Before we get started, I just want to say that revising this chapter was difficult. I found myself repeatedly reminiscing about the good old days when we still had SpaceWiz and Caelestis to play with. I reached out to the iPad Musician group and received lots of suggestions, but for me, many of the newer apps fall short.

Most of the apps from the original version of this chapter are dead and gone, so I was faced with pretty much starting from scratch, but not finding any golden unicorns to hold this updated chapter together. I finally put together a list of criteria, built a spreadsheet, and reviewed over 40 different apps to see which ones could make the cut.

Definitions

Purely generative apps produce musical notes based on rules defined completely by the developer. Algorithmic apps are similar, with the distinction that algorithmic apps provide some sort of user-defined control over a composition. This is the “math” part of this chapter’s title. While generative apps can be fun to play with, they are generally just a sound source to be manipulated. Algorithmic apps are much more useful.

“Physics” is another attribute of generative or algorithmic apps, basically referring to apps where the music is generated based on balls bouncing off of walls, gravity, etc. I feel there is an important distinction to be made between apps that provide neat graphical representations of structured math operations, and those that generate musical events based on the motion of virtual objects. Most of the newer apps out there with fun geometric shapes are not physics-based, despite the use of virtual objects in their interface. They can still be useful, of course.

Golden Unicorn Requirements

I thought it might help to really nail down the specifics of what I’m looking for, because honestly the search has been a bit frustrating. I may have to eventually become an app developer to achieve my dream of the perfect generative app, but hopefully I’ve just missed or overlooked the prized gem out there.

1. The app must be algorithmic, meaning it must generate musical notes based on parameters set by the user. There are some apps out there that can be nudged or even tricked into being generative apps, but I’m only interested in purposefully built algorithmic apps.

2. The app must be stable, with all of the features functioning as expected while not crashing, stopping unexpectedly in the middle of a session, or taking up 85% of the device’s CPU.

3. The app needs to be AUv3 compatible, because this is 2023, Logic Pro is here to stay, and it’s the right thing to do.

4. The app needs to be able to send midi to other apps.

5. The app must support custom user scales. Arbitrary lists of scale choices are useless, short-sighted, and lazy coding.

6. The app should be efficient and quick to set up. If I have to dig through menus and tweak parameters for an hour to get a basic melody, it’s a no from me.

Based on these rules, these are the apps that made the cut.

Aphelian

Aphelian was definitely the most graphically compelling generative app to make the cut. It’s a lot less spectacular in AUv3 mode, but it still does the trick. It’s dead simple to define scales on the fly and there’s simple randomization for the event distribution.

Cem Olcay’s apps

Cem Olcay is the developer of the “bud” line of generative apps. This is a suite of apps that can work alone individually, but become more powerful if you use them together. I’m going to talk about two of the helper apps first, and then the apps that meet the requirements of this chapter. All of these apps are solid, simple, and quick to use.

ScaleBud 2

ScaleBud 2 is how many of Cem’s apps achieve rule number 5. This app allows you to create scale-specific keyboards and chord buttons based on 110 built-in scales or custom scales that you build yourself. The important part is that the custom scales you build in ScaleBud 2 become available to use in many of the other apps, so you only have to define a custom scale once.

BrainBud

BrainBud is a simple controller app that allows you to send key and scale changes to the other apps via midi. You can can create patterns of key/scale combinations and send them to all the connected apps using “Budcast”, or even randomize the key/scale choice. Of course, BrainBud makes use of the scale list from ScaleBud 2.

The generative apps

• Auto Bass is specifically built to generate cool basslines, with a fully tweakable algorithm.

• Binarhythmic seems a little more complicated than it is at first, but basically it counts in binary and sends out midi signals for each bit.

• MelodyBud is a generative sequencer with lots of randomization features.

• PolyBud is a polyrhythmic sequencer that can send notes or MIDI CC messages.

• ShiftBud is a looping generative sequencer based on the Turing Machine eurorack module by Tom Whitwell.

• SnakeBud is a 16-step sequencer with 56 different 2-D snake patterns for moving between the steps.

Hilda

Hilda was actually a pleasant surprise because I’ve owned the app since it came out but never realized it had a sequencer. I love that the scale customization is dead simple and that you can easily randomize both the sequence and the patch. I also appreciate being able to load just the sequencer functionality as a AUv3 MIDI plugin to cut down on processing.

Poly 2

Poly 2 is a polyrhythmic sequencer from James Milton, the same developer who built one of my favorite apps of all time, Caelestis. It’s hard to totally slam him for letting that one die, because Poly 2 is a great generative app in its own right. Poly 2 has tons of randomization options and can play samples and/or send MIDI on up to 8 different channels.

Riffer

Riffer by Audiomodern is like Cem Olcay’s Auto Bass on steroids. This app ticks all of the boxes with style and has tons of randomization features. In polyphonic multi-riff mode, it can send different patterns on up to 4 MIDI channels. Infinity mode allows you to create a new pattern after a user defined number of steps for infinite variation.

TATAT

TATAT is a brilliant generative app for live playing. I almost didn’t include this app because you can only assign 4 notes at a time, which doesn’t quite meet the custom scale requirement. However, after playing around with it a bit, I figured out you can change the notes with incoming MIDI, which is actually pretty amazing for the free improv stuff that I do. TATAT has taken up an almost permanent spot in my AUM sessions.

I know what you’re going to say

Inevitably folks are going to say, “but what about X app”, and I’m more than happy to field comments with other suggestions. Just make sure that they meet all of the 6 guidelines laid out above.

Leave a comment

Here’s a list of all the apps I reviewed that didn’t make the cut: Autony, Axon 2, Branches, Cality, ChordJam, Cykle, Different Drummer, Drambo, Droneo, Egoist, Enumero, Euclidean, Gestrument Pro, Hexaglyphics, iKaossilator, Mela Synth, MiRack, Model 15, Mozaic, New Path, NodeBeat, OODA, Physicles, Riffler, Ripplemaker, Rozetta, Ruismaker Noir, Senode, Wotja, and ZOA.

The end of the beginning

This is the official end of the Drone, Glitch, and Noise book, but as I mentioned in my article on my spiritual framework for making music, the aesthetic and practice of drone, glitch, noise, and experimental music are central to the way I think about and create music. And of course, I’m fully invested in iOS as a platform. So I hope you’ll continue to read as I move into showing how I use these concepts, techniques, and apps in my daily musical practice.

Subscribe now

Sugar Bytes

We’ve already covered two apps by Sugar Bytes, Turnado and Egoist, but it’s definitely worth discussing their other iOS apps since all of them offer serious amounts of automation, modulation, and randomization functionality.

Instruments

Aparillo

Aparillo is a brilliant textural synth with tons of modulation features. The app is primarily designed to be used as a monophonic synth so that all 16 voices can be put to work on deep, ultra-complex sounds. This along with the multitude of modulation options and the Orbit sound-morpher makes it perfect for ever-evolving drones and soundscapes.

Cyclop

Cyclop is a monophonic bass synthesizer with dual synths and filter units. The main controls can be automated by recording your actions or by drawing a modulation curve. There are 16 different modulation targets that can be controlled by the knobs. This app also includes an Effectrix-style effects sequencer.

Three of the six synthesizer types in Cyclop are of special interest to experimental musicians. The Transformer is a wavetable synth that allows you to import your own samples and tweak them using granular and formant shifting controls. The Spectromat uses 32 internal oscillators, represented by spectral bands. The Phase Stressor is a phase distortion oscillator that does some crazy stuff, including self- modulation.

DrumComputer

DrumComputer is a drum synth and sequencer featuring intelligent randomizers and flexible modulation features. Key functionality for our concerns in this chapter include a modulation matrix on each sound page with various sources and targets throughout the app, dual modulation generators for each sound engine (which can be envelopes, LFOs, or random), and the modulation sequencers on the sequencer page for probability, rolls, step delay and also pitch- decay- and mod sequencers.

Factory - Modular Synthesizer

Factory is a complex modular synth with a powerful 8x10 modulation matrix with 36 available targets. Factory has 5 modulators and 4 different sequencers (with a similar interface to sequencers in their other apps), as well as a morph slider which can allow you to move smoothly from one set of preset parameter values to another. Of course, the morph slider can be automated using a DAW or external app for the ultimate modulation experience.

Unique

Unique is an analogue synth emulator known for its powerful formant filters. It offers a complex LFO, sequencer, and recordable XY pad as modulation sources.

