, imo. The type of song that would play in a specific scene of a movie during a montage. Nice work!

    Thanks! I appreciate the listen and the feedback :)

  • @richardyot Love the song and that intro is mega!

    I listened to the song a few times and this is my overall feelings about it

    1. The jangly guitar seems to go through the whole song which lessens it's impact. light and shade adds more interest for the listener.
    2. After the first chorus a nice little guitar motif/riff would have broken the song up nicely.
    3. Maybe a second vocal added on the 2nd chorus to lift the song a bit more.
    4. To my ears the reverb on the verse vocals is a little over powering and takes away from the chorus vocals.
    5. The drums are ace as is the groove how did you record these parts, are they played via real drums and bass?

    Like I say great song, lyrics and you have a nice timbre to your voice.

    Hope this helps.

  • @Sandstorm said:
    @richardyot Love the song and that intro is mega!

    I listened to the song a few times and this is my overall feelings about it

    1. The jangly guitar seems to go through the whole song which lessens it's impact. light and shade adds more interest for the listener.
    2. After the first chorus a nice little guitar motif/riff would have broken the song up nicely.
    3. Maybe a second vocal added on the 2nd chorus to lift the song a bit more.
    4. To my ears the reverb on the verse vocals is a little over powering and takes away from the chorus vocals.
    5. The drums are ace as is the groove how did you record these parts, are they played via real drums and bass?

    Like I say great song, lyrics and you have a nice timbre to your voice.

    Hope this helps.

    Thanks for the thoughtful feedback - your tips about the arrangement are spot on, I'll definitely bear them in mind for next time.

    For the drums I used the Garageband Drummer, the results can be really good, you just have to break it up into sections. The bass was also done in GB, I just played the virtual bass instrument (I love playing the touch instruments in GB, they're awesome).

  • @richardyot said:

    @Sandstorm said:
    @richardyot Love the song and that intro is mega!

    I listened to the song a few times and this is my overall feelings about it

    1. The jangly guitar seems to go through the whole song which lessens it's impact. light and shade adds more interest for the listener.
    2. After the first chorus a nice little guitar motif/riff would have broken the song up nicely.
    3. Maybe a second vocal added on the 2nd chorus to lift the song a bit more.
    4. To my ears the reverb on the verse vocals is a little over powering and takes away from the chorus vocals.
    5. The drums are ace as is the groove how did you record these parts, are they played via real drums and bass?

    Like I say great song, lyrics and you have a nice timbre to your voice.

    Hope this helps.

    Thanks for the thoughtful feedback - your tips about the arrangement are spot on, I'll definitely bear them in mind for next time.

    For the drums I used the Garageband Drummer, the results can be really good, you just have to break it up into sections. The bass was also done in GB, I just played the virtual bass instrument (I love playing the touch instruments in GB, they're awesome).

    Thanks for sharing your song. Can be extremely nerve wracking sharing your music with the world and asking for feedback.

  • edited June 2020

    Here's another attempt to draw something interesting out of Launchpad.

    My results with Launchpad have been hit or miss, but this one seems to work well.

  • @richardyot Awesome, reminds me of the stuff I used to listen to when I was a kid. The drums are great, I wasn't aware you used GB at all in your arrangements (you probably said, but I wasn't paying attention!!) - do you exclusively record to there, or pull things out of it? And I agree about the touch instruments, in a mix, I think they sound great, and they are HELLA fun to play, period.

    I would agree with Sandstorm's notes on arrangement and fx. Moreso point 1. I mean I'm like the king of repetitive samples so I'm not exactly one to cast stones lol (actually, even my submission for this month has quite a bit of repetition going on).

    Anyway, would love to hear a bit more about your process. Two thumbs up!

  • @DavidEnglish Right off the bat, I love the vibe. Trip hop / funky / dark but not brooding. The piece is titled APTLY, fits perfect. The bass sounds a little loud in the mix, all the other elements fit very nicely from what I'm hearing. Would love to cruise around to something like this, if I was driving anywhere lol...

  • Nanostudio 2, Blocs Wave, Ruismaker Noir, Effectrix and Replicant 2 primarily. Prolly my last for awhile, just not motivated so much. I have no right to complain cause I'm healthy, my family is, I'm still working, but I'm just bummed about the world. This is a reflection of everything I've been feeling over the last two months or so.

