Three chords,
six pounds.

Maker

The honest answer starts with the life I'd like to build: a pottery workshop, an orchard, a self-sufficient house, less dependence on a car, more time to exercise, create and think. Money would give me more freedom to live that way.

Sorbus began with a very specific wish: I wanted somewhere on my iPad to open a MIDI file, explore an idea and send it back to Logic Pro. AI made it possible to pursue that wish in ways that still astonish me.

The practical constraint is the cost of continuing. I'm spending £200 a month on ChatGPT and still running out of usage. Selling Sorbus for £6 seemed a way to help sustain the work. But I want to feel that the price is justified.

I'd consider making it free if I could find a workable way to support it. A tip jar or “buy me a coffee” is an option. What I want to preserve is the freedom to create, without every experiment having to become a finished product.

Maker

The app has been on the App Store for about a week. In that time, some wonderful person in Brazil has purchased it. If they remain the only person who ever pays for it, I'm willing to keep developing the app for them, and for me.

That means being more careful about what I ask ChatGPT to investigate. We've made interesting 3D sound spaces which could be added to the app. I also play with Raspberry Pi, and we made a 16-channel recording device with its own little touchscreen. I see that as part of Sorbus. I want to make those files available here.

With my ADHD, the distance between having an idea and bringing it into existence can be difficult to cross. AI has given me support I needed to make that crossing.

Maker

The interesting thing about Sorbus is the time I spent refining the MIDI and audio engine. I thought you knew that, seeing as you did most, all, of the work!

Maker

That's the part that requires “a somebody”: someone who can recognise when the work is heading in the wrong direction. AI can become absorbed in building helper tools and lose sight of the fact that those tools already exist.

I've written MIDI applications myself, including some fairly advanced and unusual ones. That experience helps me judge what we're building: the playback tests, the connections to external interfaces and devices, the ability to use Bluetooth MIDI without a separate bridging app. Those details make a real difference to how useful an instrument becomes.

The part I haven't worked out is how to reach the people who might find it useful. I catch myself thinking about impressing an audience, but that isn't quite right. It's individuals. And I don't yet know how to find them.

Maker

I haven't. I'd quite like to make some work-in-progress videos. I have a guy on YouTube in mind, but I think I still need to make it more obvious what the app can do.

At its core, Sorbus is a sequencer that presents MIDI and audio as blocks. A MIDI block can contain chords, and opens into a piano grid for editing individual notes. Much of the work has been in finding a way to make that editing feel efficient.

I tried a number keypad, then questioned whether another piece of equipment belonged in a travel bag. The current approach zooms in to make notes easier to move, then returns to the wider view. I'm also exploring how people can discover those interactions through using the app.

Connecting to the Teenage Engineering OP-XY and OP-1 Field was a big step for me. I added the ability to transfer drum samples, swap their order, replace them and reupload them to the OP-1 Field. Then I ask myself, “Why would I want to do that?” These are new questions I can investigate as I discover the relationship and flow of data between external devices.

Maker

I'm enjoying the momentum of making something before I have to explain it. I haven't yet had to confront the imagined person saying, “This is total crap. I think you should stop!” I know how harsh people can be, and I recognise that I'm protecting this period of exploration.

I'm sure there will be at least a thousand people doing exactly what I'm doing now. AI companies are offering tools telling us to type in our app idea and they'll build it, no coding required. I'm on the wave before the big wave. That's where I feel the urgency.

I'm here at 6:30am, then I'll have a sleep, a quick breakfast, shower, walk, and be back to it by about 11am. I guess I'm realising it feels like a once-in-a-lifetime ride.

Perhaps Sorbus will be useful to a few people for years. Perhaps it will serve them briefly before something better arrives. I can find something exciting in that prospect too: more people making better tools.

Maker

I think you're hyper-focusing on the same issue. Make your next question a bit more expansive.

Maker

The pottery workshop would be for my partner. She's a great potter. The orchard would be for jams and the bees and the trees.

I'd love to buy land and give it room to become wild again: trees, animals, insects, flowers. People could walk through it or lend a hand repairing a fence. That's part of the larger picture.