Effects

Effectrix

The next app, Effectrix, is the full version of the effects sequencer included in stripped-down forms in both Egoist and Cyclop. Effectrix has 14 different effects that can be drawn onto a 32-step sequencer. Each effect has two available modulation tracks, which can be assigned to automate the effects parameters of your choice. Each preset can have up to twelve variations, which can be triggered via the in-app keyboard or by sending MIDI notes from another app or controller.

There are handy dice buttons for randomizing the effects sequencer and the modulation tracks. Effectrix can be used to mangle an imported audio sample or external audio via AUv3, IAA, or Audiobus.

Looperator

Looperator combines Effectrix-style sequenced effects with a loop slicer. Each effect can be modulated per step by one of 20 built-in envelope shapes, 4 custom user-defined steps, an automation-ready parameter dial, an envelope follower, or a randomizer. This is another app that I find myself using pretty much all the time, primarily for getting little ghost glitches from my guitar signal.

WOW2

WOW2 is combination filter and distortion effect with tons of modulation options. There are 21 available filter types and 7 different overdrive / distortion types that can be applied pre or post filter. For modulation, there’s a step sequencer, LFO, and Cyclop-style wobble generator. This app can create some great glitch and noise sounds, and the filter vowel mode will have you hearing voices in no time.

Sequencer

Thesys

The final app I’ll mention by Sugar Bytes is Thesys, a MIDI step sequencer. It can be used to create some unique bass and lead lines when driving synth apps, but more importantly for this chapter’s purposes, it can be used to send MIDI clock to Effectrix along with MIDI notes to change patterns. An added bonus is the ability to sequence MIDI cc messages (like the MIDI tools mentioned earlier), which can allow you to automate other apps that might not have their own automation functionality.

Other Apps

A few of the apps covered in earlier chapters are worth mentioning again for their automation features. GlitchBreaks and Sliver by Alex Matheu both offer tons of automation functionality. Almost all of the controls in Soundscaper by igor Vasiliev can be automated. Mentioned in Chapter 7, Borderlands Granular and Samplr both provide the ability to record your movements in order to automate the controls.

Next Chapter —>

Subscribe now

Effects automation is critical for maintaining a sense of movement in drones and soundscapes. Automation tends to smooth the edges, making modulation feel more natural and even organic. On the flip side, tightly-synced effects automation can make glitch, industrial, and grime tracks insane.

Three Paths

iOS has come a long way in the last 8 years. When I first wrote this book, the best way to get full-fledged automation was to rely upon apps by a handful of developers who really focused on providing that level of control in their apps. I’ll still include those apps here in the “Self-contained apps” section because they are every bit as usable as they were in 2015.

But first, there has been a vast improvement with regards to midi implementations in iOS DAWs, which lead us to the other two options: Hosts and MIDI tools.

AUv3 hosts and DAWS

As I write this, there are almost 50 AUv3-compatible host apps, many of which provide some sort of automation of parameters exposed by hosted apps. Apple’s Logic Pro and Steinberg’s Cubasis 3 are just two examples of desktop-level DAWs that offer full automation functionality on iOS. For folks who prefer exerting meticulous control over their tracks, this is the way to go.

There’s also a very non-standard host app by apeSoft called apeMatrix which I’ll cover later.

MIDI tools

For hosts that don’t provide built-in automation functionality, there are plenty of great MIDI tools that can be used to automate parameters of other apps. I personally use AUM 95% of the time, so when I need to automate parameters for hosted apps, I’ll generally use midiLFOs. There are a couple of other very useful apps I’d like to cover as well.

midiLFOs - midi modulator

I almost always have at least once instance of midiLFOs running in AUM. It may not be the best or most full featured LFO app, but it’s been around for around 7 years and I can generally get it to do what I need in a matter of seconds. If there’s a channel volume that I know I want to gradually fade in or out, I’ll set up an RMP LFO for the fade in and a SAW LFO for the fade out. Individual LFOs can be synced to the host bpm, so it’s also useful for set-and-forget automation on filter apps or anywhere else you want to keep some movement happening. The app only supports 4 LFOs at a time, but you can easily add more instances.

mLFO

mLFO is midiLFOs on steroids. It supports 16 simultaneous LFOs in 9 factory shapes or 16 custom user-defined ADSR-style shapes. It also has an awesome little dice button for randomizing LFOs.

PatternBud

PatternBud by Cem Olcay is a spartan CC sequencer, but the power really is in the simplicity. This app makes it dead simple to send specific values over time, and it also has some useful randomization options.

FAC Envolver

FAC Envolver is a really useful app that is kind of hard to explain, but the gist is that it allows you to use an envelope follower on an audio signal to define a MIDI CC value which can be used to control whatever you want. In the video above, I’m using Envolver to duck the signal of a synth app when my guitar signal is present by controlling the channel level control in AUM.

Self-contained apps

If it hasn’t been apparent so far that there are a handful of developers who are really catering to us experimental types, it’s about to get crystal clear. When it comes to effects automation and sequencing, there are a couple of developers who do it right every time. Of course, there are also plenty of great apps with automation features by other developers, but the following apps economize the learning curve by providing familiar interfaces across multiple apps.

apeSoft and Amazing Noises

I’ll cover these two companies together because they share developer Alessandro Petrolati, and because they’ve collectively released over a dozen apps that share the same automation capabilities and control interfaces.

Double-tapping almost any control in any of these apps will show a pop-up dialog with options for modulation, automation and MIDI mapping. Aside from color, these panels are almost identical for all controls across the entire range of apps. Controls can be set to react to keyboard aftertouch or to tilting the device, or they can be modulated using independent LFOs for each control. You can set the LFO frequency, choose from a number of different waveforms, and define minimum and maximum values for the associated parameter.

apeSoft

apeMatrix

This is the non-standard host app I promised to cover earlier. apeMatrix uses a matrix interface (thus the name) to enable routing of audio between apps, as well as device inputs and outputs. The big bonus is that any exposed MIDI parameter can easily be automated using the same modulation options available in all of Alessandro’s apps.

apeDelay

apeDelay is a spectral delay which allows you to draw custom delay time and feedback curves, while also providing a bunch of other advanced spectral manipulators such as blur, granulate, decimate, and freeze. This app is great for creating drones and soundscapes from simple sources.

apeFilter

apeFilter is a sophisticated equalizer with powerful and intuitive touch-based manipulation.

iVCS3

iVCS3 from apeSoft is an emulation of the famous EMS VCS3 synthesizer. The retro interface with its large knobs, control input matrix, and joystick is blast to tweak. Hidden away in the back panel are two sample players and a sequencer. It’s possible to mix the sound from the synth, the samples, and even other apps (via AUv3, Audiobus or IAA) and filter the mix through the app’s vintage-style effects.

Stria

Another synth app in this group, also by apeSoft, is the “multilevel interactive sound synthesizer” Stria. Besides generating cool sounds via the oscillators and spectral pitch grid generators, this app also has some cool unconventional effects like a Doppler effect, a chopper, a glitch generator, sync grain, and a spectral arpeggiator.

iPulsaret

The third synth by apeSoft is iPulsaret, a granular synth that can chop up sound from several different sources: morphing wavepad, trainlet, sample, or live audio via the microphone, Audiobus, or inter-app audio.

mood

mood is Alessandro Petrolati’s “personal interpretation of the legendary Analog Synthesizer by Eugenio Giordani.” I honestly haven’t spent much time with it, but it has Jordan Rudess’ seal of approval.

Accordion Vintage

Ok, I wouldn’t be caught dead buying an accordion app if it were made by anyone other than apeSoft, but if you need an accordion, Accordion Vintage is definitely the one.

Electric Vintage

Like the accordion app, Electric Vintage is not a sci-fi cool app like most of the other apeSoft apps, but it does what it does really well, and it does still provide all of the MIDI/LFO/Accelerometer mapping present in the rest of the apeSoft/Amazing Noises line.

Sparkle

apeSoft’s Sparkle is a unique tool that creates a hybrid sound from two different samples, or from a target sample and live audio. It works by applying the temporal structure of the source audio to the audio from the target sample. The resulting sound can be somewhat similar to what you might get from a vocoder, or something else altogether.

The final two apeSoft apps available at time of writing are the previously covered granular sample manipulator iDensity, and SOLO [Nr. 19], which is a study of a Stockhausen composition and not overly relevant.

Amazing Noises

Most of the Amazing Noises apps are designed to fill up the effects slot in your chain, but all of them do include the familiar sample player for standalone use. The exception is Moebius Lab, which is in a class of its own.