  • I hear you. A bit of a malaise malingering and threatening to descend. Between the state of the world, a busy job for which I'm thankful and hopeful it lasts until at least October, and a short term side gig I picked up that makes me doubly fortunate but even busier, my time for music has decreased. However, almost every day I try to spend at least 30-60 minutes doing something music-related, from reading a book on mixing, to watching a video or two about a product or technique, to dusting off old softsynths, or, most often, just making patches and escaping in the bliss (truly) of playing/listening to my pride and joy dream hardware synth I probably shouldn't have bought months ago "just in case" but am soooooooo f'ing glad I did.

    I hope to at least have/make time to listen this month, and perhaps find some inspiration. I have an idea for a shorter ambient moody piece of sorts, if nothing else, that resulted in some amazing droning with one patch I'd made on the hardware synth + valhalla supermassive (I posted a link in some other thread to when I was just jamming live with it). Very dark. Perhaps that's the way to go....

  • @vitocorleone123 said:
    I have an idea for a shorter ambient moody piece of sorts, if nothing else, that resulted in some amazing droning with one patch I'd made on the hardware synth + valhalla supermassive (I posted a link in some other thread to when I was just jamming live with it). Very dark. Perhaps that's the way to go....

    Right up my alley!!!

  • @DavidEnglish said:
    Here's another attempt to draw something interesting out of Launchpad.

    My results with Launchpad have been hit or miss, but this one seems to work well.

    Mysterious brooding vibe that is reminiscent of trip-hop. I like the subtle layers of background noises, it feels like being in a hushed crowd with all the low-mixed samples weaving in and out of the mix.

    The eastern flavour of the melodies is also cool. It's a track of quiet chaos.

  • @iammane said:

    Nanostudio 2, Blocs Wave, Ruismaker Noir, Effectrix and Replicant 2 primarily. Prolly my last for awhile, just not motivated so much. I have no right to complain cause I'm healthy, my family is, I'm still working, but I'm just bummed about the world. This is a reflection of everything I've been feeling over the last two months or so.

    This is another one of those dark, moody, and quiet tracks made up of layers of samples and synths weaving together to form a kind of glitchy aural tapestry. Some nice sounds going on, interesting samples to offset the lead melodies, and strange percussion to anchor it all down.

    I like the evocative mood, it's dark and slightly disturbing, it would definitely make a great soundtrack to a dystopian sci-fi movie. Or maybe the movie is playing out today, in real-time on TV and social media?

  • @iammane said:
    @richardyot Awesome, reminds me of the stuff I used to listen to when I was a kid. The drums are great, I wasn't aware you used GB at all in your arrangements (you probably said, but I wasn't paying attention!!) - do you exclusively record to there, or pull things out of it? And I agree about the touch instruments, in a mix, I think they sound great, and they are HELLA fun to play, period.

    I would agree with Sandstorm's notes on arrangement and fx. Moreso point 1. I mean I'm like the king of repetitive samples so I'm not exactly one to cast stones lol (actually, even my submission for this month has quite a bit of repetition going on).

    Anyway, would love to hear a bit more about your process. Two thumbs up!

    Thanks! I do use GB quite a bit, but never for the final mix. I think it's a great app for writing songs, especially with the touch instruments, but I always export the individual tracks and then do the final vocal tracking and mixing in Auria. Exporting stems out of GB is pretty tedious, but I don't mind just because the instruments are so great. I love the Drummer, the electric piano and the bass especially, and Alchemy of course!

    The other thing that's great about GB for songwriting is the multiple take option on the recorder. It allows me to try various melodies when I record the scratch vocals.

    I would say my mainstays for songwriting these days are GB, NS2, and very occasionally Korg Gadget. Everything always ends up in Auria for the final mix, but I'm curious to see if the rumoured Logic for iPad is going to appear this year, I certainly hope so.

  • @richardyot Do you use the merge track method to get all the stems and use something like audioshare to get them out? It really is a gigantic pain in the ass lol...

    I'm in the same boat as you, minus Auria haha.

