u/Key_Service_4443

(product in development, final features and design may not match the released product)

hey yall

weve been cooking up something for a while at fourtrack.fm HQ called BRAINDANCE.

its a:
- audio effect AUv3 and standalone (maybe VST/CLAP at some point?)
- lets you make wild glitch/stutter fx on audio input
- also has significant performance possibilities on iOS glitch phrase launch, x/y control, and ratchet strip
- ideal for resampling in your workflow

its existed in some very primitive form on our free web DAW for a year or so, but ive been toying with the idea of it for iOS / auv3 for the past couple months

i know that historically glitch editing UIs have been kinda painful but ive tried to solve some of the issues i came across in the various VSTs

would love to hear your thoughts / questions, this should probably ready for an introductory offer within a couple weeks

if you want to get on a TestFlight feel free to DM me an email and I'll try to push something up to TestFlight ASAP.

I finally got a camera setup to do performance demos.

Here's a little dreamy dreamcast/PS1-style DnB noodle on Harmonique.

Borrowed chords basically are like doing 'sophisticated' pop and electro but on easy mode. A little theory CAN go a long way.

It's also on iOS as an AUv3 AND AUv3 MIDI so you can route to your favorite synths. You can find links to the app store on fourtrack.fm

the title says it all doesnt it?

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mound-music-generator/id6768479656

MOUND lets you make collages and paint FX to make loops. unlocking gives you an AUv3 instrument and multichannel MIDI output to route to synths.

i posted a preview about a week ago, listened to early feedback, and its out now.

MOUND is free and a bunch of stuff gets unlocked at what i hope is an affordable price

some highlights:
- 100+ soundfont instruments
- tape delay, dattorro reverb, lowpass filter, tape wow/flutter, granular stutter/repeat, and chorus
- per channel mixer

channel 1 is chord bed, other channels are embellishments

you can choose keys and scales, make mutations, vamp on individual chords.

its v1 and even though its thoroughly tested, early adopters always find bugs, so please let me know if you do find anything!

here are 3 promo codes to start, first come first serve

(PROMO CODES have been used up)

https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6768479656&code=MW6TKEWJLYF7APY7WL

https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6768479656&code=EFN8X44RMLR46YRTAL

https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6768479656&code=WAM8LHMH7LN8RPK7N7

https://fourtrack.fm/mound

let me know if you have any questions!

hey yall anthony from fourtrack.fm here

heres the zine without the bullshit parent link https://static.fourtrack.fm/fourtrack-zine-issue-1.pdf

i printed 25 of these to drop in local bulletin boards and free zine libraries (which are a thing in Massachusetts!)

AI disclosure: i wrote all the text MYSELF the HARD WAY (in a manic blank gmail to myself late at night). but i did have help with figma and claude mcp to clean up the layout. i DESPISE generative images and generative audio but take no qualms for stuff that i dont find that interesting. you could argue: fuck you anthony aligning is my art form! and thats a fair criticism, then dont use AI for that if it brings you joy. id rather be forced to take an ice bath with rfk jr then give myself carpal tunnel with the mouse.

i chose my favorite color combo from https://www.wada-sanzo-colors.com/ i did a bunch of halftone stuff with DitherFx.

the purpose of this zine is to teach the next generation of songwriters about techniques to build confidence in ones own ability to create things without prompts. i do worry that there will be a whole generation of folks who like, have zero concept of doing creative things or dont see them as worthwhile if machines can just 'write songs' while leaving zero impact on the writer themselves.

who am i to talk about songwriting? well, i spent about age 12 - 36 writing songs obsessively, and about age 20-36 putting out an album or ep or both each year, doing a tour, playing a bunch of shows and open mics, booking shows, but mostly just REALLY INTO home recording. i built my life around creating music and understanding sound. i know something at least, about my own philosophy of songwriting. and i know that playing music is the closest thing to some kind of mystical communion with the cosmos that exists for me on this planet. the idea of that experience being lost because some idiot VCs decided music was a problem to be solved and market that idea to death, frankly sickened me enough to devote all my limited free time as a parent with a full time job to preserving the craft of songwriting.