Moebius Lab

Moebius Lab is a “multimorphic sound processor” that can operate as an inter-app audio sound source or effect inside a host app, or can act as an AUv3 / IAA host for up to 8 other instrument or effects apps. Moebius has 16 different built-in effects, and everything can be modulated with the standard apeSoft LFO interface. There’s a built-in keyboard that can be routed to the built-in synth or any of the remote apps, and it supports custom scales. This app is amazingly deep and capable.

Dedalus - Delay Audio Mangler

Dedalus is a “delay audio mangler” with multiple delays that are granulated and modulated in various ways. DubFilter is a dual low-pass / high-pass filter. Limiter offers a brick-wall peak limiter and live normalizer. Finally, GliderVerb, described as a “reverberator with glissandos”, is a unique reverb app that simulates a gradually shifting space.

DubFilter

DubFilter is a dual low-pass/high-pass filter with a bunch of bells and whistles. Hands-on, this is a great sounding DJ effect app, and the LFO modulation functionality makes it equally useful as a background effects app.

GliderVerb

GliderVerb is a “Reverberator with Glissandos simulating a room gradually changing its shape.” The result is some amazing ambient reverb that moves with the music.

Limiter - Audio Processor

Limiter is a brickwall peak limiter with a wide range of dynamic processing.

Reverb - FDN

Amazing Noises Reverb is a feedback delay network (FDN) reverb unit with the expected parameters plus FDN-specific controls and a section of “twisting params”. Automating the controls in this app creates some truly strange and beautiful ambiences.

Continued…

Subscribe now

I’ve decided to format this chapter a little differently than it appeared in the original release of the book, focusing more on groups of apps by specific developers. This is partially because there are so many apps out there now that I’ve had to focus my learning time on apps by developers who consistently deliver solid, cutting edge apps geared towards producing this type of music. The other reason is that many of these apps don’t fit cleanly into the original categories, so I just got rid of them.

Audio Damage

Other Desert Cities

OK, so Other Desert Cities is technically a delay app, but it does have a couple of algorithms that bring some serious glitch. The Cactus, Mirage, and Sky Valley Granular algorithms are pretty good at dicing up and mangling the source audio, and the built-in LFOs can be used to automate the different parameters for added craziness. In my opinion, no glitcher’s toolkit is really complete without this app. I use it a LOT.

Replicant 3

Audio Damage markets Replicant 3 as the “O.G. glitch effect”, so how could I not include it in this roundup. The app has a built-in sequencer that allows you to “loop, reverse, and re-slice audio in real-time” using a number of built-in effects.

Audiomodern

Gatelab

Gatelab is a stereo gate sequencer which is great for chopping up audio signals and filling out the stereo field. I personally use this app every time I play for chopping up a bass drone created from my guitar with sustainer and octave pedals.

BLEASS

Granulizer

BLEASS Granulizer is a granular effect plugin with the interesting ability to accept up to four different audio sources and randomly pull tiny samples (grains) from each one. The result can definitely be pretty glitchy, depending on the source audio. There are also lots of dice icons in this app, so you know I love it.

Kymatica

Sector

SECTOR by Jonatan Liljedahl is an amazing app for slicing up samples, allowing you to divide an audio file into up to 32 sectors before warping them and re-sequencing them in various ways. SECTOR uses a probability matrix to determine the playing sequence of the sample slices. The matrix can be configured manually or randomized, or for more control you can use a more standard step sequencer. Up to four different time warp functions can be assigned to each segment with variable probabilities of being triggered when that slice is played. The warp functions can be manually chosen or randomized. Four different snapshots are available for each of map, sequencer, and warp configurations. The result is a very playable app that creates new variations of a sample every time it goes around.

Alex Matheu

GlitchCore

GlitchCore is one of the first apps I reach for when I want to glitch things up. It works best as an AUv3 fx app to glitch incoming audio. This app features my favorite control for any app, which is a little dice button under the grid for quickly creating random patterns. You can also use the X/Y pad for manual control of the playhead.

GlitchBreaks

Designed specifically for glitching breakbeats, GlitchBreaks by Alex Matheu lets you load up four different audio loops and switch between them seamlessly in real-time. There are separate x-y controls for glitching, cutting, or modulating your loops. Each of the pads can be quickly switched to control assignable dynamic effects. The effects can be automated individually by recording your knob movements or drawing a modulation curve in the automation editor. There’s also a large waveform view available for the iPad version that lets you scrub through the sample and modulate the loop length for more granular-style glitching.

Alex Nadzharov

skippodisk

Skippodisk is a free glitch app from Alex Nadzharov, the developer of the Broohahaizer app mentioned in the previous chapter. This AUv3 fx app mimics the skips and dropouts from compact disc players and is controlled via an X/Y pad interface, or alternatively can be set on auto to give random glitches in the background.

Sugar Bytes

Egoist

Egoist by Sugar Bytes is a groove box style app with a full-featured loop slicer. Each of the 16 patterns can have its own sample and slicer configuration. The slicer can break a sample into up to 16 difference parts, which can then be reversed, pitch- shifted, and altered in other ways using the sequencer. Egoist includes a stripped- down version of Sugar Bytes’ Effectrix effects sequencer, allowing different effects to be applied to each step. As with most of the apps by Sugar Bytes, almost everything has its own randomizer, so coming up with interesting new patterns is as simple as clicking the tiny little dice.

Turnado

Turnado is one of the most powerful real-time audio manipulation tools available for iOS. The heavy glitching capabilities come from the 5 “Loop Effects” and 3 “DJ Tools” effects, which freeze, loop, and mangle the incoming audio. There are 16 other dynamic effects that can be applied as well. The effects are assigned to one of eight knobs, which can be configured to modulate the effects in different ways. The knobs can be manipulated directly or in pairs using four x-y pad controllers. Turnado can process pre-recorded loops and samples, or you can send it live audio via AUv3, Audiobus or Inter-app Audio.

Unfiltered Audio

LO-FI-AF

LO-FI-AF does just plain ugly stuff to incoming audio. It works as an AUv3 effect, chopping and distorting your beautiful little sounds into a mangled lump of noise. The Digital section replicates CD skipping for breaking things up nicely, while the rest of the controls pile on the dirt.

Silo

Silo granulizes your audio into tiny little bits before shooting it off into space. This AUv3 effect app is great for creating spacey drones or glitchy noisescapes.

Igor Vasiliev

Soundscaper

Soundscaper is a unique app using oscillators to simulate 8-bit sound chips. Up to 3 samples can be manipulated simultaneously using controls based on shorting and manipulating hardware circuits. The result is a stream of ambient sounds, glitches and noise that can be further filtered and mapped within the stereo field using a cool top-down visual spatial mixer. The app offers tons of automation and randomization options, and pretty much everything can be controlled via MIDI.

BeatCutter

Another intriguing app by Igor Vasiliev is BeatCutter. This app has a steep learning curve, and I admit I haven’t totally got my head around it. In my experience, the results from this app seem a little more rhythmic and less ambient compared to Soundscaper, but that could just be my lack of command over the complexities of the app.

Subscribe now

Feel free to leave a comment if there are other apps you feel should be on this list. As I mentioned in the introduction, there are tons of great apps out there, so this list just represents the apps I’m most familiar with.

Leave a comment

NEXT →

Moving beyond traditional electronic music hardware and the associated software metaphors, the multi-touch interface of iOS devices has revolutionized the way we interact with sound. There are two specific categories of music apps that really showcase the potential of the platform by allowing us to interact directly with sound more intimately than ever.

Naked Waves

A handful of apps have given us the ability to interact directly with sound samples by touching visual representations of the actual waveforms.

Samplr

Samplr by Marcos Alonso allows you to manipulate up to six different samples simultaneously using a number of different play modes. Effects can be applied to each sample independently, and new samples can be recorded from an external source or by resampling existing samples. Samplr also allows you to record your gestures and play them back to automate the sample manipulation.

iDensity

iDensity by apeSoft allows you to load up to six different samples and play them independently using transport controls or by scrubbing along the waveforms with your fingers. You can control the scanning speed and direction of each of the playheads, introduce jittering and randomness, and alter things like grain density, length, and pitch. As you’ll find with the majority of apeSoft’s apps, almost any parameter can be controlled via MIDI, by tilting the device, or by automation using independent LFOs. In addition to using pre-recorded samples, you can feed some or all of the tracks with live audio using AUv3 (iDensity can act as a host or be loaded inside another host such as AUM), Audiobus, inter-app audio, the microphone, or input from a hardware audio interface.

Soundfruuze

Soundfruuze by Alexey Nadzharov is another multi-lane sampler / looper which samples the most recent 10 seconds of audio and allows you to interact with it in multiple ways over 5 different “lanes”. As an AUv3 app, this one only works in the effect slot.