    And yeah... the movie is happening now :(

  • @richardyot

    "The Paper King" - I've had a good listen to this. In fact, enough it ended up being very catchy and was rolling in my head for some time. Really liked the bass and the drums as others have said. Some additional instrumentation or a solo would have really elevated this one for me. My least favourite (to my ears) were the vocals, for some reason. And since I am no expert in vocals I cannot comment on that constructively.

    @DavidEnglish

    "Midday Shuffle" - This one has a really nice vibe for me. All it is missing is some Portishead style vocals. As @richardyot mentioned, this does have that trip-hop feel. I wouldn't have believed this was made in Launchpad had you not mentioned. Really enjoyed the mood and I let it play several times while doing some work and it flowed along well for me.

    @iammane

    "Herein the Divide" - What can I say about this track but that it really captured the feel of what is going on everywhere (especially the USA) as one would experience all that vicariously and the sense of growing hopelessness. There is no way I could say this was a cool track because for me it ended up being a very emotional track. Some of the notes just hit that kind of string. And I especially liked that you took the time to fade it out.

    Thank you all for sharing your lovely music. :)

  • A short piece composed, again, entirely on Gadget using a variety of gadgets including patches from the synths Memphis, Berlin, and Phoenix. I wanted to create a fast tempo synth-only-rock track - which is the 6th track from a concept album (of a voyage through space) that I put together in March. No mastering or anything (as I don't know how to). Just straight out of Gadget into AudioShare and upload.

  • edited June 2020

    @spyrogaia said:

    A short piece composed, again, entirely on Gadget using a variety of gadgets including patches from the synths Memphis, Berlin, and Phoenix. I wanted to create a fast tempo synth-only-rock track - which is the 6th track from a concept album (of a voyage through space) that I put together in March. No mastering or anything (as I don't know how to). Just straight out of Gadget into AudioShare and upload.

    Great stuff - there is a lot to like in this one, and I especially liked the pulsing bassline and the soaring lead. Great drums as well, and nice arrangement that takes you on a journey.

    It's very rare that I say this but this track is probably a tad too short :)

  • edited June 2020

    Our contribution this month with Doc Sticko on a poetry from the young Haitian Jean d'Amérique
    Sum up translation "at the edge of the dream, walk the rage"

  • @Kitusai said:
    Our contribution this month with Doc Sticko on a poetry from the young Haitian Jean d'Amérique
    Sum up translation "at the edge of the dream, walk the rage"

    Brooding and bristling with menace. The music goes exceptionally well with the spoken word, the whole thing is powerful and unsettling. Very nice use of percussive guitars as well.

  • @spyrogaia nicely done! Really enjoyed the composition and Berlin fits in so many places. I like how you took a rock approach to this. For just straight out of Gadget it sounds good!

    @Kitusai What apps in play here? I always like to get a little background of how the pieces were put together. Really like the vibe the strings sit so nicely with the percussion, and the pitch bending is unnerving in a good way, fits the vibe. Digging the art too! Ah nice what happens at 2:50ish was unexpected and nice. I would have liked to hear a nice kick and snare combo, like NIN style, to tie it together but that's just personal preference. Like REALLY HEAVY Happiness In Slavery type drums

  • Hey, everyone. I hope all of you are doing well and here is my contribution for this month that was tracked and produced in Logic Pro X. The keys patch is the Alchemy preset "80s Glassy Electric Piano" while the lead vocal patch is called "Aurora Haze". The bells sound came from my Yamaha Motif ES7 Digi Bells patch.The sub bass was created from scratch while I added a second hi-pass filtered bass playing 16th notes that was sampled from an Oberheim OBX-A. Lastly, the percussion was a mixture of samples from older drum machines like the Simmons SDSV for the toms and a BOSS DR-660. In Addition, I layered in cymbals and hi-hat pattern with the "vintage dark" crash, ride, and hi-hat found in the Drum Kit Designer.