i have a really conflicted relationship with AI (can you tell?) because i hate it for writing especially, and making music is really important to me. i can see a world where people run local ai stuff to help with really boring things like fixing layouts in figma or writing python scripts to do calculations, but it is offensive to me to do things like use generative AI to write lyrics or come up with melodies.

everyone has a line they draw with the AI stuff and for me its writing proompts instead of creating stuff.

so yeah tldr; how dare i use AI to make a zine about hating AI music but also you might enjoy what i did here so there you go.

Q: what is wrong with you, you used gen AI with figma to fix a zine that rants about gen AI and music?

A: yeah so what? i did the parts i thought were interesting myself and enjoyed making it, don't read it if you don't like it

Q: so you are basically a hypocrite?

A: id like to think its possible to be in some kind of middle camp where you hate AI for a lot of things but find it useful for really boring things. but this take is massively unpopular because for whatever reason weve become conditioned to believe in all or nothing.

Q: what other things can i know about you as a person and not the owner of a website?

A: i havent eaten meat fish or dairy in ten years but still eat honey and own wool sweaters.

here it is https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ravemaker-techno-beats/id6768480015

posted about this a little while back, but v1.1 is out now and includes AUv3

Ravemaker is a monosynth with 303 style step sequencing (with accent and slide)

it also has a mini 4 sample drum machine (606 style) with retrigger, reverse, and probability

the mixer has a global fx send with stereo chorus, tape delay, and plate reverb emulation.

theres a lot more here but a lot of the basic sound is FREE and the rest is $5 and under (purchasing power parity is great)

(skip to 1:04 to just hear chords, no setup flow)

After some discussion about Harmonique in Koala the other day, I thought Id post a setup demo here to help folks get started.

Big note: because the AUv3 and standalone are bundled, you need to open the standalone harmonique first before firing up the AUv3.

AUv3 MIDI is not available in Koala as of now but you can still use Harmonique to play chords with a single key press. It’s mapped today to C0-C1 white keys (major scale) for the major harmonization, and C1-C2 for the minor harmonization. Other keys are for melodic lines for the split instrument.

There are a hundred soundfont instruments baked into Harmonique with the $5 (in US, uses PPP to be on parity in other countries where $5 USD might be a nice dinner out, eg 18 CNY in Mainland China ~= $2.66 USD) unlock + the AUv3.

Grab the standalone with basic features FREE here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/harmonique-chord-organ/id6761585114

facing a weird bug in our own product where the bundled AUv3 MIDI doesnt load unless we open the standalone version first (any advice here is appreciated!)

BUT once it is opened and routed to the Juno clone AUv3 its *chefs kiss*

its fun to trigger a chord with a single keypress and with a hardware MIDI keyboard even more fun can be had here

https://fourtrack.fm

hey yall

anthony here from fourtrack.fm

this post is to introduce Harmonique https://fourtrack.fm/harmonique

a functional harmony theory aware chord organ with split support and built in theory lessons.

it features parallel major and minor side by side in all 12 keys, has some performance modes, and standalone even has a small looper for jams. its free standalone with limited features but for about $5 today (depending on locale) you can get the AUv3, more lessons, performance, and built in fx.

last week i posted about https://fourtrack.fm/ravemaker but since getting feedback i decided to include AUv3s in my apps.

so basically you can route AUMs MIDI keyboard to Harmonique MIDI auv3, and route that to an audio AUv3 like KQ dixie or Synth One J6 (no affiliation just a fan)

here is a 30 second demonstration of MIDI routing https://youtu.be/Ep_LfWfgjs0?si=lub7Viu_EdvY2q1l

in the above case, a single key press will trigger cohord playback (starting at C1). parallel minor has the same mapping an octave above (starting at C2)

you can also use Harmonique as an AUv3 audio device.