SpaceCraft Granular Synth

SpaceCraft Granular Synth by Delta-V Audio offers two parallel granular engines. You can load audio files, or alternatively you can drop the app into an AUv3 FX slot and record samples directly from another app or input source. The notes grid on each engine allows for more musical results, and of course you can use a keyboard or other MIDI source to control the pitch.

Borderlands Granular

The next app on the list is Chris Carlson’s Borderlands Granular, which allows you to load multiple samples and interact with them using “grain clouds”. Samples can be positioned however you like on the playing field, resized, and even layered. The grain clouds play whatever is beneath them and can be moved between samples and even automated.

Apptronica folks loved this app so much we dedicated a whole compilation to tracks made with the it when version 2.0 released in 2015.

Sliver

Sliver by Alex Matheu only supports a single wave, but does provide four independent resizable playheads. Every control on this app can be mapped to MIDI controllers or automated using either the gesture recorder or built-in physics. Each channel has its own volume, effects, and pan controls. (Note: Sliver is a bit out of date, and while it works as an IAA source, it crashes if you try to use it in an effect slot to mangle audio from another source.)

Fluss

A much more recent (and more stable) take on single-wave mangling is Ruismaker’s Fluss, a collaboration project by Bram Bos and Hainbach. Similar to Sliver, you get multiple sliders and frictionless controls for physics-based modulation. You also get AUv3 support, both as an instrument and effect, or you can load the app into an FX slot for recording like SpaceCraft. The pitch/octave X/Y pad allows for slightly more musical manipulation and supports custom scales, which you know I love. You can also use a keyboard or other midi source.

Tardigrain

Another very musical single-wave granular synth is Tardigrain by humbletune. Tardigrain has solid AUv3 support and can be used as an instrument or effect. It has built-in wave shaper, reverb, sample crusher, and stereo spread effects that sound really good, so you can save a little bit of processing power by cutting down on the number of apps you need to load.

Bring the Noise

The second category of direct touch-to-sound apps is made up of some serious noisemakers. This category holds some of the most experimental apps on iOS, and honestly revising this part of the chapter was a bit depressing because two of the apps from the first edition of this book are hopelessly broken or completely unavailable. That’s an unfortunate reality of the iOS ecosystem that us long-timers just have to come to terms with. Still, if you’re looking for the cutting edge of what’s only possible on iOS, this is it.

Hexaglyphics Noise Generator

Hexaglyphics Noise Generator by Nicola Pisanti features a playing surface made up of glyphs similar to some of the visuals from the movie The Matrix. The controls borrow from the standard X/Y touchpad interface, with frequency on the x-axis and amplitude on the y-axis. It also includes a multi-touch filter modulation bar, a latch/hold feature, a percussive mode, and four different voices.

SKIIID

SKIIID by All the Machines is a four-pad drum synth that sounds and feels nothing like your average drum synth. I’ve only known about this one for a few days, but if you’re making glitch, you need this in your toolkit.

Broohahaizer

Broohahaizer is just plain weird. It’s an experimental noise effect app that can be loaded into an AUv3 FX slot or used in standalone mode. The input audio is fed to into both a synth and modulator section, which are then sent through a ring modulator and filter unit. I found it pretty interesting to automate the X/Y parameters of the synth and modulator with midiLFOs in AUM to get a nice radio tuning kind of effect.

VOSIS Pro

Last but definitely not least is VOSIS Pro by Ryan McGee, which uses scanned synthesis from an imported photo, videos, or live camera input. You create sound by touching and moving your fingers across the image. You can create loop points, use multi-touch gestures to control filters, and control vibrato using the device accelerometer. As an added bonus, you can hook your iPad up to an external monitor or projector to add a visual element to your performance.

Technically, this app is also available on Mac, but dragging around a mouse is simply not as cool as laying your fingers on the image.

Subscribe now

I’d like to thank the folks from the iPad Musician group on Facebook for helping me remember a few apps I’ve forgotten, and for introducing me to some new apps I had completely missed. Feel free to leave a comment if there are other apps you feel should be on this list.

Leave a comment

Next →

In the iOS music world, most synth apps offer a standard keyboard interface, and many will support the use of an external hardware keyboard controller. In addition, many apps offer alternatives to the traditional interface, ranging from subtle variations to completely new controller designs.

Post-Keyboard Interfaces

A common option within many synth apps is the ability to define a specific key and scale, resulting in a custom keyboard layout that makes improvisation easier due to the absence of unwanted notes.

When looking at configurable keyboards, a major consideration (at least for me) is the flexibility of scale definition. Many apps will offer a handful of common scales, which can be very restrictive if you’re working outside the traditional western major/minor system. Others provide longer lists of scales, but the best implementations are those that allow you to define custom scales by manually choosing the notes to include.

Animoog Z

In my opinion, Animoog Z offers one of the best keyboard-like interfaces with full custom scale support. Animoog Z sounds great itself, but it can also send MIDI to control other apps in the background. You can save custom keyboard configurations with each preset, or lock the current scale in place so you can change presets while keeping the current configuration. Moog’s Model 15 app offers this same functionality.

GeoShred

Another favorite app for custom control surfaces is GeoShred. The GeoShred interface is closer to guitar than keyboard, and offers many flexible options for setting up the interface, including custom tunings, ascending and descending intervals, and alternate temperament. You can also set up a diatonic surface like Animoog Z where only the desired notes are available.

ThumbJam

ThumbJam is a great post-keyboard app which has been around for quite a while. Besides offering customizable scales and tunings, ThumbJam was one of the first apps to put the motion sensors to good use, allowing you to use horizontal and vertical tilt motions to control volume, pan, and pitch bend. ThumbJam also allows you to split up the control surface to control up to four different instruments, each potentially with their own custom scale. As with the other apps mentioned in this section, ThumbJam can also be used to control other apps via MIDI.

Gestrument Pro

While many of the touchpad interface apps use the horizontal (x) axis for pitch and the vertical (y) axis for things like volume or pan, Gestrument Pro by Jesper Nordin takes a different approach by mapping the y-axis to pitch (although not necessarily linearly) and the x-axis to note duration values. Gestrument Pro has 16 instrument channels, which can each be assigned to a range of note pitches and durations, causing them to react differently to the location of your touch on the playing surface in relation to up to 8 cursors. Gestrument also supports adjustable degrees of randomness for the rhythm and pulse via each instrument’s rhythm generator, providing more fluid movement to the different voices.

Going beyond full custom 12-note scales, Gestrument Pro enables microtonal scales by allowing you to edit each pitch in cents or as an intervallic ratio. Scales can span up to two octaves, but don’t necessarily have to repeat on a standard octave if you want to get really creative. You can also import a MIDI file to use as a scale, or import a scale from the companion app ScaleGen. ScaleGen can also generate scala files, which can be exported to ThumbJam.

Gestrument Pro can also send MIDI CC messages based on the X/Y positions of the cursors, which opens up some interesting control options.

Roll Your Own Controller

Moving beyond playing notes, there are a couple of apps that excel in creating robust MIDI control interfaces for controlling parameters in other apps via MIDI CC messages.

TC-Data

The most advanced (and sci-fi cool) controller interfaces on iOS are shared by Bit Shape Software‘s TC-11 and TC-Data. TC-11 is a modular synth and TC-Data is a dedicated MIDI / OSC controller. Each preset for these apps is an instrument in itself, giving the user full control over how the app reacts to multiple touches and device motion based on over 300 different controllers and triggers. TC-Data can send MIDI note and CC data while targeting specific apps and/or channels. Both apps will react to everything from the distance between touches to the exact orientation of the device in 3D space. You could even create a preset for road trips, which would react to your speed and compass heading.

Midi Designer Pro

With the unfortunate demise of Lemur, Midi Designer Pro ascended as the king of custom midi interface designers for iOS. It lacks scripting capability, but it’s intuitive and user-friendly when it comes to lining up your control objects. If you’re using your iPhone as a midi controller, this is the only app that supports building interfaces directly on your phone.

Subscribe now

Feel free to leave a comment if this has been useful, or especially if I’ve missed or misrepresented anything.

Leave a comment

Next →

There are a few different types of workflows you’ll want to try out, depending on the style of music you want to make, whether you’re working alone or with other musicians, and whether you intend to perform live.

My number one piece of advice

In the last chapter, I went over the basic features iOS offers for getting sound and files moving between apps. The best way to create a solid foundation for building out your workflow is to settle on a host app or DAW that provides the features you need and best enables you to work in the way you prefer to work. I highly recommend spending some time with this spreadsheet (thanks, Bill Sherry), specifically the entries in the “Host” category. This list only includes AUv3 compatible apps, but you really don’t want to start down a path with a host that doesn’t support AUv3 anyway.

