IPad music workflow

[oldlibmike]

Posted an article on iPad workflows. Interested to hear what works for you or doesn't!

http://whitherwalter.blogspot.com/

- Mike

[Karmacomposer]

ipad -> usb camera data port attachment -> usb cable -> powered usb hub -> PreSonus Audiobox USB -> audio cables out to a zoom r16 multitrack mixer/recorder
powered usb hub -> usb cable -> Axiom 61 keyboard

That's it. Works like a charm.

I prefer to use the multitrack over utilizing any one of the sequencers or daws on board unless I am ONLY using built in samples (theirs or mine). However, getting sounds in and out is a true pain in the butt and I am almost out of memory/space. Time for cloud storage!

I use any one of several drum machines/groove apps to create the overall drum track.

Then I fill it in with all manner of instruments. Music Studio has a AWESOME selection of real world and synth instruments, and then their are the instruments from Virsyn, Artic, Alchemy, etc. The ones that have audio copy or better yet, simply keep working when you switch to the DAW is a real treasure! Best way to make music on the iPad without external sources. Too bad only a handful do that.

Here is my current list of purchased music apps (with some comments on the really good ones):

Garageband
Music Studio (awesome app)
Tabletop (powerful)
50in1 Piano HD
iSequence (awesome app)
Studio Track (great DAW)
Studio HD (great DAW)
Looptastic HD (awesome app)
Nano Studio (good, but iphone only so too small)
Mixtikl
PatternMusic
Alchemy (great sounds)
Overdub
Sample Lab
Beatmaker 1 and 2 (2 is HD and amazing)
Meteor (best DAW of them all)
Most of the Groovemaker apps - (iphone, however)
MoDrum
Beat Studio
iDrum
RealBeat (very interesting groove machine)
DigiDrum HD
Shiny Drum
Guitar Pro
Loopesque
JR Hexatone (great for industrial grooves)
MadPad HD
ImproVox
Molten (nice)
Crystal Synth
WI Orchestra
Wivi Band
Smart Guitar
EyDy Looper (not so good - feedsback a lot)
gruvtron
Xenon (decent synth)
Addictive Synth (excellent synth)
Aura Flux
Seline HD (amazingly weird and beautiful)
iVoxel (one of the best synths made)
Thumbjam (cool)
Sunrizer (outstanding synth)
iSyn Poly (excellent synth)
iMaschine (wish it was iPad HD)
Arctic Keys (good analog emulation)
Meta DJ (coolest DJ app ever!!!)
Touch DJ Evo (very awesome DJ app)
DJ Soundbox
DJ Mixer Pro
SoundPrism
Samplewiz (awesome app)
LoopJ
AC-7 Core
eyoControl
Tribute
Pocket Piano
Synth
Voicek HD
Sylo Synth (nice synth)
Arp & Dr Pad
Animoog (analog bliss)


I only wish the ipad had two data ports or a data port hub because I would love to attach the HDMI attachment as well and output to a larger monitor. These old eyes are tired and the ipad screen a bit too small.

Working in Meteor or any of the awesome synths is a true pleasure with this setup. Feels and acts like a real synth using the Axiom 61!

Mike

[IncarnateX]

If there is one thing that has been a big trade off with regard to the iPad it is indeed the workflow. When I used PC I used Orion for quick composing of electronic tracks. It was really good at the job not at least because it has features for fast and furious automation.

Touch screens are really cool and a big step in the right direction, but the workflow? Oh my Dearest! Recording various phrases from different apps to their pastboards and gather it in a DAW like NanoStudio, BM2 or Meteor is a slooooooooow proces compared to making music with Orion.

Before they implemented background audio you couldn't even have Beatmaker 2 running in the background, while you recorded the new phrases.

Now they have implementet virtual midi and that is indeed cool. But the workflow can be worse now. For instance this scenario: I want to compose a track using Genome midi sequenser, three synths and a drum maschine and mix it in BM2. First I have to activate all synths by opening and closing them again and maybe acivate background audio if they do not do this automatically. Then I have to set them to each their midi channels to that extent that they do not fit into my standard set up. Then I continually have have to open close the different apps to input the relevant midi data in Genome and put the synths I want to modify in the foreground when composing.

When I have made the track, I have to record all of them individually into their own pasteboards and paste them to BM2 one by one. Since many, if not all of the synths, only can record a limited amount of seconds of audio, I will have to deconstruct the tracks into shorter loops and reconstruct the whole track structure again in BM2.

There are some ways to avoid all this and get a much better flow into iPad music making:

1. To choose a DAW with a good synth or sampler you like and fill it's library with your favorite samples and just stick to this. By using iPhone explorer I have transfered all samples from Electrobeat and Electrify into NanoStudio. Here I can use them as waveforms in NanoStudio's Eden synth and take advantage of all it's modulation options.

2. To make as many things as possible in one App before pasting it. For instance making drums, bass and chords in iSequence HD and export it to NanoStudio and add a few Eden synths to the track to finish it.

I use the different methods randomly, including the Virtual Midi approach, and they all work for me dispite the general lack of "flow" in any decent sense of the word. But I do indeed miss a general file managing system of the iPad for fast transfer of large amount of files between apps and I miss a recorder that can capture the audio output of the iPad, so I would be able to record a Virtual Midi session directly instead of deconstructing it into loops and reconstructing it in Beatmaker 2.

Cheers

[oldlibmike]

Interesting approaches! I think the iPad reminds me of the very early days (G4 iMac) of Garageband where things were a bit more limiting - lots of bouncing to preserve CPU etc. I think for me a one step migration approach works. For example, I recently put together a full piece in ReBirth as far as it could take it - 808,909 and 303s with lots of recorded effects, knob-tweaking etc.

In the first piece I pasted the entire ReBirth song into GarageBand for iPad and then added some additional tracks. A one way feed works well. In a piece I am working on now, I am using NanoStudio instead and I had to break up the ReBirth groove into 12 beat pieces pasting each one into the NanoStudio TRG pads. Also works well.

When I want to go back and forth however, it is a bit of an ordeal! The best approach for me seems to be to "promote" each piece from small tool to larger tool. I want to work more with background audio in tools such as AniMoog which currently requires chopping any recordings into small bits.

I haven't sprung for BM2 yet - I still find NanoStudio/Garageband pretty compelling. I think I may go for MusicStudio 2 at some point though. Getting a bit impatient for the upcoming iPad native NanoStudio. Most of my stuff is electronica and I never perform live so these tools seem to do it for me. I also do have a huge list of synths that I only occasionally use.

I am dying to put Sunrizer and Addictive Synth into more pieces but again, the workflow is just a bit cumbersome with these single-use super synths.