I have decided to downgrade my Soundcloud account. As I write this it stands at 82 tracks spanning six years. Unfortunately, in order to keep my account going I am paying a monthly fee that I would have to pay indefinitely. I think it’s a good deal and it has served me well. However, at this time I would rather utilize that fee for other interests.
I left the account up for quite a while because I didn’t like the idea of ruining the posts on the forum here by abandoning links. At least the actual Audulus patches will be up.
Thanks to anyone who took the time to listen to my rough drawings.
It’s good to hear from you! I completely understand. I’ve considered upgrading my account at times but didn’t want to sign up for yet another monthly drain on my finances. I finally decided to stay below the upload limit and prune as necessary. I’ve enjoyed listening to your creations. I don’t know what the total size would amount to but you might be able to upload them to an iCloud or dropbox account to potentially make them available on request without incurring a big cost.
@futureaztec – the things you have made have been on my radar (and in my thoughts) since I started taking a serious look at Audulus (oh I guess it was in late 2020, latecomer considering the tsunami of cool stuff output by the users here). I like your music, your approach.
I appreciate your kind words. As I made my way through the software, properly knowledgable people on the forum provided endless support and information, quite often building tools I needed to explore various ideas. Getting closer to the fine details of synthesis seemed to increase my appreciation of the sound itself. It would be an understatement to say that I benefitted from a healthy addiction to Audulus.
Unfortunately I have made a purchasing mistake on a tight budget. I bought an iphone 13 thinking I could utilize the chip for synthesis and replace my damaged outdated iphone 6s plus. It turns out that, for me, the plus size of the iphone seems to be the bare minimum size of screen I can stand and the iphone 13 is too cramped to work with. I should have bought an old phone and an ipad mini 6 to replace my ipad mini 4. It’s so hard to know these things ahead of time.
It’s so easy to be a eurorack module or some other item short of a workable setup. At one point I had what I needed on the gear side of things, then I tried to switch some things and painted myself into a corner I haven’t been able to get out of.
I also noticed the scene tank a little. It seemed to be somewhat running on the back of youtubers reviewing and tutorialing new gear all the time. When things slowed down with manufacturing, so did the content. I am not sure how it will recover. At the same time, I think the inevitable increase in processing power is going to support another wave of interest. The prices of all that gear used will be attractive as well. It’s pretty clear that beyond the ever increasing quality of the camera, the iphone is overbuilt. Phones became computers for people who don’t know how to use computers.
I think for me there was a silly obsession with converting digital signals to control voltages – like I just had to get an ES-8. I am not sure that was necessary, but I almost needed the hindsight to relax about it. I had to break out into gear. That aside, my favourite way to work is fully immersed in Audulus. It has always made me wonder what it would be like if Audulus got away from apple devices and simply lived inside a synthesizer that had digitally routable oscillators, filters etc., controllable through the graphic user interface of the Audulus blackboard – the whole thing locked into a finite piece of gear – like an Octatrack but built around Audulus, limited and infinitely novel, openly driven by the programming that took place here on the forum.
I never really did what I thought I could with the music, but all too often I went to bed satisfied.
Looking at what’s currently available on the market like the Beebo/Hector and the Zoia EuroBuro, it would seem to me that if you weren’t concerned with CV I/O or a need to install the device in a eurorack rig, that an iPad with Audulus would still be a better investment. The Beebo pedal currently retails for $449 and a base model 64 GB iPad goes for $329. Use the headphone jack or add a Focurite iTrack solo for $149 and you have a very capable piece of gear for only $30 more (plus the cost of Audulus of course).
From the reviews I’ve watched, the BeeBo and EuroBuro don’t really measure up to the iPad/Audulus as far as the CPU is concerned. They seem to run out of horsepower pretty quickly as the patches get more complex. Not surprising really given the economies of scale that Apple enjoys. Any attempt to port Audulus to a similar device would undoubtedly face the same problems. It’s not that it isn’t possible but in the end it would probably cost more than a top of the line iPad Pro.