Once you’ve found a comfortable host app that allows you to route audio and midi between apps, record tracks, and save sessions with individual app settings intact, you’ll be prepared to move forward in building your own workflow.

Improvisation

Improvising, flying by the seat of your pants, or making it up as you go can be a fun way to come up with new ideas quickly. It can also be your entire workflow. While this approach sometimes means just hitting record and going for it, it more often requires a good amount of work beforehand to find or create the right sounds and presets. Mapping MIDI controllers, setting up automation, getting everything synced up, and making sure it all runs together without one or more apps crashing is a big part of the process. Of course, once you’ve got something recorded, you may still have plenty of work to do before you have a finished track.

Traditionally, improvisation is centered around a specific instrument, but with experimental music it can be applied to many different aspects of performance. Most of the other workflows covered here allow plenty of room for improvising.

Soundscaping and Live-Glitching

Soundscaping is a form of improvisation that is focused less on creating sound and more on manipulating it. For example, an artist may use existing samples or a drone from a synth as the basis for a soundscape and actually create the performance by altering filter and effects app parameters in real-time. Of course, manipulation of both the sound source and the effects can happen simultaneously, especially when more than one artist is involved.

This is the method I have used the most to create music because for me it leads to more organic sounding tracks. I also don’t have a lot of patience for tracking or sequencing, preferring the option of treating my iPads more like instruments than studios. More often than not, I create tracks in real-time while recording in AUM. In my opinion, AUM is hands-down the best host app for live improv style production, without all the complexity of a more traditional DAW to get in the way.

A less common form of soundscaping is an offshoot of field recording that I refer to as live-glitching (although there are probably other names for it). This basically entails using existing ambient or environmental sounds as the source for soundscaping with effects and filters. You can also combine live sounds with other sound sources to create some interesting results.

Multi-Tracking

Multi-tracking generally means working in a DAW with several recorded audio tracks. Whereas improvising tackles a whole recording at once, multi-tracking approaches a track one piece at a time. Improvisation can also play a part in a multi- track workflow, of course. You may improvise certain parts while sequencing others, mix practiced parts with improvised parts, or layer completely improvised parts in a sound-on-sound approach.

Choosing an iOS DAW is a huge topic that I won’t go into in depth here. As I write this, Logic Pro for iPad has just been released and is already creating ripples in the iOS music ecosystem. While it’s a little early perhaps to rely fully on Logic Pro, it will likely set the bar for iOS DAWs as it improves. The main current drawback for long-term iOS music folks is the lack of IAA and Audiobus support, which is not likely to change.

Other popular DAWS include Cubasis 3, MultiTrack DAW, GarageBand, KORG Gadget 2, Beatmaker 3, FL Studio Mobile, and NanoStudio 2. These have widely varying workflows, features, and support for inter-app functionality, so you’ll want to spend some time comparing features if a DAW-centered workflow is the path you want to take.

Linear Sequencing

Sequencing generally refers to the process of creating MIDI data used to drive synths or drum machines, although it can also refer to MIDI controller data used to change effects parameters or trigger audio clips. Sequencing can be performed within a MIDI-enabled DAW such as Cubasis or Gadget, in a groove box style app like BeatHawk or Drambo, or even inside a synth app. The MIDI data can be created by recording notes triggered from a keyboard in real-time, or by drawing notes into a time-line.

In DAWs like Cubasis that support both audio and MIDI tracks, sequencing can be used in a multi-tracking workflow, allowing synths and effects to be changed if desired throughout the production process. There are also a good number of standalone sequencers.

Pattern Sequencing

Similar to linear sequencing, a lot of groove box and MPC-style pad-based apps offer a pattern sequencing workflow. Shorter sequences are created as patterns that can be copy and pasted, looped, sequenced into longer patterns and songs, or triggered on the fly. Pattern sequencing can provide more structure to a live performance than pure improvisation, while still giving the artist flexibility to mix things up a bit. A producer may also create a track by recording a performance while manually triggering patterns.

Live Looping

Live looping has become all the rage, and iOS doesn’t disappoint. Loopy Pro is the clear leader in this space, but there are other options depending on your needs, including Logic Pro, Quantiloop Pro, and AudioKit L7. Check out the “Loop Tool” category in the spreadsheet for more options.

Subscribe now

Feel free to leave a comment if this has been useful, or especially if I’ve missed or misrepresented anything.

Leave a comment

Next →

Starting with this chapter, I’m going to do things a little bit differently. If I were to post the text of the original chapters, in many cases I would be posting completely useless information that I would immediately have to correct, simply because so much has changed. Instead, I’ll try to follow the same basic structure of the original while providing more up-to-date information.

It’s time to get down to the specifics of making music with your iOS device. For starters, you’ll need to get your head around the tools you’ll be using to route audio and to share audio files between apps and devices.

Getting Sound From A to B

The first major consideration for working with iOS music apps is deciding how to get your audio where you need it. For streaming audio between apps, there are currently three options: Audio Units, Inter-App Audio (IAA), and Audiobus.

Audiobus

Audiobus was the first solution for streaming audio between apps, and completely changed iOS music making when it launched. Audiobus originally required app developers to add specific code to their apps to make them Audiobus-compatible. After the launch of Apple’s Inter-App Audio, Audiobus was reworked with IAA at its core, and Audio Unit support was added once that became available in iOS 13. The result is a large catalog of over a thousand Audiobus-compatible apps.

Audiobus is a third party app, and does require some in-app purchases to achieve full functionality. Using Audiobus means running the Audiobus app as a host for other apps, so things become a little more complex when you’re using it in conjunction with another host DAW.

Inter-App Audio

Inter-app Audio was released by Apple in 2013 with iOS 7, allowing developers to basically do what Audiobus was doing, but with a manufacturer provided and supported framework. IAA still requires a host app to route audio between compatible apps, and most iOS DAWS can act as IAA hosts.

Audio Units

Audio Units are a cross-platform host-plugin architecture, introduced with iOS 13 in 2019. As part of the system-level Core Audio framework, Audio Units allowed desktop developers to port their existing plugins more easily to iOS and develop apps that would work on both mobile and desktop. The launch of Audio Units also marked the official deprecation of IAA. Notably, when Apple launched Logic Pro for iPad in 2023, they included support for Audio Units, but not for apps built on IAA.

Inter-Device Audio

If you have multiple devices and/or you are using your device in conjunction with a computer DAW, you will also want to consider the best method of pushing audio back and forth. Using a dedicated hardware audio interface is almost always going to be the best option for maintaining the best sound quality while ensuring low latency. Not all audio interfaces will work with iOS devices, so do your homework, and make sure you have a Camera Connection Kit.

With the exception of the iConnectivity interfaces mentioned below, you’ll probably want a dedicated audio interface for each device you hope to integrate into your workflow. My current number one choice is the M-Audio AIR 192|14 ,which offers 8 inputs and 4 outputs. The extra set of outputs gives the extra flexibility of setting up an effects loop or sending a separate monitor mix.

There were a number of software/app solutions for routing audio over USB or wireless when I published the book back in 2015, but as of this writing, there seem to be no working solutions for bidirectional audio without one or more hardware audio interfaces.

Of course, as soon as I published this, I found Wireless Audio AUv3 by Secret Base Design, who were involved with some of the previous solutions I mentioned, but I haven’t tested it myself.

iConnectivity

It’s worth mentioning the iConnectivity Audio4+ and Audio4c audio interfaces which support 2 devices at once for bilateral audio and midi. The Audio4+ was my go-to interface for many years, but the control software is out of date and partially unusable at this point, and the model has been phased out in favor of the Audio4c, which I have no experience using. I chose the M-Audio over the Audio4c when it came time to upgrade because I needed more than two Hi-Z inputs (I have 5 channels of audio coming from my guitar pedal board), but I may pick one up in the future.

Inter-Device Audio and Midi

As of iOS 9, you can connect your iOS device directly to a Mac via USB and enable it as an audio and midi device. While MIDI does flow both directions, unfortunately audio only flows from your device to your Mac.

The Loopback Trick

Here’s a handy trick for recording apps that don’t have Audio Unit, Audiobus, or IAA support if you don’t use a desktop DAW or multiple devices. If you have a hardware audio interface which works with your iPad, you can connect the output jacks to the input jacks on the interface. You’ll want to ensure that your DAW app is set so that it doesn’t monitor the incoming audio signal or you will cause feedback. By connecting your headphones to the audio interface, you will be able to monitor the audio coming from the legacy app (or a new app from a clueless developer).