  • @FunkMachine said:

    Hey, everyone. I hope all of you are doing well and here is my contribution for this month that was tracked and produced in Logic Pro X. The keys patch is the Alchemy preset "80s Glassy Electric Piano" while the lead vocal patch is called "Aurora Haze". The bells sound came from my Yamaha Motif ES7 Digi Bells patch.The sub bass was created from scratch while I added a second hi-pass filtered bass playing 16th notes that was sampled from an Oberheim OBX-A. Lastly, the percussion was a mixture of samples from older drum machines like the Simmons SDSV for the toms and a BOSS DR-660. In Addition, I layered in cymbals and hi-hat pattern with the "vintage dark" crash, ride, and hi-hat found in the Drum Kit Designer.

    Nice tune, very 80s sounding. I really like the bass synth that comes in just before the one minute mark, that's definitely the highlight of the track for me. The melodies are also nice. It's a gentle breezy track perfect for the summer weather we're having here in the UK.

  • @richardyot I really like the style and sound of your song. The layered electric guitars and how they’re mixed that creates chorusing tremolo effect provides a solid ambience and sets the tone for your track. Your tracks often remind me that I wish I could sing because I always am impressed with your voice and its uniqueness. If I may offer a few suggestions: I think that your track may benefit from a bit of limiting to bring up the instrumentation to the level of your lead VOX. Also, perhaps cutting some of the low mids in your vocal track can create more headroom and sit better in the mix.

  • @DavidEnglish not only am I impressed with your track since you produced it in Launchpad, but also because I find it to be solid groove. I like how your bassline and its almost jazz/latin style fits with the drums and is in the pocket. The accompanying sounds and Fx that you have mixed in and panned creates a both a relaxing as well as lively atmosphere. The main thing I’d suggest is to maybe hi-pass some of those effects and percussive hits around the 2:25 mark so the bass frequencies don’t compete.

  • @iammane First, I’d like to tell you that completely empathize with how you feel and that I’m sorry your motivation has also taken a hit. Your track has so many interesting evolving elements, percussive one shots, simple but effective guitar lines that also have a great tone, and very unique but well executed automated FX. While your track has a few spontaneous elements and ideas, instead of being all over the place, it maintains its direction thanks to your tracks chords and motifs that keep it on track in a very unique way. (Sorry if this sounded like a literary analysis)

  • @spyrogaia What you were able to do with the sound design with Gadgets is very impressive and how you managed to make them all work together is no small feat. The Synth/Rock was executed very well and captured parts of that older era, as well. The space-exploration theme is also incorporated well into your track without overwhelming the rock style. While, I think the bass part (playing the 1st and 5th, I believe) worked for this track, I think it could have created more of an impact if it had evolved or transitioned through the track

  • @FunkMachine Thanks for the kind words :) I absolutely enjoyed your submission, the elements all worked so well well together. Those toms, man, some serious M83 vibes (even overall, which is awesome, one of my favorite groups) . Agreed with richardyot when that bass comes in it's like yessss

  • @richardyot You had me right off the bat with that R.E.M. sound. Getting better and better every month. Only thing I’m wondering is how this would sound if you cut back on some of the vocal layering. I don’t know if it’s a stylistic choice or a lack of confidence, but I’m curious how it would sound if we got to hear a bit more volume and cleaner vocal track. The vocals don’t detract, want to clarify. I just really see potential to take it up another notch if you wanted to.

    @DavidEnglish If I remember correctly, your stuff has been a little too abstract for me in the past. I think this is definitely a big step toward that middleground of abstract but with some structure and rhythm. Nice and jazzy, with a lot of texture. I could definitely hear someone like Aesop Rock rapping over this with some political message.

    @iammane Definitely digging it. Feels very much like it could be part of a movie score, like the character is having that “coming to Jesus” moment and comes to grips with what they must do. On a personal note, I hear you for sure. It’s tough and you’re definitely justified in feeling overwhelmed. I would say if you can push through and keep making stuff, I think you’ll find that you make some really solid stuff. And I’d worry that taking too much of a break during this could lead to you struggling to pick it back up. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

    @spyrogaia Gotta hate when your spaceship’s communications go haywire during a critical point in your voyage. Definitely captured the spirit of the space-journey. Fun stuff. It did end a little abruptly for me. Would be interested in hearing a more cohesive outro.

    @Kitusai Definitely a bit more out there and unconventional for me to really give feedback.

    @FunkMachine Got that 80s vibe going on. Dig it. I do think there are some moments that could use a little more in the way of pads, just something to fill the space here and there.

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