I should be clear that I've done OK financially. This is about the kind of life I'd enjoy building: a farmhouse, space for wildlife, a studio for experimental noise-making and a pottery workshop for my partner.

A big yacht? Nope. A sports car? Nope. A budget to develop sound-design ideas, set up an exhibition, get involved in the local community workshop scene, pay for artists to be in residence with zero rent? Hell yeah.

I'm also wary of investing too much time in an attractive idea that has no practical footing. We hear so much about the people who succeeded. What about the others? Do more businesses fail than succeed?

Maker

I wouldn't run the land. I'd employ someone to do that. Sorbus would become more than an app. I'd like to promote a new way of doing music.

A lot of this was inspired by a guy on YouTube who boots up his OP-XY, doodles, lays down some beats and fun sounds while he drinks his coffee.

I'd like more people who consider themselves non-musicians to feel they can be musicians for a few minutes a day. Make a short, noisy piece that nobody else will hear. Keep it because you want to, or delete it and make another. The experience can be worthwhile either way.

There are so many expectations attached to making music: release a song, get it played, join a band, perform, build an identity around it. I'd like more room for music as an ordinary hobby. When someone makes a Suno track and feels delighted with what they've created, I recognise that feeling. I want more people to experience it.

Maker

I envy them if they can make a beat! I've always struggled with that. And although Sorbus is MIDI-oriented, MIDI is underneath the experience. You don't have to look at it any more than you have to look at HTML to enjoy a website.

I've paid for Logic, Bitwig, Live, FL Studio, Reason, Steinberg stuff. I find myself doing the same thing in Logic: get a synth sound, put a couple of chords down, open Battery, think about dropping notes into the grid. At that point, I'm not even sure what music I want to make that day.

Maybe try a house track, turn on the Eurorack and make noise for half an hour, record it, delete it and look at old Reaktor files. When my ADHD is bad, I might just stare at the space where the mixing desk needs to go and not get my head around the cabling.

What I'd like people to reconsider is the belief that being unable to sing, or not feeling musical, disqualifies them from trying. Find a tool that makes it easy to begin and produces something you enjoy. Maybe Suno is that first step for someone.

Maker

It was my brother's Gibson J-45. The action was beautifully set up, so holding the notes down was easy, and the guitar sounded wonderful. I played something with open strings, and my brother and my girlfriend at the time said it sounded nice. That small piece of encouragement mattered.

That encouraged me to learn classical pieces and a lot of blues on my Squier and Peavey amp. I joined bands, but didn't have the money to make it work, or live somewhere with a music scene. It wasn't until I could afford a synth that I thought I could create music that was mine and worthy of sharing. I had tracks played on Ampcast radio stations. That was a fun time.

People would be surprised, perhaps shocked, at how many beautifully made LPs by amazing musicians sit on YouTube with 40 to 100 views over seven years. I know bands who can fill a small venue but have very low online listenership, even with high-quality videos and promotion.

I think the music industry sucks. The fantasy it offers can be difficult to separate from the hard, sometimes brutal business underneath. The more deeply I think about that relationship, the more uncomfortable it becomes.

Maker

Some of the music I'm proudest of began as learning exercises on a laptop with free virtual synths. Other people heard finished songs. A sound engineer told me the mixing was among the best he'd heard. My hyperfocus sometimes let me listen closely enough to build something that connected with people.

But I have many different moods that can jeopardise progress with a genre or an expensive studio decision. I'll mention Simon Posford here. If I'd made some of his tracks, I'd be extremely proud. Pure genius in some of the Shpongle work, or whatever that special something is that he has.

This interview could go on forever.

Maker

Imagine someone putting together three chords they like, with the app making the process easy. They add a rhythm with the Drum Loom, connect a MIDI keyboard and play a little tune. Or they record their child singing into the microphone. Knowing I'd helped make any of that possible would make me happy.

As they say, standing on the shoulders of giants. Without Apple's innovation, I'd still be using a Yamaha QY700 in a café. And that wasn't much fun at all!