One of the most common USB audio interfaces used by iOS musicians is the Behringer UCA-202 or UCA-222. These devices are great because they are inexpensive, compact, and can be powered by your device.

Sharing Audio Files

Starting with iOS 8, Apple introduced the ability for apps to register themselves as document providers for other apps without the need to implement a third-party API. This is now the best way to move WAV files around between apps, and honestly the only method I’ve used for years.

Apple introduced the Files app with iOS 11, finally making iOS feel more like a real OS with basic file management. By clicking on the “On My iPad” location, you can navigate to files for specific apps stored in the shared file system.

AudioShare is still the gold standard for managing and working with audio files on iOS, and gets its own folder under locations. Most apps which allow for importing files support opening files from the Files app or AudioShare.

Another method of file sharing uses inter-app file sharing via export or “open in” features found in supporting apps. Generally speaking, choosing the “Open in...” option from an export menu will bring up a list of compatible apps that can receive your file.

In the early days, there was a lot of copying and pasting of files using the general clipboard or apps like AudioCopy, but it seems kind of silly now that there is a more robust system of file management.

Subscribe now

That’s it for this chapter. The next six chapters will dig more deeply into specific types of apps and techniques.

Feel free to leave a comment if this has been useful, or especially if I’ve missed or misrepresented anything.

Leave a comment

Next →

What follows between the lines is the original 2015 text of chapter one. I’ll expand a bit on the popular highlights afterward.

Most artists encounter the much-feared creative block at some point in their lives. Some seem to be plagued with blocks. There are some common reasons creative blocks arise, but more importantly, there are strategies that can help you generate ideas and beat the blank page forever.

Fear Itself

The major cause of real creative blocks is fear: fear of success, fear of failure, fear of being recognized as a fraud, fear of ridicule, or one of the other common flavors of fear. Blocks can temporarily (or even permanently) shield us from those fears, because they give us an excuse for not starting, finishing, or sharing our work.

There are hundreds of books out there on this subject. I can personally recommend almost anything by Eric Maisel, particularly Van Gogh Blues. If you find yourself seriously, totally blocked, you might consider educating yourself a little, or even consulting a therapist or creativity coach.

Barring some deep psychological reason for not being able to create, blocks are, in my experience, mostly illusions brought on by false assumptions or option anxiety.

Make-Believe Monsters

False assumptions may come from something we’ve read or been told, or even something we’ve made up ourselves. One example is thinking you can’t make good music without having certain gear or software. Another is that you need a degree or a certain number of years experience. Perhaps you’re convinced that it takes 2 years to make an album, or that you have to be able to perform your music exactly as it’s recorded.

One of the best things about being an experimental artist is that it’s a lot easier to call bullshit on pretty much any assumption. As we covered in the last chapter, there are rules, but they’re your rules. You make them. If there’s a rule holding you back, get rid of it. Question all of your assumptions and beliefs about music, and then erase any of them that aren’t pushing you forward.

I have an album that consists of one 60-minute track. I know of an artist who released a one-minute long album consisting of 20 5-second tracks. There are tracks ranging from 1 beat per minute to 50,000 bpm, and plenty with no pulse at all. There are tracks with drums, tracks without drums, and tracks with drums but no rhythm. The point is, question everything, hold nothing sacred, and make your own rules.

I actually have a couple of hour-long albums now. Here’s one of them:

Option Anxiety

Quite often, artists experience creative blocks stemming from “fear of the blank page”. For musicians, this can happen when you sit down to write a new song, at the beginning of a new album project, or even trying to come up with a decent bass line.

Here’s the secret to dealing with the blank page: don’t do it. Never start with a blank slate, ever. Most of the time, blank page phobia, thinly veiled as a fear that we’re all out of good ideas, is really the result of too much possibility. This is option anxiety. The way to reduce option anxiety is to remove some stuff from the table. Limit your options. Choose a starting point that’s not zero.

Beating the blank page is what we’re going to focus on here. If you’ve passed your Rorschach test and kicked all your bad assumptions to the curb, the following strategies should keep you running smoothly from here on out.

Plan Three Moves Ahead

No matter where you’re at in your current project, always know what you’re doing next. Keep a steady queue of things to do, and you’ll not only ensure momentum, but you’ll be more motivated to finish your current project so you can tackle the next one.

I have several strategies in this area to help me stay ahead of myself. I love words, so I’ll keep a list of cool words I think of that might be useful as song names or album names. Those may lead to album cover ideas, or may help give direction to some piece of digital art that I’m working on. The end result is that I always have 3-5 album covers ready to go. An added benefit is that when it comes time to pick my next project, I’ve had some time to passively think about it before actually starting.

Homework

Whether it’s a word, an image, an idea, or a set of guidelines, what you’re doing is giving yourself assignments or exercises to complete. If you look at it that way, you can create projects out of almost anything: a technique from a magazine, a new app you just bought, or something as simple as a tempo.

It’s important to write these things down, or give yourself some way to review your upcoming assignments regularly. I keep all of my planned album covers in a shared photo album that I can access from any of my iPads or phone. I also keep a list of track titles and project ideas in a text file saved to DropBox so I can get to it from anywhere.

Randomization

One thing I started doing years ago is using random.org to generate numbers to help define a project. A random number between 1 and 12 can decide which key or tonic note to use. A number between 60 and 160 might decide the tempo. Using that info you could filter any loops or samples you might have down to a workable number and find something to use as a starting point.

Even though I still do that from time to time, things have come a long way, and a lot of apps offer some sort of randomization functions to help generate sounds or patterns. Some apps are specifically designed to generate ideas in this way.

Science Experiments

While the process of creating experimental art or music is generally closer to engineering design than scientific method, there’s still plenty of room for exploring “what if” scenarios. What if you sprinkled tempo changes randomly throughout a track? What if you let one app control another app? What if you layered a sample with a copy of the same sample, only reversed? What if you created a hi-hat sequence based on the Fibonacci sequence?

To Boldly Go...

An interesting approach for generating new ideas is to throw yourself into a situation you know absolutely nothing about. Pick an app you’ve never used, open it up, turn all the knobs and punch a bunch of buttons and see what happens. This can be especially liberating if you’re the type who normally reads the whole manual before hitting the first key.

Whether it’s as simple as choosing a random preset and hitting record, or as extreme as closing your eyes and tapping the screen with all of your fingers at the same time, taking advantage of the limited beginner phase that happens with each new app or tool can lead to some interesting ideas.

Doing It Wrong

I love this approach so much that it was almost the title of this book. Simply put, find a way to use an app in a way the developer didn’t intend for it to be used. Fill a drum machine app with vocal samples. Use an external MIDI clock to drive a groovebox app at extremely fast or slow tempos. Route Siri through a vocal harmonizer. Run an orchestral app through a guitar amp simulator. Hack, bend, fold, spindle, mutilate – just be careful not to crack your screen.

Outside the Music Box

Before we get to the important, shiny, technical specifics, I’ll leave you with one final suggestion about beating the blank page. Explore as many different types of music and art as you possibly can. Listen to things you don’t like, look at art books and photographs, pay attention to movie soundtracks. Read a book (see what I did there?). And then listen to your thoughts, pay attention to your emotional response, take a note and file it away for later. I can’t totally explain why Giger’s artwork has such a huge impact on the way my music sounds, but it does. Inspiration comes from strange and mysterious places, so make sure you visit them when you can.

Subscribe now

This is the end of part one of the book, and again, most of this still tracks. We’ll get into more technical iOS-specific stuff in the following chapters. In the meantime, here are the most common reader highlights from this chapter:

The practice of experimental music making is akin to playing scientist. You’re taking a gamble that some idea that popped into your head will produce a sound that’s interesting or pleasing. Your standing hypothesis in each musical experiment is that your current technique will prove useful in future experiments. You take what works (and the knowledge of what doesn’t) and continue to iterate, building your own body of theory and technique. Sometimes a method that you’ve held on for some time stops producing the desired results, and you have to throw it out and start over with something new.

Sometimes you need to reduce the number of tools on the table in order to pick the right one. Other times you just need to just pick a path and start following it. The point is to be perpetually doing something, even if it doesn’t look exactly like what you think making art should.

“Doing it wrong” is still one of my favorite techniques for stumbling on new ideas. I recently tried controlling parameters of AudioThings’s Noises app with my guitar and it’s grown into a whole thing. I make it a habit every time I find a new app to come up with ideas for using it that the developer might not have intended.

Leave me a comment and let me know what ideas in this chapter resonate with you.

Leave a comment

Next →

What follows between the lines is the original 2015 text of chapter one. I’ll expand a bit on the popular highlights afterward.

Experimental music shouldn’t have rules, right? Well, somewhat.

Experimental music does have some external expectations. If it sounds like Dubstep and it feels like Dubstep, it’s probably not experimental music. For music to be experimental, it should least sound a little experimental. If anyone can listen to your music and say, “Hey, that reminds me of...”, then the name at the end of that ellipsis should at least probably be another experimental artist.

While your first day on the job as an experimental music producer may be directionless with a faint hint of anarchy, you’ll soon find tools and processes that work for you, and others that make you want to break things that shouldn’t be broken. So while there may be few guidelines imposed by the outside world, you’ll soon start developing your own basic rules for getting the job done.

Some rules may stick with you forever, but most will be temporary guidelines you put into place in order to focus on certain aspects of your work. We’ll cover this a bit more in the next chapter, but the complete lack of structure quickly leads to what’s known as “option anxiety”. When anything is possible, actually deciding what to do and where to start can be next to impossible.

Eventually you’ll get the hang of making up your own rules, but here are a few you might want to consider at least trying out.

Make Sure There’s an Undo Button

Sometimes you’ll be working in a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) or app that actually has a real Undo button. If so, that’s awesome. However, in many instances it won’t be that simple, especially if you’re an excessive knob-tweaker or you tend to improvise a lot. It’s a good idea to save your work regularly, create snapshots, create copies of project files, and keep multiple versions of presets. Music production is a series of choices, and being able to reverse a few of those decisions when things go off-track is a good thing.

Take Notes

Keeping a notebook – whether it’s in the form of a Moleskine, a text file, or a ton of sticky notes – is a pretty good idea. Without a shiny Undo button, it’s the only way you’ll get back to “last known good” without an eidetic memory. Beyond that, a big part of making experimental music is discovering new techniques and creating unique sounds. If you stumble upon an exciting new realm of sonic awesomeness, make sure you know how you got there, and how to get back.

What has worked best for me is to keep basic text notes using an app that syncs across my devices using Dropbox. I use Notebook by Appigo, but there are plenty of note-taking apps available. The important thing is to find an app or solution that you will actually use.

Over the years, I’ve migrated to simply using Apple’s native Notes app. I have 4 iPads currently in use, my iPhone, and 2 Macbook Pros, so it’s nice to have everything automatically synced and searchable from any device. I do occasionally pull out a pend and my trusty Moleskine when I need to do some sketching.

Record Everything

If you’re just playing around with a new app, you may run across something that sounds cool, without having any idea how it happened or how to make it happen again. Even if you’re using the same old familiar apps, practicing the same little melody over and over again, it can seriously suck to finally hit record and not be able to pull it off that one last time. Aside from running out of storage space, there’s no harm in recording your little jams, which can be readily deleted with the swipe of a finger.

I personally have AudioShare open all the time. Inside that unassuming little audio file manager hides the slimmest DAW on iOS. It supports Audiobus, of course, and it can also act as an IAA (inter-app audio) host with one instrument app and up to 3 effects apps. Both Audiobus and IAA will provide you with a remote record button for AudioShare inside of whatever music app you have connected and running in the foreground. That means a single click to save your audio doodles. Once you have a recording, you can trim, normalize, convert, reprocess, or export the file to another app. Since you’re not dealing with the overhead of a full DAW, you have more memory to run more apps without worrying about audio glitches or app crashes.

Things have changed quite a bit. AUM completely changed my workflow when it came out, although it’s telling that the app that replaced AudioShare at the center of my workflow was built by the same developer, and even better, it stores all the recorded audio in AudioShare, so it’s not as much a replacement as a major upgrade. Of course, audio units (AUV3) and infinitely more powerful devices have also had huge impacts, but the concept of always having the record button close at hand still stands.

Warehouse Your Artifacts

It’s a given that you’ll want to tuck a few copies of your final mixes in different spots, and some of us are fairly consistent at backing up our project files. But what I mean here by artifacts is a bit different. Electronic music producers create all kinds of digital things that are often discarded or forgotten at the end of a project. These include things like presets, samples, and MIDI templates.

Keep those things; label them, tag them, and put them in a folder somewhere. Not only is this a useful habit to get into in case you want to go back and use something, but you’ll also be building a library of artifacts that may actually have some value. Other producers may be interested in throwing some money your way for a preset pack or a sample disc later on.

Quotas and Deadlines

It’s a good idea to set goals. Goals let us know where we’re going and when we’ve arrived. Without artistic goals, you’re just playing around. Even if your only goal is to create one track, you’re working.

You can set a single goal, such as producing a track, but without a deadline, you may find yourself “working” on that track for a couple of years. Deadlines provide a pressure to commit to putting in the effort now instead of later (or never).

Quotas are like recurring goals: a song a week, an album a year, 50 songs in 90 days, etc. As participants in challenges like February Album Writing Month (FAWM) will tell you, even if you don’t meet the quota, you’ve still accomplished more than you would have otherwise.

Finish What You Start

A painter with a dozen half-finished canvases has nothing to show. Starting is important, but finishing is critical. What “finished” actually means in experimental art may differ from the standard definition, but as the artist you’ll know it when it happens. Going with the painter analogy a bit further, a canvas may eventually become unusable, but as musicians, our canvas is composed of sound waves. Even if your finished track doesn’t include any of the original parts, there’s really no excuse for not finishing.

Share Your Work

Whether you just play your music for a friend, or upload it to Soundcloud for the whole world to hear, sharing is a good thing. For one, it’s confirmation that a track is finished, or at least finished enough. It’s also good to get feedback from others – really, it is. Even if you’re just “doing it for fun”, having a friend point out that your new track sounds just like the one you posted two years ago can be helpful. Having a stranger tell you your music rocks is awesome. Learning that your music reminds someone of an artist you’ve never heard of could open up your whole world.

Subscribe now

These guidelines still serve me well. Hopefully there’s something of value here for you.

Following are the most highlighted snippets from this chapter:

I honestly wish I was still better at this myself. I do try to regularly save snapshots of my current AUM session as presets when I’ve made significant changes. This allows me to restore settings for all of the loaded apps that support it, which is helpful for when I want to backtrack to a certain sound.

This is another piece of advice I could stand to use more often. 50/90 is coming up in July, so hopefully that will prod me to knuckle down on some new finished pieces.

Thanks for following along on this journey. Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts.

Leave a comment

Next →

What follows between the lines is the original 2015 text of chapter one. I’ll expand a bit on the popular highlights afterward.

Before we get started on how to make experimental music, I’d like to provide a little insight into what it is, why we make it, and whom we make it for. I feel it’s important to have a clear philosophy and foundation before pouring countless hours (or years) into an endeavor. With that foundation in place, you’ll find it easier to make decisions about what apps to buy, which workflows to explore, and how to spend your time productively.

What It Is

All art has purpose, but the specific purpose differs from style to style, and even from artist to artist. Generally speaking though, the purpose of a work of art is to communicate something: a viewpoint, a vision, an idea, or maybe an emotion. Perhaps the artist just wants to make someone think, or laugh... or dance.

For non-experimental artists, the goal of engaging in art is to produce a finished work. While a piece may evolve during the process of creation, the artist more often than not will have a vision of the end result they intend to achieve. This is true whether they’re painting a landscape, directing a horror film, or writing a country song.

For experimental artists, the goal is often quite different. While the process of creating still ends with a finished work of some sort, the end result is generally unknown. It’s often more about exploring a specific concept, technique, or tool, as opposed to constructing something the artist has envisioned. There are exceptions, of course; this is experimental art, after all.

Why We Make It

Because experimental art is more about doing than making, more about the process than the product, it might actually be considered the purest form of art; art for art’s sake, if you will. The job of the experimental artist isn’t to create a specific work of art as much as it is to create a new way of making art.

There are lots of reasons an artist may be drawn towards experimental art. Many encounter another artist or work that inspires them. While emulating experimental art or music isn’t the same thing as making it, it can easily lead to a more experimental mindset as the artist progresses.

In some instances, an artist may get tired of producing in a particular genre, or bored with the standard options. Looking to do something different, or to combine something new with what they already know, artists can easily find themselves in relatively uncharted territory... at least for them.

Finally, some artists naturally adopt an experimental approach from the very beginning (or at least the beginning of a particular creative phase). Like a child with a new toy, some of us may tend to toss the instructions and just see what happens when we bang on it a little.

Who Cares?

Even if you lock yourself in your room and never share your work with anyone else, you still have an audience: you. There’s a difference, though, between the role artists themselves play as observers in experimental art, and the role they play in more traditional forms and genres.

It’s necessary when creating art or music intended for sale, display, or performance to understand the potential audience. Even if you’re just doing it for yourself, following conventions or established styles introduces a filter by which to judge the quality of your work.

If you’re writing a pop song and the chorus isn’t coming together right, you won’t be happy with the result. The work won’t be finished until you are at least moderately satisfied. On the other hand, it’s completely possible, and fairly common, to create and finish a well-structured piece that fans love and critics rave over, but that you don’t personally like, or even secretly hate.

However, with experimental art, this is not the case. When making experimental music or art, the artist will intuitively make creative decisions based upon either the aesthetics of a work’s current state, or the perceived success or failure of the process being explored. Unless the goal is to create something you absolutely hate, it’s extremely difficult to consider an experimental work to be finished (or a performance to be successful) if you, the artist, are unsatisfied.

Beyond the artists themselves, the main audience for experimental art and music differs from more conventional forms in a big way. While pop music, still lifes, and mystery novels are directed at an external audience (consumers, as opposed to producers), experimental art is generally more appreciated by other artists than by the public at large.

For experimental musicians, other musicians (experimental or otherwise) will generally make up a high percentage of their fanbases. Beyond that, digital artists, abstract painters and experimental filmmakers are definitely more likely to tune in than the average music fan.

There are, of course, plenty of listeners with a passion for the experimental who lack the time, money, or motivation to create music themselves. There are the serious listeners and audiophiles who may be into the edgier stuff. And there are a good number of hipsters who may latch onto experimental music just because they found it first.

Subscribe now

This chapter has withstood the test of time because it’s not really saying anything that is confined to the time period and doesn’t include any technical details.

One of the best thing about publishing on Kindle turned out to be the ability to go back and see the popular highlights from my book, the little snippets that a notable number of readers found interesting or helpful. Here are the most popular highlights from chapter 1:

This is really the beauty of experimental music for me, especially improvised music. The journey to musical discovery is what brings me back to the studio again and again.

To be fair, I do think some artists outside of experimental music go through this process to a lesser degree, especially early on as they’re finding their voice and perfecting their style, and sometimes later while reinventing themselves or catching up with what’s current.

However, for experimental artists, this is the daily practice: discovering and inventing new techniques, exploring them, proving them out, iterating upon them, and carrying them forward or letting them go.

This thought may seem unfortunate, but it’s really as it should be. Understanding and appreciating fringe music usually requires context and breadth of exposure that the average listener is unlikely to possess. There are those music fans who will latch on to something because it’s weird, absurd, or unusual, but the general public of music consumers tends to drop out after a few seconds of unstructured sound, and will rarely invest the attention required to explore durational works.

Thanks for following along on this journey. Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts.

Next up →

Preface to the preface

The original text appears between the horizontal divider bars below. Once that’s all done, there’s another section at the end where I’ll add thoughts and updates.

Where I can’t possibly wait until the end to interject, I’ll drop in a little block like this one:

Hold on just a minute, past self. I got words to say.

I’ll follow this basic convention throughout the re-posting process. Now, on to the original text:

I always wanted to write a book, but that’s not your problem. Or at least it wasn’t until now.

Should you read it? If you made it past the title and read this far, I say go for it!

Seriously though, experimental music is important - probably more important than non-experimental music. Theoretically, the human race could survive indefinitely without one more pop song ever being written. There are enough existing works on the planet to keep a music lover in discovery mode for the rest of their life. Of course, the hits will keep on coming, so we definitely won’t starve from lack of new sensory stimuli.

However, experimental music is about furthering the human experience. The purpose of experimental music is to expand the potential of what can be created, to question and redefine the very nature and meaning of music itself. That’s pretty important stuff in my book (and this is my book).

The goal of this book isn’t to evangelize experimental music. By reading the preface you’ve established that you have more than a passing interest in actually creating experimental music, so we’re going to talk about that instead.

Ultimately, art transcends medium. It’s been my experience that many experimental musicians at least dabble in other forms of experimental art, often even combining them. Visual art - be it image, video, fashion, or typography - also has an important part in the presentation of music. Personally, I do all of my own album art, and much of the art for other artists on my label. I also make a good number of videos. For all of these reasons and more, you’ll find that I may blur the lines a bit here and there, and I’m more likely than not to use the word art when talking about music.

You may ask, “Who the hell are you and what makes you qualified to write a book like this?” I know I did. Several times.

The answer is that I am an experimental artist and musician, and an extremely prolific one. As I write this, I have produced over 50 albums of music (or sound art). That’s not just me bragging; in my opinion, steady output and exploration of other mediums are critical parts of being an experimental artist. Hopefully you’ll get some benefit out of my direct experiences as an artist, and maybe even find something to build upon yourself.

I create all of my music and art on iPads, which makes me a purist I suppose. However, I understand that most electronic music producers are just discovering the power of iOS music apps, and many of those already using iPads or iPhones to make music also use desktop software, hardware, and/or other instruments in conjunction with their devices. So, I make every effort to keep content relevant to all types of producers whenever possible.

The last thing I’ll mention before getting on with the actual book is this: I own thousands of music apps and know dozens of developers. I do cover quite a few apps, but there’s no way I can cram a comprehensive list into one book. While I have direct relationships with many of the developers mentioned on the following pages, there are plenty I don’t know, and there are many developers I know and respect that aren’t mentioned. My goal was to focus on the most relevant apps for this book, so hopefully none of my developer friends feel slighted for not being mentioned. I promise to write more books if you buy this one.

Thanks, and enjoy!

This preface still stands pretty well. Of course, I’ve produced a lot more music since I wrote that, so I’m currently up to 121 albums of iOS-produced music on Bandcamp (the Echo Root albums are pre-iOS, but they’re still cool). And I’m still completely obsessed with making experimental music on iPads.

iOS music production was still pretty young when I wrote this book. Over the past 8 years, the community of musicians using iPads or iPhones as part of their process has grown exponentially, but it’s still much less common or widely accepted compared to laptop or desktop DAW-based production. However, the release of Logic Pro for iPad just this month has already resulted in a huge influx of folks hungry to learn what the platform can do. The projected impact and implications of this move by Apple is a huge ongoing discussion in online forums, but I personally see only a bright future ahead.

As for writing more books, I did write one other book called iPad Music School. That book is most certainly obsolete, as the technical aspects of iOS-music have become incredibly more advanced since I wrote it. Apple’s decision not to support Inter-App Audio in Logic Pro for iPad (in favor of the more fully-featured AUV3 plugin model) means that the IAA and Audiobus frameworks covered in that book are likely on the way to obsolescence themselves. I’m sure I’ll have to account for this many more times as the book progresses.

Subscribe now

Next up →

For those who haven’t read the book, there are really two main sections: the first three chapters, and everything else. The book starts with my general thoughts on experimental art, along with some strategies on workflow and staying productive. The remainder of the book is more technical, giving an overview of different iOS apps useful for making experimental music.

The problem with books

While the first section of DGN (the book) will hopefully be useful for many years to come, the majority of the book has become outdated. Some of the apps listed in the book are no longer available, many are seriously in need of updating, and there are a plethora of exciting new apps that have been released over the last 8 years that I would definitely add if I were writing the book today.

What’s a poor author to do?

I have a few options. I could give in to the inevitability of obsolescence and just allow the book to fade into obscurity. I could re-write and release an “Updated and Expanded!” edition every year or so. I could write new books, providing more depth and fresh insights related to the topics introduced in book one. Or… I could just write articles on Substack and keep the content perpetually updated and growing.

I hope to use this forum to expand on some of the ideas from DGN, share some of the lessons and discoveries that writing and publishing the book have provided, and post about exciting new noise-making apps as they become available. I hope you’ll join me.

What to expect

I plan on republishing the original text of the book here over the next week or so, in chapters (or maybe smaller sections as needed). I’ll probably add some notes regarding really outdated stuff. Once the original text is all here, I’ll go over the most highlighted parts of the books by readers, talk about some of the reviews on Amazon, and then begin adding new posts to bring everything up to date.

A note on self-plagiarism

I do want to mention a couple of things. First, this preface is itself a revamped and expanded version of an article I published on Medium in 2016. I had the idea way back then to do something similar to what I’m attempting now, but honestly Medium just didn’t do it for me.

Secondly, I am a trans person, and the original book was published under my deadname. I’m not going to share it here (because it’s dead), and I’d prefer if others didn’t. If there’s any concern that I’m stealing all this from the “real author”, I assure you, I’m the same person, just with a much cooler name.

Next Up →

Subscribe now